Agnès TOURAINE
Managing Partner
Act III

PLENARY SESSIONS- 24, november 2005

Agnès Touraine holds a degree in Law and graduated from the Paris Institut d'Etudes Politiques in 1978. She obtained an MBA from Columbia University Business School, New York, in 1981.
She joined McKinsey in 1981 and spent five years with the firm. From 1985 to 1995, she pursued her career at Hachette (Lagardère Group) where she was successively Sr Vice President of Strategy for the Lagardère Group and Head of Hachette's Consumer Publishing division.
In 1995, Agnès joined CEP Communication to launch Liris Interactive as Chairman and CEO. Liris Interactive, one of France's first start-ups in multimedia, became Havas Interactive at the end of 1997.
In 1998, Havas Interactive significantly expanded its scope with the acquisition of Cendant Software, the US leader in edutainment and interactive games. As a result, Agnès became Executive Vice President in charge of the Consumer division of Havas.
In 2000, within the context of the merger between Vivendi and Universal, she was appointed Vice Chairman and CEO of Havas, which became Vivendi Universal Publishing. Immediately afterwards, Agnès Touraine was appointed Chairman and CEO of Vivendi Universal Publishing.
VUP, third-largest consumer publisher world-wide, generated revenues of €4.7 billion in 2001 and EBITDA of €827 million. In its five business sectors—education (no. 2 world-wide), reference (no. 1 world-wide), literature (no. 1 in France), games (no. 2 world-wide in PC), edutainment (no. 1 worldwide), and consumer magazines—VUP reinforced its market share, international presence, and profitability.
At the end of 2003, further to Vivendi Universal’s decision to sell most of the Vivendi Universal Publishing activities, Agnès Touraine left the Group and founded Act III Consultants, a management consulting firm.
Agnès Touraine is also an Independant Director of LastMinute.com (UK) ,Cable &Wireless (UK) and Libération and a board member of Fondation de France. She is on the Advisory Board of the Deutsche Bank and Altium-Argyll in France.She is a teacher at Sciences Po (Master Finance). She is married and has two children.

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