Éric Lombard (H.81), portrait of a minister

Éric Lombard, who has nurtured a dual interest in finance and politics throughout his career, became in 2017 the first CEO of the Caisse des Dépôts who was not from the civil service. He could have already been named HEC of the Year at that time. But in January 2023, he became the first CEO of the Caisse des Dépôts whose term was renewed by the government. This represents many new developments for a public institution founded in 1816, over two hundred years ago.

The Caisse des Dépôts plays a central role in the implementation of French economic policy. Journalists even sometimes refer to it as the government’s ‘arm of power,’ in a rather martial metaphor… But it is true that with 1,300 billion euros in investments and loans injected into the French economy, through a network of subsidiaries—including Bpifrance, also led by an HEC graduate—the institution stands as a massive development tool. And it requires a certain skill to maneuver such a large machine.

Éric Lombard was born in Boulogne-Billancourt and grew up in Troyes. He is the grandson of Pierre Lévy, who founded the textile group Devanlay (which today sells famous polo shirts featuring a crocodile instead of a heart), but was also a great art collector. A passion that Éric inherited, as he joined the board of the Louvre in February 2023 – at the same time as another HEC graduate, Emmanuel Faber (H.86).

After the Bac, he had initially considered studying engineering. But focusing only on math didn’t really excite him. To avoid completely giving up on literary subjects and social sciences, he decided to pursue higher business studies. This is how, at the very end of the 1970s, a tall guy with long hair, who played rugby and, by his own admission, wasn’t particularly diligent, arrived on the campuses of Jouy-en-Josas. But beyond his athletic and academic achievements, it was a very different initiative that marked his years of study. At the time, there were only two student unions at HEC: one on the right, and the other on the left, affiliated with the Communist Party. Not identifying with either of these political leanings, young Éric Lombard set out to open a third path by creating a ‘reformist’ left-wing union. An episode that foreshadowed the trajectory of his career in finance, gradually driven by the defense of his convictions and the common good.

Mergers, acquisitions, and politics

In 1981, while he imagined himself becoming the CFO of an industrial group, the young graduate began an internship at Paribas. He would stay there for a long time. However, his desire to get involved in politics remained strong, prompting him to join, alongside his responsibilities at Paribas, a working group tasked with preparing Michel Rocard’s presidential candidacy.

Left-wing investment bankers are rare. Nonetheless, the management at Paribas welcomed his political involvement with interest and goodwill, promising to keep his position should he take on public responsibilities. Ultimately, Michel Rocard did not run for president, but he became Prime Minister in 1988. Éric Lombard then joined the government. For four years, he served as an advisor to Louis Le Pensec and then to Michel Sapin… before returning to Paribas, guided by a sense of ethics and loyalty, despite highly paid job offers from an American bank. Éric Lombard is very driven by emotion. In fact, it was on the advice of Pierre Vernimmen, his finance professor at HEC, for whom he has a great affection, that he created Paribas’s mergers and acquisitions department at that time, an area that grew rapidly. He described his job as an investment banker as ‘fun,’ ‘exciting,’ and even nearly ‘addictive.

In 2000, the bank became the BNP Paribas group, following one of the largest mergers ever carried out.

In September 2001, Éric Lombard was in New York to oversee the acquisition of an American bank, whose offices were located on the 95th floor of the World Trade Center. He had a meeting scheduled for 8:30 AM on September 11 with the bank’s management team. However, the bank’s president called to delay the meeting because he needed to take his son to school. At 8:45 AM, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. By a pure stroke of luck, due to the rescheduled meeting, Éric Lombard narrowly escaped a deadly terrorist attack. He then stayed in New York for a week with his team, stranded due to the airport closure and the suspension of air travel

In 2004, he switched careers without changing groups, taking over the management of Cardif, BNP Paribas’s insurance division. He was new to the sector but performed well enough to earn the title of Insurer of the Year in 2012. He did so well that he eventually left BNP Paribas in 2013 to join the Italian insurer Generali as CEO for France, with the challenge of turning around a company severely affected by the crisis. It was a successful gamble, as three years later, the group reported a record operational result of nearly 5 billion euros.

His talents as an investment banker, his knowledge of financial mechanisms, and his leadership skills earned him the position of CEO of the Caisse des Dépôts, a role to which he was appointed twice by President Emmanuel Macron.

We hosted him in 2022 on our show L’Entretien HEC, co-produced by BFM Business and presented by Hedwige Chevrillon and Vincent Beaufils. Here is the replay: