But before getting to that point – and as is clear from his career path – Chairman Maurice Lorain experienced challenging and uncertain years at the company. After fighting in the First World War and then serving as an inspecteur des finances, he joined Société Générale in 1926. As Company Secretary and then Managing Director, he joined forces with the bank’s staff in overcoming the challenges created by the 1929-1930 depression and the Second World War. He was named Chairman in 1958 while bringing his influence to bear on the expert committees in charge of reviewing monetary, financial and economic recovery in France.

It is because of all these experiences that the words of Maurice Lorain, reprinted below, are especially relevant to us today:

"Others will now go down the path that we took."
They are going to lead Société Générale into its second century. In so doing they will explore horizons we didn’t even know existed; they will use electronic machines to keep their books and analyse their risks; they will live in a world where a few hours is all it will take to get from one end of the earth to the other and even to the Moon.
But even in that world the banking business will probably require the same sense of balance, reconciling growth and caution, seeking productivity while making allowance for risk, and doing business while keeping an eye on organisation.
Because, deep down inside, they were moralists, French historians of classical periods always sought to draw lessons from their study of the past. What lesson can be drawn from the history of our establishment? In the course of a century during which it has experienced three wars, economic recessions, and currency collapses, and after a trial-and-error process which allowed it to gradually define its operating doctrine, after legal changes that brought it into existence under the control of the state, then made it a fully private company, and then nationalised it once again – through all this it has overcome ordeals, challenges and failures and is now one of the most powerful and efficient entities in the French banking system in serving its clients and country.

It owes this success to the shared sense of mission that has always characterised the joint efforts of its board of directors, management, executives and staff, such that, at the end of this book, which we are leaving to our successors, I ask them to conclude that Société Générale’s main virtue was, is, and must remain, its team spirit".