No.39 - JEAN-LUC PETITHUGUENIN (PAPREC)
Age: 60
Years at current company: 24
Industry: Waste management
Turnover: $1.7bn
Rate of growth: 16% per year on average since 2013
While some of the most influential CEOs in the country belong to large entrepreneurial families, Jean-Luc Petithuguenin wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Convinced from the early 1990s about the future promise of recycling, this self-taught entrepreneur took up the reins of Paprec ‒ a small company with forty-five people. The former SME is now the leading independent French recycling group and employs more than 8,000 people.
Notable success: In 2017, 11 million metric tons of waste were recycled thanks to Paprec which, the same year, posted turnover of 1.7 billion dollars, an increase of 430% in twenty-three years.
