2023-04-20 08:05:00
The press release, brutal, fell this Thursday morning: the Walloon Union of companies terminates the contract of its managing director Olivier de Wasseige. This decision, the statement said, “fits into the context of the new strategic plan that UWE has just adopted. This ambitious plan has led UWE to rethink its organization and adjust its resources to its priorities.”. For Olivier de Wasseige, it’s shock, misunderstanding. “Together with Pierre Mottet (president of UWE, editor’s note), we designed this strategic plan together last year to continue to develop UWE’s presence in the field, while putting entrepreneurship, youth, training, environment“, he said, sincerely moved. “My last interview as CEO of UWEI gave it on the theme of qualifying education for Freeand it’s the most beautiful will that can be made to me”, he continues.
The relationship must have weighed heavily
Olivier de Wasseige had held the position of Managing Director since 2017. “The UWE Board of Directors unanimously underlines Olivier de Wasseige’s contribution to the employers’ organization, whose visibility he notably increased. Thanks to Olivier de Wasseige, the UWE is today a key player in the debate on the future and the development of a harmonious and prosperous Wallonia.”, continues the press release on behalf of the UWE. Behind the scenes, the news has the effect of a small bomb. If the personality of Olivier de Wasseige has sometimes been able to “on the form to pose some relational problems with certain members of UWE, one or the other of which moreover left the company since then, the tandem with Pierre Mottet showed some signs of tensions. Olivier de Wasseige liked to pull the cover to himself”, slips us an internal source. Another explains to us that “it is all the same what we also asked Olivier de Wasseige, to show himself. But his relations with former president Jacques Crahay (Cosucra) and the new Pierre Mottet were not looking good. This relational question must have weighed heavily in the balance.”
Lesson: “A lot of money is wasted creating cohorts of unemployable young people”
”Proud of my track record”
The UWE board also cited the salary cost of the CEO to justify this decision. “It’s wrong. My salary is not extravagant, and is completely aligned with that of the former managing director Vincent Reuter, excluding indexation”, justifies Olivier de Wasseige. The man, however, spared no effort to carry the UWE colors high in the media. Omnipresent in the media, Olivier de Wasseige claims to be proud of his record. “Strategically, much thought has gone into how to better position the institution. Furthermore, and this is very factual, I have increased the equity of the UWE by 2 million euros in 5 years, which allows us to face more complicated times in terms of contributions. I also think that the UWE has once more become a perfectly audible actor at the level of the political world”, he says. And to add that “I receive lots of messages of support from the political and business world. There is a total misunderstanding of the job done and the personality – honesty, outspokenness, voluntarism and pedagogy. People I know text me saying thank you for what I’ve done for businesses”, he concludes.
While waiting to find a successor to Olivier de Wasseige, in close collaboration with his Board of Directors, the President of UWE, Pierre Mottet, “will support the management team for the time necessary to implement an optimal organization”concludes the press release from the employers’ organization.
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