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Manoelle
LEPOUTRE
French citizen
Exploration & Production Branch. Research
& Development Director.
Engineering Degrees from ENSG and ENSPM.
Has been with the Group for 22 years and
served in six Exploration & Production
jobs in France, the Netherlands, Norway
and the USA.
When I was studying, I had the opportunity
to choose my field. I joined ENSG because
I am fond of nature and the environment,
and because I love travelling and really
wanted to move.
As soon as I left school, the Group offered
me an opportunity to study at ENSPM. That
suited me just fine, because I wanted to
work in an industrial environment, and in
a business sector that had a tangible impact
on the economy. There was just no way I
was going to spend the rest of my life locked
up in a research or teaching job.
Mobility from a
woman’s perspective.
My first two jobs, in Paris then in the
Southwest of France, involved speciality
research and services. I promptly (and,
if truth be known, rather insistently),
let people around me know I wanted to do
more operational field work.
Mobility-wise, I have to admit the Group
played the game. But I had to prove myself,
too.
Women in those days had to deal with two
obstacles. Management, for one, had its
preconceptions about how mobile women (and
wives) really were. I had to persuade them
that I actually could have a career and
a family life. Then there was the suspicion
(and even social pressure) that invariably
looms over your spouse. It was quite disturbing
at first. But that’s changed: the
Group does more to help its expatriates’
spouses (husbands included) now.
My first move was to the Netherlands as
Head of an Exploration division, then to
Norway as Exploration Director. Then I was
appointed to the United States as Geosciences
director at our subsidiary where I was in
charge of exploring and interpreting reservoirs
(exploration to locate reservoirs and interpretation
to operate them more efficiently).
Enriching and shared.
When I look back on those years, I can’t
help feeling they were tremendously enriching
for me and for my family. If a young woman
asked me, I’d advise her to test her
husband first: they often get the toughest
end of the deal. I know I was one of the
pioneers, but my case isn’t that exceptional
any more in the Group. Efforts to balance
out men and women in teams are shaping the
way things will be tomorrow.
Generally speaking, I think the Group has
many advantages to offer young applicants.
Its international breadth and its technology
are the two I’d lay the most emphasis
on.
Petroleum as a
technological adventure.
This company is international in a very
real sense. It’s when you travel that
you see it (even if there is some room for
improvement in some parts of the world).
And the exploration technology we use every
day is absolutely state-of-the-art. I am
not shy about comparing the technology we
use to explore the depths of the earth with
the technology used to explore the skies.
To sum up, I would say Total aims high and
has what it takes to get there. Especially
in terms of training. I also feel it is
open when it comes to recruitment, even
outside the business lines and academic
backgrounds it traditionally courts.
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