Martine Liautaud

Martine Liautaud is an investment banker, entrepreneur and investor, specializing in mergers & acquisitions and financial engineering.

After 16 years as director, then partner, in Bank lndosuez, she left in 1990 to set up her first independent advisory and investment company.

Since 2000 she has successfully run Liautaud & Cie, which specializes in M&A, financial engineering, and advisory services for major French groups (CAC 40).

As an investor, she has taken stakes in several companies either as a majority shareholder or important minority shareholder. These include Meccano, a leader in the toy sector (sold in 1995), and the publishing group, La Martiniere, where she was also Vice-Chairman.

From 2003 to 2006, Martine was President of the Stanford Business Club, French branch of the Stanford Business School alumni association; she is now Honorary President of the club.

In 2010, she founded WBMI (www.women-business-mentoring-initiative.com), a voluntary mentoring program aimed at women entrepreneurs whose businesses are at least three years old. At the end of 2015,she took the important step to extend her action beyond women entrepreneurs to women in business and set up The Women Initiative Foundation (www.women-initiative-foundation.com).

Martine Liautaud is a board member of Group Savencia (formerly Bongrain), is on the board of the Entrepreneurial Committee of the MEDEF, and is a board member of Centrale-Supelec (the merger between the two best known engineering schools in France). She was also a board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in France from 2010 to 2015.

Martine Liautaud is married with two children.