With extraordinary ambition and deep personal commitment, Claude Bébéar built one of the world’s leading insurance companies in under 20 years, becoming one of the most influential figures in the French establishment. His death at age 90 was announced in a statement on Tuesday, November 4, by AXA, the company that he founded.
Born on July 29, 1935, in Issac, Dordogne, to two schoolteachers and the grandson of a postman, almost everything about Bébéar was unconventional. This included his surname, unique in France, which, according to him, was given to his great-grandfather by the nuns who took him in and registered him with the civil authorities using the baby sounds «bébé areu.» At least, that’s the story Bébéar told in October 1988, when he was named Manager of the Year by Le Nouvel Economiste at age 53 for creating AXA, which had become, after a series of acquisitions, the leading private insurer in France.
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