Introduction
Tribute to Pierre Bellon
Pierre Bellon
1930 ~ 2022
“Pierre Bellon dreamed of a fairer and more humane society. It is in this spirit that he founded Sodexo in 1966.”
Pierre Bellon belongs to a rare category: that of people driven by a strong entrepreneurial mindset and a commitment to creating value for people and progress. A man of intuition, a passionate visionary and an unparalleled builder, Pierre Bellon foresaw that the quality of life of men and women would become a major concern of modern societies and turned it into an extraordinary business project.
He devoted his life to building one of France’s most successful companies around a dual mission: to improve the quality of life of our employees and those we serve, and contribute to the economic, social and environmental progress in the communities where we operate. In 2022, 56 years after its creation, the Group founded by Pierre Bellon counts 422,000 employees in 53 countries, serving 100 million consumers every day. As he himself used to say, “we all built this Group together”, even if the Company’s exceptional expansion would have been impossible without the sharp, constructive, sometimes sarcastic, and rebellious mind of its founder.
“Thanks to a rate of success that slightly outpaced our setbacks, Sodexo grew by leaps and bounds.”
“Constant progress is our only means of differentiating ourselves from the competition... this alone will enable us to show our clients and customers that our services evolve to match their changing needs and that we are constantly improving our offering.”
Extracts from book I've had a lot of fun