This word has kept coming back to me over the past few days, at the office, during my jogging, while driving and eventually I asked myself, why? Was it only because of the bill concerning parity between men and women on companies’ board of directors? Or was it the constant media attention over the past few weeks with its constant and painful repetition that has kept bringing back this idea… but finally I realized, why.

Indeed, without using this word myself, for several years now this concept of parity, naming it or not, has actually been central to my business concepts and to some of the most important decisions that I have made. Possibly it has been one of my goals, not necessarily secret, but something I cannot always explain easily to my professional colleagues, partners or even to myself. It is like something we need to do without knowing exactly why.

I confess that I am constantly looking for new means to improve Pentalog’s performance levels in growth and in profitability that our competitors have not been able to attain. In the past six years Pentalog has outperformed the market 6 to 20 times in terms of organic growth and 3 to 4 times as much in terms of profitability (only in the past 3 years as regards to this last parameter). For a long time, I did not accompany this development with specific risk management (as we do now), but I always wanted to manage multiple sorts of equilibrium that could be called… parity:
- Parity between salaried shareholders and non-salaried shareholders, because I believe it is essential to associate our employees with the company in order to obtain a sustainable performance and at the same time to have associates whose expectations are purely financial.
- Parity between provincial cities (which offer us stability) and capitals, which bring us business opportunities and exceptionally skilled people.
- Parity between the $ zone and the € zone which also helps mitigate the currency risks. I have already expressed my thoughts concerning this subject in the past and I will soon touch on it again.

Now we will add new requirements. I would like to see the various departments of the company functioning with a minimum of multiculturalism. We are now working on it:
- 10% of the capital is now Romanian, German and Moldovan (100% of the 10% is owned by the employees). I want to increase this figure in the future. This is unavoidable if we want to meet the founding principles of Pentalog in continuing to associate our best employees with the company. It’s now between 1 and 2 million euros that have changed nationality. It is very inadequate, but the GA (General Assembly) is no longer completely French and I am very proud of this.
- Our Steering Committee has been insufficiently Romanian. Romanians are nevertheless the first nationality of our group but up to now only Monica Jiman represents them in the most operational committee of the group. She will now be joined in the Presiding Committee of the group by Raluca Otelea, the boss of PeopleCentric. This other board which brings together the Presidents and Vice Presidents, develops the business strategy and transforms it into tactics and it is also in this committee that is established the list of corporate risks facing the Group. Here the Romanians represent 33% of this committee. That’s better! There is to date no Romanian on the Board of Directors. This is something we need to improve.

I think the principle of managing multiple parities is ultimately essential for the behavior of any society, whether it is a company or a state. Thus the best means to protect ourselves from the emergence of major risks is through the diverse expression of different sensibilities, and which mobilize the forces that would otherwise remain untapped. In the latter case, this parity becomes an excellent means of leverage for the company.

More importantly, considering the debate on gender equality on administrative boards, a point which I believe we have already surpassed, I believe as a general rule, this principle is essential in the accomplishment of a sustainable performance in any social organization.

Finally, I have two comments to make on gender parity in Pentalog. Our Steering Committee is 60% female, our Board of Directors 33% and the Presiding Committee is exactly at 50%. We are not far behind the legal calendar.