After nearly three years at the Élysée, Claire Vernet-Garnier joined Orange to head Corporate Development, mergers and acquisitions and integration. At 42, this former investment banker returned to a group of which she was an administrator on behalf of the State. His arrival comes at a time when the operator must absorb MASorange and prepare for the sharing of SFR, two operations which will profoundly reshape its scope.
Before learning how to place a stock issue, Claire Vernet-Garnier learned how to place a ball. A former member of the French youth tennis team, she could, according to several portraits devoted to her, have attempted a professional career; she ultimately chose the financial markets, a field where exchanges rarely last five sets, but where reading the game remains a sought-after quality.
Since July 20, 2026, the former industry, innovation, digital and public participation advisor to Emmanuel Macron has headed Corporate Development, mergers and acquisitions and the integration of the Orange group. She reports to financial director Laurent Martinez and joins a company that she already knows from the inside: between October 2020 and May 2021, she served on its board of directors as a state representative and member of the audit committee.
This return is therefore in no way a discovery. Rather, it marks a new stage in a journey built at the border of finance, business and public power.
Finance as a first language
Born on February 10, 1984, Claire Vernet-Garnier is a graduate of Audencia’s Grande École program. She completed her training with an Executive MBA combining the National School of Bridges and Roads, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the Fox School of Business at Temple University, as well as non-degree training at Essec.
She began her career in 2008 within the stock syndication teams of Société Générale CIB, a job which consists of organizing the placement of shares with investors during an IPO, a capital increase or a sale of participation. A function at the intersection of pure finance, market psychology and business strategy.
In 2010, she joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London as an Equity Capital Markets analyst, before returning two years later to Société Générale, within the Corporate Finance and Equity Capital Markets teams dedicated to large caps.
During this first part of her career, she participated in the structuring of IPOs, capital increases, accelerated placements, convertible bonds and mergers and acquisitions. There she learned how to build an equity story, negotiate with advisors, measure investor reaction and, above all, translate an industrial strategy into a financial transaction.
In 2015, Euronext entrusted it with the launch of its Pre-Listing Services activity, intended to support companies, particularly SMEs and ETIs, before their possible arrival on the markets. The mission goes beyond the technical preparation of an IPO: it also contributes to the commercial transformation of the pan-European operator’s Listing activity.
At the state shareholder school
In April 2018, Claire Vernet-Garnier changed sides and joined the State Participation Agency as head of the Finance and Capital Markets division and joined its management committee.
The APE then manages public participations in companies as diverse as EDF, Air France-KLM, Renault, Orange, Safran and Française des jeux. Its role is not limited to protecting the State’s property interests: it is also necessary to arbitrate between financial performance, sovereignty, industrial policy, employment and the continuity of essential services, objectives which coexist more easily in speeches than in a spreadsheet.
According to the presentation broadcast upon her arrival at InfraVia, Claire Vernet-Garnier participated in the sale of 1.2 billion euros of Safran shares held by the State at the end of 2018, then in the IPO of Française des jeux in November 2019, one of the main privatizations of the five-year term.
The health crisis is suddenly changing the nature of the files. In 2020 and 2021, it contributes to support operations for Air France-KLM and to the preparation of the budgetary appropriations necessary for its rescue. When borders close and planes remain on the ground, the state shareholder ceases to be a portfolio manager and becomes financier of last resort.
In October 2021, she was promoted to director of investments in charge of transport. Its portfolio covers Air France-KLM, ADP, SNCF, RATP, Alpine tunnels, as well as several regional ports and airports. She also sits on numerous boards of directors: ADP, SNCF, Radio France, Dexia, Orano Mining, Orano Cycle and Orange.
These mandates open up another dimension of economic power, that which is exercised in boards, audit committees, and during discussions on investments, managers or strategic operations. At Orange, where she sits between October 2020 and May 2021, she discovers the governance of a listed group of which the State remains the largest shareholder, directly and via Bpifrance.
A detour through private equity
In November 2022, after more than four years at APE, Claire Vernet-Garnier joined InfraVia Capital Partners as Director of Asset Management. This French fund, founded by Vincent Levita, invests in infrastructure and unlisted technology companies.
This passage offers him a third point of view on strategic assets. After having advised companies, then represented the State in their capital, she must now create value for investors in a private fund. From March 2023, she also sits on the board of directors of Mon Courtier Énergie as an independent director and member of the audit committee, and supports the company during its IPO.
The InfraVia episode will be brief, in November 2023, she resigns from her private mandates to join the economic center of the Élysée.
The discreet exercise of power
On November 15, 2023, Claire Vernet-Garnier was appointed industry, innovation and digital advisor to Emmanuel Macron. She simultaneously worked as a technical advisor in the office of Élisabeth Borne, then retained her responsibilities with Gabriel Attal.
Its title will expand in January 2026 to public participations. Its portfolio then covers reindustrialization, France 2030, artificial intelligence, digital and spatial sovereignty, as well as the transformation of the state shareholder and defense companies.
The scope is considerable, it places its holder in contact with listed companies, start-ups, defense groups, administrations, investors and research players. But the job of presidential advisor leaves few public traces, decisions are collective, arbitrations are rarely signed, and communication falls to the head of state or ministers.
One episode nevertheless allows us to glimpse this mechanism. The report of the senatorial commission of inquiry into mineral waters reproduces an email sent by Claire Vernet-Garnier to Alexis Kohler in December 2024. After a meeting with the general director of Nestlé, she summarizes the regulatory and health difficulties encountered at the Perrier de Vergèze site.
The document does not allow state arbitration to be attributed to it, even less the dysfunctions denounced by the senators. On the other hand, it shows the reality of an industrial portfolio at the Élysée: behind the big words of sovereignty and reindustrialization also hide weakened factories, European rules, health risks and thousands of jobs. The advisor circulates information, prepares options, points out the consequences. The decision is up to others.
According to The LetterClaire Vernet-Garnier had already participated in Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign in 2017. Her visit to the Château therefore does not constitute a late irruption into politics, but the extension of a commitment that had long remained in the background.
Orange, a well-known house in a decisive moment
In the summer of 2026, Claire Vernet-Garnier leaves the Élysée to join Orange. Its exact title deserves attention: Corporate Development, mergers and acquisitions and integration, the last term probably counts as much as the first two.
The group has just taken full control of MASorange in Spain. Orange already held 50% of the operator resulting from the merger between its Spanish activities and MásMóvil. In June 2026, it finalized the buyout of the 50% held by Lorca for 4.25 billion euros, valuing MASorange 8.5 billion. It now remains to fully consolidate the Spanish subsidiary and accelerate industrial, commercial and financial synergies.
But the most sensitive issue is being played out in France. On June 6, 2026, Bouygues Telecom, Iliad and Orange signed a memorandum of understanding with Altice France for the acquisition and sharing of SFR. The transaction values the assets concerned at 20.35 billion euros.
Orange’s share represents around 27% of the price, or 5.6 billion euros before adjustments. The operator plans to recover nearly four million mobile customers, one million fixed customers, several brands of virtual operators and 47 MHz of additional frequencies. The whole represented around 1.7 billion euros in turnover and 600 million euros in EBITDAaL in 2025.
Orange is counting on more than 500 million euros in annual synergies five years after the completion of the operation, mainly from the optimization of networks and infrastructures, but also from IT, support functions and distribution.
The most difficult part remains to be accomplished. The final documentation must be negotiated, the activities distributed between the three buyers, the operation submitted to the competition authorities. The transition from four to three national operators raises questions of price, quality of service and coordination between competitors. Finalization is not envisaged before the second half of 2027, and Orange points out that no certainty can yet be given on its outcome.
Claire Vernet-Garnier arrives after the negotiation of the initial protocol, her experience however seems tailored for the phase which is opening, financial negotiation, understanding of public doctrine, dialogue with administrations, governance of strategic assets, preparation for integration.
Because it is often after signing that the real problems begin. An acquisition is told with a price and some synergies, when an integration requires bringing together teams, information systems, networks, contracts, brands and corporate cultures.
From state representative to group leader
The symbolic dimension of his arrival is reinforced by the recent evolution of Orange’s capital. On July 31, 2026, a few days after taking office, Bpifrance sold 2.5% of the capital for approximately 1.1 billion euros. The State and Bpifrance together retain 20.4% of the shares and nearly 27% of the voting rights, thus remaining the group’s largest shareholder.
At 42, Claire Vernet-Garnier is neither a classic senior civil servant, nor a banker converted to public affairs, nor a politician who has become a business manager. She belongs to this generation of hybrid profiles who circulate between markets, investment funds and institutions, and whose primary skill is perhaps to translate the constraints of one world into the language of the other.
