The Times - UK (2021-11-25)

the times | Thursday November 25 2021 V2 53

Business

The chief executive of Orange, the
French telecommunications group, is
to stand down after being convicted in
connection with a fraudulent €403 mil-
lion state payout to a controversial
tycoon.
Stéphane Richard, 60, will leave his
post by the end of January, the telecoms
group said last night after he was con-
victed over his role in a fraud-tainted
state payout to tycoon Bernard Tapie
and given a one-year suspended
sentence.
His departure “will be effective once
new leadership is in place and no later
than January 31”, the company said.
Hours earlier Richard had said that
he placed “my mandate within the
hands of Orange’s board of directors”
who decided his fate at a meeting after
his conviction for aiding and abetting in
the misuse of public funds.
Richard, who was fined €50,000 and
given a one-year suspended prison sen-
tence, said the verdict of the Paris ap-
peal court was incomprehensible and

Steve Ballmer,
above and right
with Bill Gates, had
a hair-trigger
temper as chief
executive. Satya
Nadella (left, with
his wife Anu) has a
vastly different
approach to
management

an explanation; that something unjust

was undermining the plans he and his

architecture student wife, Anu, had en-

visaged.

In time, though, he learnt from his

wife how differently he could view mat-

ters. When Zain had a fit in a grocery

store, they could get furious at the cash-

ier who expressed disdain but they

could also focus on the strangers who

spontaneously offered to help. “Noth-

ing had happened to me; what hap-

pened was to my son. It was time for me

to see life through his eyes,” he said.

With that empathy, Nadella realised, fi-

nally, that the universe didn’t have to be

a zero-sum game. And what if a rival in

business is merely someone who’s on a

different path? You’ll have to be ready

to defend yourself in case they hurt you,

of course. But if you insist that’s the only

possibility, you’ll never know what you

might lose.

Ballmer had been withering about Li-

nux, so at an early presentation as chief

executive Nadella stood smiling on

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Adam Sage Paris

Orange chief to stand down after conviction

said the arbitration process had been

rigged in Tapie’s favour as a reward for

his support for Nicolas Sarkozy, the

centre-right leader, in the 2007 presi-

dential election. At the time, Richard

was Lagarde’s chief of staff at the

economy ministry. Lagarde was

convicted of “negligence” in

connection with the scandal in

2016 but escaped any form of

sentence or fine in recogni-

tion of her “international rep-

utation”.

Richard, Tapie and four

other defendants were found

not guilty in connection with

the case by the Paris criminal

court in 2019, but prosecutors ap-

pealed, leading to Richard’s convic-

tion. Three other defendants were also

found guilty while one was acquitted.

Tapie, who was often described as the

French Silvio Berlusconi, died of cancer

last month. Richard expressed indigna-

tion at the ruling. He said he had only

been following Lagarde’s orders and

suggested that he had become the fall

guy to save her reputation.

unjust. He laid the blame for his woes at

the feet of Christine Lagarde, 65, presi-

dent of the European Central Bank.

Despite his announcement that he

would appeal to the Cour de Cassa-

tion, France’s highest court, com-

mentators questioned whether

he could keep his job given that

Bruno Le Maire, 52, the eco-

nomy minister, has said that

the heads of companies

partially or wholly owned by

the state cannot stay on with a

criminal conviction. The eco-

nomy ministry said the com-

pany’s board would “draw the

conclusions” from the conviction.

The French state retains a 23 per

cent stake in Orange.

The case dates from 2008 when La-

garde, who was then France’s economy

minister, went to an arbitration panel to

settle a dispute between Bernard Tapie,

the late tycoon, and the French state.

The panel awarded Tapie €403 mil-

lion in compensation and damages.

The decision was later overturned by

the Paris appeal court after prosecutors

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panel to Stéphane Richard

said that the verdict

was “impossible

to understand”

stage as he nodded for a large “Micro-

soft-Linux” slide to be projected above

him — what one analyst called a “hell

freezing over moment”. Microsoft was

now going to be in partnership with the

open-source movement.

Nadella also, at another early presen-

tation, made a point of holding up an iP-

hone, as he explained that the work

Microsoft would be doing in the Apple

ecosystem, too. He also made sure that

the remaining vestiges of the stack-

ranking ratings system came to an end.

Warily, tentatively, Microsoft em-

ployees began to peek over the internal

parapets they’d created and see what

might happen if they trusted each other

more and accepted that a range of views

might be valid.

This is what allowed the revitalised

company to pick up on the trends to-

wards mobile and cloud computing;

that’s what put sales teams at ease with

subscription-style services, where con-

stant monitoring of what buyers felt

was central. The $2.5 trillion valuation

is the result.

Nadella always says, with honesty,

that he helped, but it was his employees

who did the work. Where the attitude

that re-energised his company came

from, however, he does know.

His son Zain is in his twenties, using

a wheelchair. He can’t communicate

with his father in words, but, as Nadella

says: “The one thing he can communi-

cate is, when I get close to him, he’ll

smile. And that makes my day, and

makes my life.”

6 David Bodanis is the author of The

Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in

a World Turned Mean

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