Leaving for school the way ahead is clear

She had done Sciences po to politics. "I happened before even to finish my education!", fun Virginie Banet, forty-four years, one of the few women to have pierced in finance in France. This sport to the well tempered character takes, effective January 10, the responsibility for relationships with major customers of Natixis, the "coverage", in the jargon of the trade.

Daughter of a contractor and an antique dealer, Virginie Banet had no predisposition cultural or family to work in the financial industry. It has become analyst somewhat by chance, after an internship with the Dufour Koller Lacarrière Exchange agent. Which still offers him the recruit while it is not a graduate. Leaving for school, the way ahead is clear. It passes in different houses, cables, electrical equipment industry, then Aeronautics and defence sector which will become his specialty. In 1995, it is profligate with a team of analysts by Deutsche Bank, who built his free actions. But it has already had time to make a name, and a reputation of not being "practical steps", as it says itself. At the beginning of the 1990s, it is the only one to recommend to customers to sell title Alcatel, twelve months in a row, while all other analysts are buyers and only internally its hierarchy begins to doubt... until Alcatel publishes its first warning on result. "It was not the kind to be fooled by the speeches of the leaders," recalls Philippe Guez, with whom she worked at Deutsche Bank. It is sharp and it knows extremely well its sectors, which appealed to his interlocutors. At the time, it has built relationships of long term with the companies it covered.

Never tempted by the City

In 2000, after eleven years of financial analysis, she chose to turn to the Bank, with its knowledge of the sector and its reputation. It is positioned on strategic issues by putting forward the perception of the markets, she knows well. With always the same integrity. "It is very direct, has great energy and a true sense of the client, judge the Huntress of heads Sonia Demandolx, at Russell Reynolds Associates." His ethics is that it will not grow a transaction if it is not satisfied.

But enterprise virus the itch and, on two occasions, it passes the other side. In June 2006, she accepted the position of head of mergers & acquisitions that offers Noël Forgeard in EADS, a week before that the Group announced delays in delivery of the A380. The subject of mergers & acquisitions becoming less strategic, she decides to leave the company quickly. Then in 2008, Arnaud Lagardère, who is come as head of the mergers and acquisitions and investor relations. In the meantime, she returned in Deutsche Bank, where she assumed sectoral responsibility of Aeronautics and defence at European level.

But it is finally in the banking sector she returned again, joining this time Natixis. A French Bank for the first time in his career, yet fully conducted in Paris - is rare in the financial industry. Unlike others, she has never attempted by the City. "It is true that they pay less tax in England, but I did not intend to be buried under a mountain of bills!", joking that Emeritus sport. Skier, player - ranked 4/6 - tennis, she has surprised more than one on the courts. But as she says herself, she has an atypical game.