On December 1st 2020, Philippe Reynaert, General Manager of Wallimage s.a. since its creation, will retire after 20 years of good and loyal service. For the institution in Montpellier, this is a major turning point to be negotiated with care. For the person called to succeed him or her, it is a major challenge.
A long procedure
On February 7, the Board of Directors of Wallimage, in perfect agreement with its Minister, Willy Borsus, initiated a recruitment procedure that was announced in the press in Belgium and France on February 11 for a call for candidates (internal/external) that closed on March 16. The idea was to be able to complete the process before the Cannes Film Festival, which would have been the ideal sounding board to announce and present the winner who would replace the current director. Unfortunately, a certain virus decided otherwise…
At the prescribed date, Wallimage had received 9 applications, 7 of which met the criteria and 5 of which were duly accompanied by the requested documents (including a vision for the future of the Walloon Fund).
Before the health crisis, a first Jury composed of Violaine Herbaut (President of the Remuneration Committee of Wallimage) and Sylvie Marique (Secretary General of the Public Service of Wallonia) was able to establish a “short list” of 3 candidates which was approved by the Board of Directors during a teleconference on April 3rd.
On the other hand, during this same meeting, the decision was taken to postpone until the end of June the physical meetings with the candidates, both for their psychological profiling carried out by the assessment company Perfect Team (chosen after a call for tenders) and for their meeting with the Grand Jury chosen by common agreement by the Minister of supervision and Wallimage.
A high-level jury
This jury was of a particularly high standard and covered all the areas of competence expected of candidates! It included:
– For the managerial aspect: Jean-Jacques Cloquet (Manager of the Year 2018)
– For the HR aspect: Sylvie Marique (Secretary General of SPW)
– For the financial aspect: Chris Vandervinne (Financial Director of RTBF)
– For the strategic aspect : Jean-pierre Désiron (President of Wallimage)
– For the aspect “Cinema and television” we had solicited Gerlinde Seitner, President of the European Association of Regional Audiovisual Funds, but for reasons of quarantine Covid, this person based in Austria could not join us and was replaced by Vincent Leclercq, Deputy Director of the French National Film Center.
This advisory panel, assisted in its task by Perfect Team’s analyses, met with each of the candidates on Tuesday, June 23 and unanimously proposed the name of : Virginie Nouvelle
This choice was confirmed on July 6th by Minister Willy Borsus and the Board of Directors of Wallimage.
Who is Virginie Nouvelle ?
Management engineer trained at the University of Mons Hainaut – Waroqué Faculty of Economic Sciences, Virginie Nouvelle started her career as a Jr Auditor at KPMG. She joined Wallimage in March 2005 as Chief Financial Officer, a position she has held since September 2008, when she was appointed Director of our sister company Wallimage Entreprises. As a financial analyst and equity manager, she also helped launch St’Art Invest and the W.I.N.G. Fund at SRIW.
At 38 years old, this mother of two children takes over the General Management of the company that saw her grow up and develop outstanding managerial skills.
She will take up her position in the fall and will be the sole master on board as of December 1st.
In our photo, the Old and New
