Femmes au Cœur des Conseils

Frédérique Bedos worked for 15 years as a journalist and TV/radio host in France and worldwide. She hosted a number of high-profile prime time programs. In 2010, she took a huge leap of faith and started Le Projet Imagine, an educational non-profit that works to spark action through inspiration. Her main source of inspiration is her adoptive parents in northern France who took her in as well as some 20 "unadoptable" children from around the world. With Le Projet Imagine, Frédérique turns the spotlight to the men and women who conquer the unknown and show us that anything is possible: the famous Imagine Heroes.

Sandra Esquiva-Hesse is partner, director and founder of the law firm SEH Legal. She advises and supports companies, entrepreneurs and investors in corporate operations, financing, structuring and restructuring (carve-outs, refocusing, special acquisitions) and represents them in court against such matters.

She began her career on Wall Street in 1998 as a US Associate (attorney at the New York Bar) in the Bank Finance & Bankruptcy department at Shearman & Sterling. In 2002, she became counsel in the Structured Financing department at Clifford Chance Paris and then in 2006 took a position as associate in the Finance & Restructuring department at the Paul Hastings Paris office, a department she created and developed until 2011. With all this experience under her belt, in April 2011 she founded SEH Legal, which has earned a reputation as a responsive niche law firm because of its expertise in crossborder negotiations and an innovative approach to helping resolve complex legal cases. Sandra regularly receives accolades and recognition in business directories (Chambers, Legal 500, IFLR100, Décideurs, Financial Times Innovative Lawyer of the Year).

General Manager of the Sanitary Engineering department (OFIS) at Veolia, most of Sabine Fauquez-Avon's career has been in environmental services. She previously worked as Assistant General Manager of ENDETEC, a Veolia subsidiary that supplies environmental monitoring solutions. Over the last 10 years, she has held various positions at Veolia Eau: Director of Environmental Performance, Director of Consumers and Director of Customer Relations. She spent the first 12 years of her career in operational management. Sabine Fauquez-Avon also serves as vice-president of the Centre d'Information sur l'Eau (Water Information Center) and sits on the boards of the Université Pierre and Marie Curie Foundation and companies certified by IFA-Sciences Po

Brigitte Gauthier-Darcet has an engineering degree from Ecole Centrale de Paris (1978) and a degree in economics and political sciences from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (1979). She began her career in teaching as an Assistant Professor of economics at Ecole Centrale.

She then went on to positions in project management, team coordination, financial management and general management at a wide variety of companies ranging in size from millions to hundreds of millions of euros in turnover, in sectors including engineering, media, audiovisual production, salt production, winegrowing, air transport and real estate.

She also founded and then directed a shared services center, managed a takeover bid, helped create and then ran a cluster of audiovisual production companies and directed several corporate acquisitions and sales.

Since 2011, she has also been an independent board member of a publicly traded property investment company and the Express Roularta Group.