Results DON’T Get Water CEOs Fired... But THIS Does [Corporate Politics & Governance Research]
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Results DON’T Get Water CEOs Fired... But THIS Does [Corporate Politics & Governance Research]

B1IntermediateNovember 5, 202648 min
  • Business & money

Do Water CEOs Get Fired for Their Results, or for Company Politics? When Saur pushed out Patrick Blethon in October 2026, I noticed he had brought former colleagues into his executive team... just like Sabrina Soussan before SUEZ let her go. So I traced 30 years of water CEOs, 659 tenures at 110 companies, to see what gets a CEO fired: results, gender, age, degrees, friends, or corporate politics. Every number comes from annual reports, filings, Global Water Intelligence, the Wayback Machine, press articles and LinkedIn, and the research archive is right here: https://dww.show/trust-me-bro/ 🌶️ KEY S...

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effect after nearly seven years leading France's third largest water service operator.

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0:00

On October 7, Soar announced that its CEO, Patrick Bletton, was leaving with immediate effect after nearly seven years leading France's third largest water service operator. The company called it a leadership transition amidst rumors of tension with his shareholders. And I've already covered that story in my Soar episode, so that's not the point today

0:18

because there was something else about that ousting that kept bothering me. Before Walter, Patrick worked at Otis, the elevator company, and when he joined Soar, Well, he brought people he knew from that earlier career into his executive crew. Like Xavier Sevigny, who became his human resources chief.

0:35

Don't take me wrong, there's nothing wildly surprising about wanting people you know around you when you're asked to change and reorganize a company. But this bring a friend approach reminded me that I had seen a rather similar story at Suez.

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