Saint-Gobain’s Benoit Bazin is transforming his company’s culture to make sustainability the foundation for how it innovates and goes to market
By Diane Brady, Forbes Staff
C
ulture is a powerful force when it stretches back centuries. In the case of Saint-Gobain, that culture begins in a small French village that created an innovative new way of creating mirror glass, which caught the eye of Louis XIV and became a ‘Royal Manufactury’ of the product in 1665. Althought now a global conglomerate that makes more than $54 billion a year in supplying the construction and industrial markets, Sainte-Gobain is still tied to that heritage.
Enter Benoit Bazin. Although Bazin came to the CEO job in 2021 with his own deep ties to the company, having started as a vice-president of corporate planning in its abrasives division in 1999, he also brought a desire to change. He reorganized the company from one built around product lines to a geographic focus, with local CEOs steeped in the cultures where they operate.
Most notably, he’s made sustainability the foundation for future growth. From the launch of a Sustainable Construction Observatory and an annual International Sustainable Construction Barometer to a fundamental rethinking of how Saint-Gobain makes products and the role it plays in society, Bazin is on the front lines of a new wave of leadership.
Click on the video above for a conversation about how he’s reshaped his role and the culture of a company with the aim of growing for centuries to come.