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Diversity as a driver of performance

Diversity as a driver of performance

One runs the Crigen Lab, the other Laborelec, two of ENGIE’s flagship research companies. Adeline Duterque and Michael Marique share a mission and passion for the teams they lead.   On the occasion of International Women's Day, they took part in a joint interview.

No profession at ENGIE is gendered, and my personal conviction is that the strength of a collective comes from the diversity of people, genders, religions and origins. Adeline Duterque

I've always found diversity to be a source of wealth. Diversity includes gender but also people’s cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. Michael Marique

Sum up your career path in a few words. 

Adeline  
I have alternated between strategy functions, sales functions and operational management functions. I have been with the Group for 30 years: I was Sales Director at GRDF, then took care of the Group’s outlook and corporate scenarios in the Strategy Department, before taking over the management of Crigen in 2019.
Michael 
I am a polytechnical engineer. After starting my career internationally on major industrial construction projects, I joined Electrabel in 1995. I have occupied quite a few different functions in electricity production: construction, operation and maintenance of thermal power plants everywhere. Then at Marketing and Sales BeLux, I was in charge of negotiating gas and electricity sales contracts with very large customers such as ArcelorMittal or cement manufacturers such as Lafarge and Heidelberg, as well as international business development.  
A few years later I was offered a new challenge, to become Chief Information Officer of Marketing and Sales Benelux. This coincided with the rapid development of eBusiness and Digital in the early 2010s with enormous challenges to be overcome.
At the end of 2014, I became Managing Director of Laborelec, a position I still hold today.

If you had to define your mission in one sentence?

Adeline
My mission is to lead this wonderful research centre composed of passionate teams who develop R&D activities in a wide variety of fields:  green gases and the decarbonisation roadmap for the group's customers (industries, buildings and cities of the future) as well as cross-cutting topics such as environment and society, drones and robots, nanotechnology, sensors and connectivity and artificial intelligence.
Michael
As Managing Director of Laborelec, my mission is to manage and develop a cutting-edge centre of expertise and research that covers all the links in the electricity value chain: production, transmission, distribution and uses with a particular focus on the energy transition and the reduction of our customers’ carbon footprint. We have passionate and very high-level experts on three continents. It's an exciting job and one I love.

Do you see being a woman / a woman in this job as an advantage or a liability? 

Adeline  
No profession at ENGIE is gendered, and my personal conviction is that the strength of a collective comes from the diversity of people, genders, religions and origins. So for me, being a woman or a man is neither an advantage nor an obstacle, it is a need for balance that will enable the performance of the company. 
Michael  
For me, it's totally neutral.  I've been fortunate in my career to work with many women and I've always found diversity to be a source of wealth. Diversity includes gender but also people’s cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. 
I firmly believe that diversity is the strength of the collective. I have seen the world change since the 90s, and now diversity is recognised as a real asset.

In your view, professional equality means...

Adeline 
It’s a necessity for business performance. And on a personal level, it is a duty.
Michael 
It's perfectly normal! I have never made a difference between a man and a woman during recruitment, a promotion or salary increase. This is a point on which we are very attentive. 
The challenge for us is that our population is composed mainly of engineers and scientists. And it is unfortunately not always easy to hire women, whereas in Belgium, the scientific sectors are composed of between 10 and 14% girls, a ratio that changes very little. But we are an attractive employer, since nearly 25% of the staff at Laborelec are female! I fear that the 50/50 target is almost impossible to achieve, as long as academic backgrounds and mentalities do not change. 
Another well-represented aspect of diversity at Laborelec is that of nationalities, since we bring together 26 different nationalities in Belgium as well as six subsidiaries on three continents with local teams. This international diversity is a great asset at all levels.

Have you had an experience regarding the “role” traditionally attributed to women and men?

Adeline 
I have never seen any discrimination in this regard. My bosses have always had that balance. 
Regarding an experience, I remember taking part in a trip to Japan with the Commercial Department of Gaz de France and we were invited to dinner by Tokyo Gaz. I was the only woman in the French delegation and our Japanese counterparts felt obliged to invite a woman to dinner so that I was not alone; but this woman did not speak at all during the evening and probably did not even speak English. 
Michael 
The only thing I want to mention is that I just realised in preparing for this interview that in my management committee there is perfect parity with three men and three women. These people were appointed based on their skills and not their gender. 

What aspect of your job do you find most exciting?

Adeline  
What I find most interesting is diversity. There are scientific and technical aspects to this job. There are activities related to management, steering, development, strategic alignment…it is extremely comprehensive and it is this diversity that I find exciting
And if I had to recognise only one aspect, it is the researchers, who are people who are passionate about their profession. Contact with them is extremely enriching, and I appreciate working with people who are at the heart of the reactor to prepare for the future of ENGIE.
For me, being in contact with these passionate experts is a source of pride and constant motivation.
Michael
I could talk about it for hours, but I will try to be concise! Being the Managing Director of a centre of expertise such as Laborelec involves a very wide variety of functions: management, administration, strategy, commercial development, technical expertise, innovation, etc. and, above all, human relations.
One of my sources of pride is that Laborelec is a player in the energy transition. Through our R&D and other operational expertise activities, we provide real added value on the ground around the world in the decarbonisation of today’s world and help to make things happen. 
The wide variety of this work is extremely intellectually stimulating and exciting, as is helping the world evolve
To sum up, great diversity, many challenges, many problems to solve, but if it were easy, we would not be here!

What is the craziest project you have ever worked on in your career? 

Adeline
Not really crazy projects, rather really ambitious projects. 
If I could only name one in recent years, it would be the industrialisation of Gaya, a rather crazy project in a box whose initial philosophy was to call itself techno-agnostic. 
At first, I wouldn't have bet heavily on its success! It's not over yet, but we can be proud to have brought down a number of walls. Through obstinacy, team tenacity and goodwill inside and outside Crigen, I am convinced that this project will be a historic success for the Group.
Michael  
My current mission is the project I am most proud of.
I arrived at Laborelec at the end of 2014 with the mission of redressing the situation.  Laborelec was then in decline due, among other things, to the closure of numerous thermal power plants in Europe. 
In the eighties during my engineering studies, I had the chance to know a Laborelec that was the jewel in the crown of centres of expertise in Europe. I set myself the goal of rebuilding it as an internationally recognised centre of expertise. 
When I look back on those rather crazy, rather complex eight years, I think that thanks to the help of all the staff, we have collectively succeeded in our challenge. When I arrived, we were 238. Today we are over 350! We more than doubled turnover, we managed to get back to the centre of the game. We are recognised by ENGIE and by the international scientific community as a centre of high value expertise, we have reinvested massively in our laboratories and our staff, and have opened branches everywhere with very high quality local experts. We work within the group but also outside, we do R&D but we also provide high level operational expertise to all our customers worldwide.
I am most proud to have succeeded in this challenge with the help of all Laborelec employees.

Do you want to add anything? 

Michael 
I think that Laborelec’s new positioning within ENGIE Research & Innovation and the synergies with other entities such as CRIGEN, are very good things. This makes it possible to strengthen and pool all our strengths and work together in the same direction. We can now talk about equality with the different ENGIE GBUs, to accelerate the energy transition together. We are in the right place, in the right place with the right mindset and the right teams made up of all the necessary diversity.

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