Two high-level professionals, Sandra Lagumina and Jack Azoulay, join Argos Wityu, the leading independent European investment fund, as Senior Partners.
Sandra and Jack will actively contribute to implementing a new investment strategy aimed at deep environmental transformation for European businesses, complementing the strategy that has made Argos successful for more than three decades. This pioneering environmental impact fund, the details of which will be announced in the coming weeks, will aim at both financial and ecological performance. In this regard, it will have a quantified and measurable decarbonation target.
“We are pleased to welcome two very high-level experts, esteemed in their industry and pre-eminent in environmental issues, who wish to continue with us their commitment in favour of a more sustainable economy. Argos Wityu has been fundamentally transforming companies for more than 30 years. With the coming launch of our new investment strategy, focused on concrete action on ecological initiatives, these two people will play an active role in the transformation of European SMEs, turning them into environmental champions of their sectors,” said Louis Godron, Managing Partner at Argos Wityu.
Sandra Lagumina, Franco-Italian, will join Argos Wityu on 1 October 2022. She has worked for nearly 20 years to sustainably transform companies from strategic, operational and managerial points of view and has helped finance their transformation. She has also undertaken and supported development and fundamental changes within energy companies.
Sandra was most recently a Partner at Meridiam, which she joined at the end of 2017 as director of operations in charge of asset management, before becoming Deputy CEO. While at Meridiam, she developed and ran the strategy for managing a portfolio of more than 100 assets and companies throughout the world. She also directed Meridiam’s transformation into a company with a mission and played an active role in the group’s development.
Prior to that, she spent 11 years at the Engie group, devoted to energy sector transition. She supported, then managed the sector’s recomposition and was in the front lines during its environmental transformation. In 2016 she was appointed Deputy CEO of Engie, in charge of gas infrastructure, China and GTT. In 2013, as CEO of GRDF, Europe’s largest gas distribution network, she launched the company’s transformation, orienting it towards renewable gas. In 2008, she structured and managed the legal department of GDF-Suez in 40 countries. Prior to joining GDF-Suez, Sandra worked at Gaz de France from 2005 as deputy director of strategy and public affairs delegate, then as director of legal affairs.
She started her career in public service legal positions: from 1995 at the Conseil d’Etat as an auditor and then as a maître des requêtes (counsel), from 1998 alongside Laurent Fabius, the president of the National Assembly, and from 2000 at the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry with responsibility for legal issues, public procurement contracts and competition law.
Sandra Lagumina is a graduate of ENA, the elite school that trains France’s future civil servants, and has two advanced degrees (DESS) from Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne (in common market and public law) and from Sciences Po Paris.
Jack Azoulay, Franco-British, has recently joined Argos Wityu. He was deeply involved with the French government’s ecological transition initiatives during President Macron’s first term. He has extensive knowledge of large industrial companies and has actively contributed to the transformation of the French Postal Group.
Since 2018, Jack was chief of staff at the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Over a four-year period, he was actively involved in energy, housing, transport and biodiversity public policies and developed in-depth knowledge of environmental issues. In particular, he was instrumental in elaborating key biodiversity, energy and climate laws. He also supervised the deployment of €30 billion green investments in France’s post-Covid recovery plan (“France Relance”) and implemented measures to alleviate the impacts of the recent rise in energy prices, as part of the country’s “resilience plan”.
Prior to that, Jack managed industrial investments at APE (Agence des Participations de l’État), the French Government agency that manages public investments. His role was to defend the Government’s interests in strategic companies in the aerospace, automotive, naval construction and defence industries. He sat on the boards of PSA, Naval Group, KNDS and Chantiers de l’Atlantique.
Between 2010 and 2016, Jack held strategic and operational positions at La Poste and actively contributed to the diversification of the French post office’s activities, notably by creating and managing the New Services business unit and sitting on the boards of several prominent La Poste subsidiaries.
Before joining La Poste, Jack was an auditor and strategy consultant from 2006 to 2010 at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry. In 2009, he was rapporteur of the “Grand Emprunt” committee , co-chaired by former Prime Ministers Alain Juppé and Michel Rocard and charged with designing the priorities for a €35 billion investment plan..
Jack Azoulay is a graduate of ENA, Sciences Po Paris, ESCP Europe and Paris-Dauphine University.
Argos Wityu
Coralie Cornet
Head of Communications
ccc@argos.fund
+33 6 14 38 33 37
About Argos Wityu / www.argos.wityu.fund
Argos Wityu is an independent European investment fund that supports companies in the transfer of business ownership. It has assisted more than 80 entrepreneurs, focusing its investment strategy on complex transactions with emphasis on transformation, growth, and close collaboration with management teams. Argos Wityu seeks to acquire majority interests and invest between €10m and €100m with each transaction. With more than €1bn under management and 30 years of experience, Argos Wityu operates from offices in Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Luxembourg, Milan and Paris.
