The Finance & Operations Department supports the day-to-day operations and projects of all the departments, providing them with a secure working environment and enabling them to move forward in the best possible conditions. The major focus is the permanent, shared and clear construction of a budgetary framework that serves as a playground for all initiatives.
Hélène MAUBERT
Finance & Operations Department
78
million of Euros – Audencia’s final budget for 2023
How would you assess 2023?
I have just taken up my post, but all our teams have been very busy with plenty of projects. They should be thanked for all the energy they have invested, even in difficult times. Everyone knows their job and strives to do their best. At the Finance & Operations Department, we are customer-service minded, but our role has always been, and will continue to be, to anticipate necessary developments and to point out which structuring working hypotheses need to be brought to fruition. In 2023, the financial context was tense, inflation was very high, and changes in governance meant that we had to pause for breath. Today, we are getting back into the swing of things and it is going to take some time for concrete actions to produce results. Nevertheless, we can point to some noteworthy advances that have been made: the provisional So Pop campus was delivered for the start of the 2023-24 academic year and step by step we are progressing with the development of the new Paris campus. Real estate projects are always complex, but we are now organized and efficiently focused.
What are the CSR commitments that guide your actions?
Many of the actions carried out by the Finance & Operations Department take our CSR commitments into consideration: renaturing sites, improving energy performance in line with the tertiary sector decree, a responsible purchasing policy or multi-capital accounting are just some of the major themes that have been put into practice. Specifically, in 2024, we will be creating green spaces around our main campus and are considering the installation of photovoltaic panels.
What are your objectives for 2024?
For 2024, it will be a year of 2 stages: the transition period, commencing with the installation of new governance, will probably take us up to the midpoint of the year. During this organizational inventory phase, we will be preparing for the start of the 2024-25 academic year, with more than 1,000 students in initial education on our Ile de France campus, compared with 470 at the start of the 2023-24 academic year. After that, it will be time for structuring projects, with, in particular, the change of the Finance IS. This project will take several months to complete and should have a very positive impact on in-house processes.
What is the one word that defines the strategic direction of your actions between now and the end of the ECOS 2025 strategic plan?
“Establishing the framework” would be the most appropriate expression, in my opinion. By the end of the ECOS 2025 strategic plan, our department will have had the opportunity to redesign a framework for action that will provide all the school’s departments with the security they need in order to implement their projects. This framework deals with the way we work together, around a collective project. It obviously includes a rigorous and ambitious budgetary framework, which is always the crux of the matter, so as to anticipate and look forwards serenely as part of our future strategic plan.
