Thierry Breton (; born 15 January 1955) is a French business executive, politician, writer and the current Commissioner for Internal Market of the European Union.
Breton was vice-chairman and CEO of Groupe Bull (1996–1997), chairman and CEO of Thomson-RCA (1997–2002) and chairman and CEO of France Télécom (2002–2005). In 2005 he entered politics serving as Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry (2005–2007) in the governments of Prime Ministers Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Dominique de Villepin, during the presidency of Jacques Chirac. From 2007 to 2008 he was a professor at Harvard Business School before joining group Atos from 2009 to 2019 as its CEO.
Since 2019, he has been European Commissioner for Internal Market under the presidency of Ursula von der Leyen, an appointment that met with controversy, as he was considered by anti-corruption association Anticor to be at serious risk of conflicts of interest over his previous posts at France Télécom and Atos.
Early life and education
Breton was born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. His father was a civil servant in the agency responsible for developing nuclear energy. He completed his middle and high school education at the École alsacienne in Paris and University-preparatory school classes for the Grandes écoles at Lycée Louis-le-Grand.
Breton received a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from École Supérieure d'Électricité (Supélec, now CentraleSupélec) in 1979 and later graduated from the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN).
Career in business
Breton began his career in 1979 as a teacher of IT and Mathematics at the Lycée Français de New York as part of his military service through cooperation. In 1981 he created Forma Systems, a systems-analysis and software-engineering company of which he became CEO until 1986.
In 1986 Breton became adviser to the French Ministry of Education and Research René Monory and designed open-air science and technology theme park Futuroscope. From 1990 to 1993, he was managing director of CGI Group, a global information technology company.
Groupe Bull
In 1993, the French government hired Breton to help turn around troubled national computer maker Groupe Bull. As second in command, he managed to restructure the stock-market listed company and became in 1996 Vice-President of the board of directors. He is widely credited with pulling Bull from the edge of bankruptcy.
Thomson
In 1997, the French government named Breton chairman and CEO of Thomson Multimedia, a state-owned consumer-electronics company that was on the verge of collapse. A year before France's prime minister Alain Juppé unsuccessfully tried to sell the company to South Korea–based Daewoo for a single franc.
Breton made stock offerings to generate cash and diversified the company's businesses, figuring that consumer-electronics products were not high-end enough to consistently earn profits over the long term. Breton involved Thomson in interactive television, electronic publishing, and the Internet, as well as the higher-margin business of digital film-editing services. Thomson began manufacturing televisions with built-in software to run the electronic reference.
Thomson's new ventures instilled investors with renewed confidence in the company and allowed Breton to attract big name companies such as Microsoft, Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, and the DirecTV division of Hughes Electronics. By 1999 Thomson was turning a $230 million profit on sales of $6.5 billion. By the time Breton left in 2002, revenues had increased by more than 80 percent and Thomson was outperforming Sony, Matsushita, and Philips, its major consumer-electronics competitors.
He was named Honorary President of the company in September 2002 following his departure for France Télécom.
France Télécom
Widely acclaimed as a "turnaround whiz", Breton was named by French government as head of multinational telecommunications corporation France Télécom on 2 October 2002.
In the previous year, the company's share price had fallen about 70% while debts have ballooned to 60 billion euros ($54bn). A risky acquisition strategy that included mobile phone operator Orange, data carrier Equant and Internet service provider (ISP) Freeserve as well as several new, third-generation mobile phone licences had left France Telecom with the infamous title of the world's most indebted listed company.