Editors’ Note

After a 25-year career in the food and media sectors, Martine Pelier has now served as Managing Director of Active International – France since 2011. She was successively the Beverages and the Food Business Unit Director for France and a member of the PepsiCo Management Committee for 12 years. Pelier is a board member of Bonduelle Food Group and a member of the Paris Entrepreneurs Network. She has been involved for many years in professional diversity initiatives and is also co-founder of a charity in Madagas-car. For the accomplishments of her career, she was made Knight of the Legion d’ Honneur in France in 2016. Pelier graduated from Science Po Paris and ESSEC School of Management.

Company Brief

Active International’s (activeinternational.com) purpose is to transform data into insights, strategy into action, and vision into value. With the entrepreneurial spirit of a startup, and the capabilities of a global corporation, Active continues to redefine what’s possible and turn possibilities into positive business outcomes. Active drives performance through industry expertise, its Corporate Trade Model, and portfolio of companies with a core competency in media, to create and deliver value for leading brands throughout their business life cycles.

Will you provide an overview of your role and key areas of focus?

I have been running the Active subsidiary in France for ten years with the strong conviction that Corporate Trading is a very creative and innovative way to support companies in their search for productiveness. This is all the more true in 2020 given the challenges of productivity and adaptation to an absolutely new business situation. Active’s role in this context is to listen to its customers in order to help them optimize their cash flow and maintain a sustained level of investment despite the contraction of their business. My role is to initiate an in-depth conversation with our clients to innovate in times of crisis and to ensure that my employees are on the alert at all times.

How has Active adapted its business in France to address the challenges brought on by the pandemic?

The last 12 months have led us to question ourselves by developing new solutions adapted to different clients in particular sectors. For example, we have focused our efforts on distributors and e-merchants so that they can maximize their communication on the Internet by developing partnerships with media agencies specializing in social networks. We have also developed a private marketplace capable of delivering programmatic media campaigns in exchange. We have also been able, for example, to respond effectively to our food service customers who saw their turnover collapsing after the lockdown and called on Active to optimize the valuation of their perishable unsold products.

Where do you see the greatest opportunities for growth for Active’s business in France?

The economic recovery that will follow the pandemic in 2021 will be a strong lever for a return to communication for our main customers who remained silent in 2020 because of the lockdown. This is a great opportunity for Active to strengthen these links, both with its customers and with its media partners. The agility developed by the French team at Active in 2020, our ability to handle all types of media campaigns for our clients, including programmatic, will be a tremendous growth accelerator. I am convinced that our corporate trading offers will be even more attractive when the activity restarts as the players will gain in adaptability and in the search for agile financial solutions.