French expat runs for mayor in Bucharest’s richest district

French executive Clotilde Armand will run for Mayor in Bucharest’s District 1 in this year's local elections as a candidate of the Save Bucharest Union (USB). She is an engineer and has been managing French engineering and consulting group Egis' subsidiaries in Romania and Bulgaria since 2013, according to her LinkedIn profile. However, she is ready to give up her job to run Bucharest’s District 1, where she also lives. “I am a manager, and I am revolted by this poor management that strikes you when you are dealing with public authorities. I’ve headed organizations with 2,000 people and made them efficient, I’ve managed budgets of EUR 1 billion, and today I am the general manager of a group of companies that provide engineering/design services, with 200 engineers,” she wrote on her blog. Before joining Egis, she worked about 8 years for French energy group GDF Suez, running some of its operations in Romania and, later on, in France, where she was Director of Innovation and New Markets. Before that, she coordinated a team of engineers and consultants who worked on the Airbus A380 project. Clotilde Armand was born in Vichy, France, and got married to Romanian mathematician Sergiu Moroianu, a researcher at the Romanian Academy. The two met in the US while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and decided to move to Romania together in 1999. They’ve also lived in Germany and France over the years, but finally decided to move to Romania for good and, in 2015, Clotilde Armand got her Romanian citizenship. Now, she is determined to get involved in making things better in her adoptive country joining Romanian mathematician and activist Nicusor Dan's

Save Bucharest Union (USB).

“I’m convinced that the USB team can do a much better job at the District 1 City Hall than the politicians without consistency and personality, who have never practiced any other job besides that of politicians. Moreover, they’ve learned this job from politicians in their parties, and they lack professionalism even on the political side, as they had no place to learn it from. As a French, I am revolted that Romanians have to choose between such characters,” Clotilde Armand wrote on her blog. She will announce her project for Bucharest's District 1 in a press conference scheduled for March 29. District 1 is Bucharest's richest district. It includes the Herastrau Park, and the Baneasa, Nordului, Primaverii, Victoriei, and Dorobanti neighborhoods, which are home to many of Bucharest's richest as well as expat executives. Some of the biggest companies in Romania, including OMV Petrom, Rompetrol, Lukoil, Orange, Vodafone, Telekom Romania, BRD, Raiffeisen Bank, and many others have their headquarters here. District 1 had a total budget of EUR 290 million in 2015, bigger than that of Cluj-Napoca or Timisoara. Only the Bucharest City Hall manages a bigger budget. Liberal Andrei Chiliman, who has been mayor of District 1 since 2004, has been suspended after being prosecuted for corruption. Romania organizes both local and parliamentary elections this year. The local elections will take place on June 5.