Career Biography

Isabelle Balestra is responsible for legal affairs, risk and insurance management, as well as ethics and compliance at Bouygues Construction. She is also a member of the Executive Committee.

She holds a postgraduate degree from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris I), graduated from the Paris Bar School, and studied at the Institute of Public Business Law. Isabelle began her career as a business lawyer.

After ten years working in various law firms both abroad and in Paris, she joined the oil services sector, specifically Bouygues Offshore (now Saipem), where she was tasked with establishing a legal department dedicated to litigation.

In 2007, Vinci Construction Grands Projets invited her to become the legal head of linear infrastructure projects. She quickly rose to the position of General Counsel and joined the executive committee.

In 2013, she joined Keolis, a public transport operator, as General Counsel, with the mission of supporting its international expansion. She was later appointed Director of Legal Affairs, Compliance, and Insurance for the group.

Isabelle also serves as a board member and has developed strong expertise in corporate governance.

In 2017, she was awarded the title of Knight in the National Order of Merit. In 2023, Isabelle joined Bouygues Construction as General Counsel.

Her career has been marked by active involvement in numerous international projects with significant technical, financial, human, and legal stakes, strengthening her expertise in risk management and multicultural environments.

For Isabelle Balestra, law is a lever for shaping the future and fostering innovation, while maintaining essential balances between stakeholders. However, she observes that the reality has become more complex. Her analysis reveals that companies are facing increasing legal uncertainty, driven by major regulatory inflation and a growing tendency to shift more risks onto them.

In this demanding and ever-changing environment, characterised by complexity and uncertainty, companies must adopt a proactive approach that combines performance, adaptability, and the ability to make commitments across multiple areas: financial, environmental, operational excellence, ethics, and more.

Faced with these challenges, Isabelle asserts that ethics serve as a vital compass, helping companies stay on course and guiding their decisions. She also champions the strategic role of the legal department, which must maintain a clear-eyed and critical perspective in order to: help the company anticipate the growing risks it faces; and provide meaningful support to senior management and teams regularly confronted with crises.