We went to meet Frédérique Cintrat, consultant, consultant, trainer in leadership and influence, speaker and author who has just published a book on the topic at the heart of the news “Bringing Entrepreneurship Back After 50 Years”.
Frédérique Cintrat What is your background?
I graduated from EM Normandie. After 27 years in sales and marketing roles in financial services, insurance and assistance, I was elected Insurance Woman of the Year in 2013 when I was Group Director of Sales and Marketing for CNP Assurances and was heavily involved in the formal and informal professional networks that work for her diversity. It was the catalyst for launching my own business: Assurancielles to do consulting in structures that address the population aged 50-60 years and older and Axielles for training and support in leadership, influence, conferences and advice for leaders. I published my first book in 2014 How Ambition Comes to Girls in Eyrolles Editions in 2014, How Emition Comes to Girls in 2018, and in January this year Restart Your Life After 50 in Dunod Editions. I had a nice surprise to find out that I am part of the Forbes list of 40 Inspirational Women in France in 2020.
What are the biggest challenges in the business world, in your opinion?
A very complex question related to the sector of activity: the first challenge for the company is to continue to develop or maintain its activity by filling its order book with respect for the resources, whether they are related to preserving the planet or to human and financial resources of course.
Constantly adapting its offers to the needs of consumers, which can evolve according to contexts, fashions, lifestyles and generations, and then making sure that the difference, the human capital, is willing to contribute to this evolution. Some struggle with recruitment and retention either because of a lack of talent or labor in the sector, or because of salaries, management, outlook, direction, sector, and schedules. Others have human resources whose experience, skills and ways of working are no longer quite in line with the company’s image as they are today if they do not expect this through proper training. The company must also comply with CSR standards, both in terms of diversity and in terms of sustainable development.
In terms of the subjects I work on more directly, it’s more about bringing a whole bunch of very different people together in the company and making sure that the company is not only a place where one comes to look for money for a task to be done abroad, but a place of social exchanges, and therefore connections. Social and joy, all this by making people from different cultures, different generations, people from a distance, people face to face or even from different situations with employees and freelancers. It is this harmony that contributes to efficiency and performance.
As far as I’m concerned, today I’m talking more specifically about the market and the HR dimension of the “50-65” population, not really old, but those so-called old-timers in companies, with all that this represents for them And for the company at the time when we are talking about extending the working life.
Can you tell us more about your latest book?
I have had the opportunity to work on projects aimed at imagining prevention, support and information services for the so-called pivot generation, the 45- to 65-year-olds between growing children and aging parents with a desire for freedom and a desire to step forward to the accelerator or step aside. In addition, I support companies in matters of second parts of their employees’ careers. And I’m in my fifties with friends of this generation. I found that the gap was very significant between the representation we had of this generation and reality, both in appearance and in centers of interest or aspirations. Age renewed! In addition, a lot happens between the ages of 50 and 60, between biological changes, especially for women, with a great need for prevention, even lifestyle changes, to stay healthy for a long time, milestones in life when children leave home, when you become a caregiver, When you become a grandfather, often with changes in family structure or changes in job or trade sometimes chosen, sometimes suffering, while saying that for everything, now is the right time or not.
This is what I wanted to touch on in this book, drawing on the experiences of professionals, whether they are doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, headhunters or human rights advocates in the first part of the book. In the second I share my own journey and reinvention in 48 when I left the workforce, in 53 when I changed again by reorienting my activity and centers of interest, by giving some advice, finally in the final part I discussed 13 situations that illustrate ways to restart one’s professional life Or even his life, in entrepreneurship or employment, with 13 inspiring testimonials.
