Saint-Gobain V.I.E Young Talent Awards

Saint-Gobain announces the winners of its first V.I.E contest.

The Group honored the six winners of the first Saint-Gobain Young Talent V.I.E.* Awards, all recent graduates from business, engineering and university backgrounds. This contest recognizes young talent whose international business placements have particularly contributed to SaintGobain’s international development and whose behavior particularly illustrated one of the five managerial Attitudes promoted by the Group: Cultivating Customer Intimacy, Acting as an Entrepreneur, Innovating, Being Agile, and Building an Open and Engaging Culture. A special Digital Award was also announced. The launch of these Awards exemplifies the Group’s employer brand and its tagline: “Invent yourself. Reshape the world.”

“We are very pleased to honor the winners of our first young talent contest and thank them for the outstanding work they have accomplished as part of their respective programs”, said Claire Pedini, Senior Vice-President in charge of Human Resources. “I would also like to thank their mentors who offer challenging and diverse assignments and ensure individual follow-up for each of the candidates throughout their placements. These mentors have consistently worked towards strengthening and optimizing our V.I.E. program,” she added.

Among those who had completed volunteer programs of at least six months between July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018, 55 young graduates from 15 countries submitted their candidature. After reviewing each application and considering their respective managers’ recommendations, 18 candidates were short-listed by the 10 Saint-Gobain Regional Delegations participating in the 2018 Awards. The final jury comprising senior executives from the Saint-Gobain Group awarded the following six prizes:

- The Cultivating Customer Intimacy prize was awarded to a business development assignment in West Africa.

- The Acting as an Entrepreneur prize was awarded to a procurement assignment in the United Kingdom for an investment project in Vietnam.

- An R&D assignment in the United States took home the Innovation prize.

*Volunteer for International Experience, also known as French International Postgraduate Internship Program, is a program led by the French government agency BUSINESS FRANCE which offers young French graduates an opportunity to gain their first professional experience abroad and helps promote the international development of French companies.

- The Being Agile prize was awarded to a sustainable development program for our products in the Scandinavian region.

- The Building an Open and Engaging Culture prize was awarded to a marketing assignment for Habitat in Belgium.

- Lastly, the special Digital prize was awarded to a customer-service data science project in the United Kingdom.

Since the establishment of the V.I.E. program in 1985, Saint-Gobain has welcomed 730 volunteers in nearly 50 countries. Thanks to a close partnership with the Business France teams, Saint-Gobain has seen the number of its V.I.E. contracts grow threefold since 2014 (from 37 to 130). The proportion of female volunteers has also strongly risen and now represents half of all V.I.E participants. In 2017, 60% of volunteers were hired at the end of the program, half of whom were women.

ABOUT SAINT-GOBAIN

Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which are key ingredients in the wellbeing of each of us and the future of all. They can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure and in many industrial applications. They provide comfort, performance and safety while addressing the challenges of sustainable construction, resource efficiency and climate change.