Inspiring Women: Muriel de Saint Sauveur – impresario of women

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Muriel de Saint Sauveur has always worked in communications, she also worked up the courage to start her own company, and got caught up in the world of business. Communicating, promoting, exchanging and delivering; these are the tasks she set for herself and endeavoured to achieve.

This was all before taking an interest in women’s equality and pointing the finger at the discrimination and disparities of women. She was determined to stop this discrimination in France or elsewhere.

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Luck and a chance meeting

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Muriel de Saint Sauveur started her career working in a classical music concert company. Soon after, she set up her own organisation to get rid of this French characteristic that traps people in one field of work with no way to change jobs. She had a desire to work in jazz, dance and theatre until she met the owner of an auditing and advisory company and embarked on a new adventure – creating the company’s department of communications – without understanding anything about the world of finance.  At the end of six years, tired of the ‘auditors’ that she found a bit boring, but after having discovered international and merger companies, she changed her tune when asked to create a department of communications, marketing and consultation for a large company.

Muriel de Saint Sauveur: inventing her job

Muriel de Saint Sauveur discovered the world due to her company merging every two years and her team expanding.

When I started, there were  1000 people and when I left, we were 20 000. But I had observed that if we recruited women and men equally at management level, only 9% of women would then leave the company at around the age of 30. I spoke about it and they started to listen to me because the company was losing money. So what do MyFrenchLife™ – MyFrenchLife.org - Muriel de Saint Sauveur - Inspiring Women - MidetPlus - Muriels bookwe do about ‘this’ they asked me? I decided to tackle ‘this’ head on and conduct investigations, analyse figures, and I wrote a book which was popular internationally especially in China and Russia. I then negotiated my departure, and once again started my own company after having made the observation that there were too many impediments to equality between men and women.

If it’s possible we want it!

This is the belief of ‘Women Masterclass’ which offers training to women -­ taking into account the ability to communicate verbally and physically, their professional environment, and the notion of leadership so that they learn how to decide for themselves to become the ‘leader’ of their lives.

I bring together 12 to 14 women for a day of training paid for by the company, association or university, and I hold a conference related to gender equality. My aim is to not say that we are different but that we have been educated differently, and that we do not have the same tools, or the same codes, to face the same life – even more so in other countries like Morocco and Benin where this training is free. One paid course here funds a free course there.MyFrenchLife™ – MyFrenchLife.org - Muriel de Saint Sauveur - Inspiring Women - MidetPlus - portrait

“I didn’t know that I had all that in my head” confessed an African woman. “My mother wanted the respect of the family, and I wanted the respect of society,” said an Indian woman. Muriel de Saint Sauveur finishes with:

That’s all that I wanted to unblock, and it’s up to me to ensure that it is possible.

A good reason to get up in the morning?

Be curious, create, get out of my comfort zone, and prove to myself that I can do something and love others; these attitudes are my driving force and what make me get up each morning.

https://youtu.be/mRzBvqYK65A


Do you see discrimination and disparities between women and men in your workplace? How can this change or improve? Join the discussion below.


Muriel de Saint Sauveur books:

  • Un monde au féminin serait-il meilleur? – Éditions l’Archipel

Inspiring women: collaborative partnership with MidetPlus.fr

[This article was originally written in French by Author: Vicky Sommet ]

Here at MyFrenchLife™ we have pleasure in announcing our collaborative partnership with French site MidetPlus.fr to produce this new series: ‘Inspiring women’.
This article first appeared on MidetPlus.fr and we have translated it into English for your added pleasure: publishing in both French and English. Mid&Plus takes a decidedly positive view of women in the world and produces wonderful portraits of inspiring women.

This collaboration enables you to read this series of inspiring life stories in French (links below) and in English here on MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® magazine and also to visit midetplus.fr for further inspiration.
We hope that you enjoy it.

Meet these inspiring women: Spirit . Strength . Stories


Marie-Hélène Cossé – founder of MidetPlus
Claire Basler – artist
Zahia Ziouani – conductor
Alix Baboin-Jaubert – pilgrim
Jenny Brown – animal protection
Tina Kieffer – journalist
Hannelore Cayre – lawyer, author, film-maker
Fatéma Hal – chef


All images © Mid&Plus
Translated by Simone Allen

About the Contributor

Judy MacMahon

Experience FRANCE beyond the CLICHÉ with MyFrenchLife.org MyFrenchLife is for Curious Savvy Francophiles wherever you are. Meet Francophiles in France, online, and/or wherever you live. You’re very welcome to join us - Judy MacMahon - MyFrenchLife.org

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