According to Bloomberg and Le Figaro, the Renault board will announce today that François Provost, Chief Purchasing Officer at Renault, will be appointed to a new position as CEO of the Renault Group, in succession to Luca de Meo, who left the group suddenly to lead the Kering luxury group.
One could say that Provost has been a man in the shadows at Renault, despite his long career in the group. The board has actually chosen an insider and potential candidates from outside, like the recently ousted number two at Stellantis, Maxime Picat, were fairly rapidly moved aside.
Denis Le Vot, the current CEO of Renault’s daughter Dacia, was also in the running and even in the hot seat, but finally, the board will choose him to stay at the helm of the very successful low-cost arm of the group.
Civil servant first
François Provost (57) graduated from the École Polytechnique and École des Mines de Paris in France, two highly esteemed institutions in the Hexagone. He started his career as a senior civil servant in the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, Treasury Department. He then became Senior Advisor to the French Minister of Defense.
He joined Renault in 2002 in the Sales & Marketing Division in France as the branch General Manager, then regional Sales Director. In 2005, he took the position of Managing Director of Renault-Nissan Portugal. From 2008 to 2010, he served as Vice-President, Strategy and Planning, within the Sales and Marketing department. He was then appointed Chief Operating Officer of Renault Russia.
In September 2011, he became CEO of Renault Samsung Motors. In 2016, François Provost became Senior Vice President, China Operations, and then Chairman of the Asia-Pacific region as of 2017.
As of October 2020, François Provost is appointed Senior Vice President, International Development & Partnerships of Groupe Renault, in charge of reshuffling international operations and some key partnerships outside Europe. He also took charge of Public Affairs from 2021 and piloted the transformation plan of Renault Group released during Capital Market Day in November 2022.
In February 2023, Provost was appointed as Group Chief Purchasing Officer and Managing Director of Alliance Purchasing Organization (APO) and considered to be one of the closest collaborators of Luca de Meo in his ‘Renaulution’ plan to turn around an ailing national car manufacturer.
Difficult times
Provost comes in when also Renault, very successful in its conversion over the last years under de Meo, is confronted with more difficult times and had to review its forecast for 2025. In the coming months, Provost will have to roll out the successor of ‘Renaulution’, called ‘Futurama’, a strategic plan for the future that de Meo has still worked out in close collaboration with his most essential adjudants.
Tomorrow, the group will present its half-year results, and it’s still a guess if they will be presented by the new CEO or the interim CEO, Duncan Minto, who was appointed by Renault a few weeks ago.
The new CEO will have to deal with a series of sensitive problems. He will have to relaunch Ampere, the electric division, which seemed somewhat neglected after its IPO was canceled. There’s also the relationship with Nissan, a company in serious trouble, which has to be adequately managed.
And last but not least, Renault Group has to define clearly its strategic position toward China. Former boss Luca de Meo has several times insisted that Renault had to learn from the Chinese in the field of electric cars and has installed an essential group of engineers in Shanghai to study the problem. It was also de Meo who initiated a rapprochement with Geely, which is also a partner in the other (ICE) division of Renault, Horse.
A spokesman of Renault has denied confirming the news around the appointment of a new CEO and has just indicated that “the selection process is on its way and has been progressing very well.”
