ENGAGEMENT TEAM MEMBER
Véronique has expertise in partnership development between corporates, social entrepreneurs and social investors. She lives in South Africa and is responsible of the South African portfolio companies’ engagement. She advises impact investing funds, family offices, foundations and private corporations in the development and execution of their philanthropic and Corporate Social Responsibility roadmaps and strategies.
Historically, the market economy is the regulatory system that has been the most dynamic in terms of innovation, productivity, and social protection. Companies, legal entities, and the main stakeholders in this economy have thereby become its critical components.
Several generations of leaders at the Burrus plant in the Jura region had assimilated this idea of increased corporate social responsibility. So when the company was sold, the sixth generation of the family decided to establish the Fondation Guilé to continue to promote responsible entrepreneurship.
Their special focus was on respect for the universal values of human rights, labor standards, and business ethics. By favoring an honest approach towards all stakeholders in a company, the members of the foundation are convinced they are laying the essential groundwork for collective, sustainable growth.
Of course we want to create value for shareholders, but we also want to make a real contribution to the common good (in particular, for the individual dignity of employees and all others involved).
From the article by Serge Jubin, newspaper Le Temps, Jura May 10th 2011
For a denizen of the Jura region, knowing Charles Burrus was a point of pride, which shows just how great his influence was. The industrialist died on Monday, at the age of 81. The man whom his fellow Boncourt citizens affectionately referred to as “Mister Charles” was a member of the sixth generation Burrus dynasty, which began in Alsace in 1814. The family built a major cigarette factory in Boncourt. The son of Leon Burrus, Charles took the helm of the family company, the largest private employer in the Jura, in 1979. Initially he worked with his cousin Xavier, the son of Gerard, and then on his own from 1985. In 1996, he sold the company to the Dutch group Rothmans, and in 1999 it was taken over by BAT.
Charles Burrus was the quintessential benevolent boss, as his forebears had been. This didn’t prevent him from selling a competitive business. The Burrus family was the first in Switzerland to offer their workers family benefits in 1916.
“Mister Charles” was quite popular. His philanthropy was appreciated. He was a major contributor to the development of the Saint-Charles Catholic secondary school in Porrentruy. He supported several athletic clubs, in particular the Boncourt football club. He sponsored the equestrian facilities at Chevenez. Charles Burrus frequented the upper levels of the Catholic hierarchy, with special ties to the Vatican. At one point, he offered the Guilé family home in Boncourt to a foundation that sensitizes opinion leaders to human and Christian values.
More than anyone else in his family, Charles Burrus remained rooted in Boncourt, although this did not stop his industrial influence from spreading throughout Switzerland. The Jura region was always grateful to him for this, particularly because he had decided to be a large contributor to the last of the cantons to be established.
