François Bujon de l’Estang
François Bujon de l’Estang
François Bujon de l’Estang is the founder and President of FBE International Consultants, which he created in Paris in 1993. He joined the French Foreign Service in 1966 upon graduating from ENA, and was after a few months at the Quai d’Orsay appointed special Assistant to the Secretariat General of the Presidency of the Republic, where he was a deputy to General de Gaulle’s diplomatic advisor until President de Gaulle’s resignation in April, 1969. He then served as First Secretary at the French embassy in Washington (1969-1973), then as Counselor at the French embassy in London (1973-1975). At the end of 1975, he became Advisor for International Affairs at the Directorate General for Energy (Ministry of Industry). In 1978 he joined the Atomic Energy Commissariat as Director of International Relations and soon after became simultaneously the French representative to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. He was then Chief of Staff of the Minister for Industry and Energy, André Giraud, in 1980-81. In 1982, he started in Washington D.C. Cogema, Inc., a fully-owned U.S. subsidiary of Cogema, the world’s largest nuclear fuel-cycle company (today merged into Areva). Mr. Bujon de l’Estang remained president and CEO of Cogema,Inc. until 1986. He also served during those years as a director on the Board of Copperweld Corporation (Pittsburgh, Pa). Appointed ambassador to Mexico in 1986, he was soon thereafter called by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, in April, 1986 to be the Prime Minister’s Senior Diplomatic and Defense Advisor until May, 1988. He was then appointed ambassador to Canada (1989-1991). He returned to Paris and the private sector in early 1992. He served as Senior Vice President with the Compagnie de Navigation Mixte and Via Banque in 1992, and simultaneously as Chairman of the Board of the military electronics company SFIM (now merged into Safran). Mr. Bujon de l’Estang created in 1992 FBE International Consultants, of which he was President and CEO until his appointment to Washington, and concurrently served as a director on the Board of Banque IndoSuez (1993-95). Mr. Bujon de l’Estang was appointed in July, 1995, ambassador of France to the United States. He served in Washington D.C. under the Clinton, then the George W. Bush Administrations, until December, 2002. Amb. Bujon de l’Estang retired from the Foreign Service upon leaving Washington, and joined Citigroup. He was for eight years (2003-2010) Chairman of Citi France and a member of Citi’s International and European Advisory Boards, then served as Senior International Advisor of Citi until April, 2012. François Bujon de l’Estang is Officer of the Order of the Legion of Honor, and Commander of the National Order of Merit. He was elevated by the French government to the rank of Ambassador of France in 1999. Besides being President of FBE International Consultants, he is a member of the International Advisory Board of Total, member of the Executive Committee and president of the French group of the Trilateral Commission, and is Vice-Chairman of the French-American Foundation (United States) and director of the French-American Foundation (France). He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Revue des Deux Mondes, to which he regularly contributes columns on foreign affairs. He has also been a director and Vice-Chairman of Institut Pasteur (2003-2005), and a director on the Boards of Thales (2003-2009), of Tembec, Inc in Montreal, Canada (2004-2006), of the French Space Agency CNES (2003-2010) and of the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) (2003-2010). He also was President of the Harvard Business School Club of France from 1992 to 1995. He is a graduate of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (« Sciences-Po »), of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (« Montesquieu » class of 1966) and of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration (Advanced Management Program, 1982).
