“I just came back from an hour of jogging in the cold. I remained an athlete! cowardly, all smiles, Alain Di Crescenzo. At 60, he has just climbed to the first step of a new podium. Tuesday, January 25, he was elected president of CCI France, this network which brings together the 121 chambers of commerce and industry spread over the territory.
The only candidate in the running for this challenge, he was already first vice-president of the institution, and succeeds, for a five-year term, to the Bordelais Pierre Goguet, smoothly. “He has a sense of consensus. In meetings, he could multiply the presentation of hypotheses to lead us without seeming to touch them towards his own option, avoiding conflict, ”says André Deljarry, first vice-president of the CCI Occitanie, who chaired by Alain Di Crescenzo until 2021, after having piloted the CCI Toulouse Haute-Garonne.
“He does not sleep much”, adds Christian Jouve, general manager of the CCI Occitanie, who also says it, “jovial”, “warm”, “sharing”, in short “Mediterranean”.
Scientist, sportsman, lover of good wines…
Alain Di Crescenzo grew up in the popular district of Le Panier in Marseille, the only son of a modest family, originally from Italy – his father was a worker and his grandfather a fisherman. “We didn’t have a lot of money, but I received a lot of love and values, work, commitment, respect for the word given…” remembers this scientist by training. After completing baccalaureates C, D and E, he joined the prestigious National School of Arts and Crafts (Ensam).
Before “spending his life on the plane and abroad” directing IGE + XAO for nearly a quarter of a century. When this software publisher was sold to Schneider Electric in 2018, he remained its proxy CEO. “I was not prepared for this career,” he admits. I dreamed of being a sports teacher. When I was young, I assiduously practiced skiing and judo. »
Alas, a motorcycle accident, at the age of 17, nailed him to a hospital bed for three months. “I wore a corset for two years. As I was good at math, I turned to engineering studies”, continues this boss who, in the process, will also get a DEA in applied mathematics and… his black belt in judo.
In his eyes, “many values are common between sport and business: solidarity, challenge, the importance of playing as a team to move forward, the fact that things are never lost,” he says. “And also fair play, which we often forget. We do not win by crushing others. The man is sunny, it is said, a lover of “strong and tannic” wines.
Defender of the role of CCIs
“He is in permanent seduction, very rarely in a bad mood, confides Martin Venzal, boss of the regional media ToulEco. It is steeped in international culture. His mastery of English had even earned him the chance to improvise as a translator, at the Haute-Garonne prefecture, when the Indian Prime Minister visited in 2015.
During his speech as the new president of CCI France, this father of three sons insisted on maintaining the tax for room expenses: “We have already gone from 1.3 billion TFC in 2013 to 525 million euros in 2022”, he underlined. Especially since he is convinced of the crucial role of CCIs with companies.
“The Covid crisis has changed our habits, our needs, our relationship to work. Companies have never needed us so much,” says this networker, who, while sitting on the supervisory board of the BPCE group, also chairs the Caisse d’Epargne Midi-Pyrénées… and the Télémaque association, responsible to sponsor children from underprivileged neighborhoods.
At CCI France, Alain Di Crescenzo will vote on a strategic plan next September, after an audit. CCI meetings will also be organized once a year. With, always, a view of the world… Anyone who says, greedily, “love to negotiate with a Chinese, an American or an Indian” wants, more than ever, to accompany companies beyond borders… “France is 3% of global GDP, he recalls. There is 30 times more business to do abroad. “There again, it is mathematical…
