François Béharel is president and CEO of Randstad for France. He joined VediorBis in 1999 as a regional director in the North of France. He had just become CEO of the Vedior group in France when he was appointed president and CEO of the newly combined Randstad Group France in 2009. In 2012, the supervisory board of Randstad appointed Béharel to the executiveboard for an initial four-year term.
Sylvestre Blavet assumed the role of chairman and CEO of French online staffing group Freelance.com in 2019. He is also chairman of Paris-based CBV Ingénierie Group, the largest shareholder of Freelance.com. Blavet oversaw a 26% increase in Freelancer.com’s 2019 revenue to €237.1 million. In June 2020, the CBV Ingénierie Group acquired INOP’S, a Paris-based IT services firm. Blavet’s career with Groupe CBV Ingénierie involved turning around the company’s fortunes by ceasing its telecommunications activities and developing its technical assistance services. In 2009 and 2010, he developed its umbrella company services by acquiring SAGE and Ad’missions. He had taken over as chief executive of Groupe CBV Ingénierie in 2006.
Manuel Roger is managing director for Beeline, leading business and product strategy across Europe and APAC. A member of Beeline’s global executive committee with over two decades of staffing industry experience, Roger’s global expertise has led to Beeline’s tremendous growth of market share and product offerings outside the US. In 2021, Roger’s teams recorded over 20% increase in contingent workforce spend under management from its growing customer base. With the acquisition of JoinedUp to source and manage shift-based workers and the launch of the Beeline extended workforce platform, Roger introduced the next generation of contingent workforce management technology to global markets.
Jean-Philippe Papin is founder and CEO of the French staffing firm Leader Intérim. Founded in 1992, the company boasts an average annual growth of 35% since its inception. Leader Intérim is among the top 15 staffing firms in France and provides temporary workers, permanent recruitment services and training. The company entered the Swiss market in 2014 with the acquisition of Max StuderIntérim.
President and CEO Thierry Geffroy has been with France-based Samsic RH since 1992. In 2010, he became president with the strong ambition to design a global service offering in the management and development of human resources. Under Geffroy’s leadership, Samsic acquired a majority stake in recruitment services firm Sellick Partnership and made two acquisitions in Ireland and Morocco, its first expansion into the African continent. Today, Samsic RH is one of the major players in the employment sector in France and operates all across Europe.
Actual Leader Group, led by President Samuel Tual, is the seventh-largest independent staffing firm in France. The Group offers a set of solutions for employment and skills: temporary work, recruitment, support and training. In 2020, while France’s GDP fell by almost 8% and the staffing industry fell 22.5%, Actual Leader Group limited its drop to turnover of €1.143 million in 2020 from €1.157 million in 2019. Under Tual’s leadership, the company is experiencing a rebound and expects to end the year 2021 above the results of 2019.
François Roux has been general manager of the French staffing association, Prism’emploi, since 2001. In this role, he represents the interests of the staffing industry, lobbying government and negotiating with social partners and French institutions. In 2013, Roux led the talks with trade unions that resulted in the creation of a form of indefinite duration contract for temporary agency workers. In 2017, the association will be in the spotlight again as a new labour bill is underway.
Denis Pennel has been managing director of the World Employment Confederation since 2005. Pennel promotes the interests of the staffing industry before international institutions such as the European Union, the International Labour Organization, the World Bank and the OECD. Prior to his current role, he served as corporate communications director for Manpower France from 1998 to 2005. A work futurist, he is best known for his thought leadership role on the changing world of work, acting as a keynote speaker and writing many opinion pieces and several books including The Ego Revolution at Work (2015) and Travail, la soif de liberte, which translates to Work, the thirst for freedom (2017).
Jérôme Rieux joined Groupe Adéquat as sales director in 2005 after 15 years as a regional manager in the recruitment industry; he was appointed CEO in 2016. Its six brands combined count more than 1,300 employees and 270 offices located throughout France, Belgium, Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands. The independent company ranks No. 37 on SIA’s 2019 list of largest global staffing firms with €967 million in 2018 revenue. Groupe Adéquat aims to develop in 10 countries over the next five years and be one of the largest 25 global staffing companies.
Roland Gomez runs Proman, one of the largest European players in the temporary employment market. He joined the family group in 1993 and held several positions before becoming CEO in 2003. With a turnover of €2.4 billion in 2020, Gomez led the group to a 9% progression compared to 2019. Most recently, the group opened in Morocco, attracting and retaining talent in addition to developing a panel of digital HR solutions for its 45,000 clients. Prepared to witness a turnover of €3 billion in 2021, Proman will also be the official recruiter of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
