, chairman and chief executive officer of Publicis Groupe, struck a modest note at the Anti-Defamation League’s 2008 International Leadership Award dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.. Taking note of past honorees – such as Neville and Pamela Isdell of Coca-Cola Company in 2006 and Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones of L’Oréal in 2005 – Levy said ADL national director Abraham Foxman "is downgrading the award with me."
"But I’ll take it," he quickly added.
Not that he doesn’t deserve it. Headquartered in Paris, Levy commands one of the four biggest multinational advertising and communications companies in the world, with 8,900 employees and 251 offices in 82 countries.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said Levy combines "wisdom with knowledge" in an age threatened by suicide murderers. Levy is always there when Israel needs someone to speak up.
Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, chairman of L’Oreal, dubbed him "counselor of kings." That’s because "not a book launch, merger or other big business gets done without calling Maurice about it. He gives good advice. A rare quality."
Calling Levy "the uncrowned prince of Jewry and gentility," French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy praised him for being a faithful Jew and Frenchman.
In recent years, the philosopher said, "you had to choose between being a Jew or French. You could be a Jew, but only in a secret, discreet way. Judaism had to be blank. Maurice refused this blackmail. He said the time of the Marranos was over. You can be a Jew not only at night but also in the daylight."
Publisher Gabriel Erem, who interviewed Maurice Levy in Paris for his Lifestyles magazine, told me how Levy climbed the corporate ladder almost overnight.
Levy was a young employee in charge of the computer database at Publicis, located on the Champs Elysee. One day he came to work to find the entire building burning like a torch. He burst through the police cordon, ran into the blazing building and down to the basement. He came sprinting out, his jacket on fire, with an armload of computer files he saved from the flames.
"At least now the company’s clients can be billed," he told his grateful boss, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. Levy succeeded him in 1988, becoming only the second CEO in the company’s 80 years.
