Riboud is no more. Chairman and chief executive officer of Schlumberger for the past 20 years, he died on 20 October, 1985, at the age of 65. But "the Schlumberger spirit"—a sense of shared values, a common culture that unites people—lives on.
The son of a banker from Lyon, France, he joined the Resistance during World War II, was captured and sent to Buchenwald. Riboud once said: "In the presence of death there are the ones who fight and the ones who give up." Jean Riboud fought till the end and Schlumberger ' is his legacy. After the War, Riboud went to New York to, try his fortune. He was a skilled financier, but it was his personal qualities that caught the attention of one of the founders, Marcel Schlumberger, of the company. In May 1951, Riboud became Marcel Schlumberger's assistant, eagerly learning from the rigorous taskmaster. Front then on, Riboud never looked back. In 1965, he became president and chief executive of the Schlumberger Empire. Over the next 20 years, while the charismatic Riboud was at the helm, the revenue of the company grew 20 times, net income multiplied 44 times and the value of a Schlumberger share went up 35 times.
For Jean Riboud, Schlumberger was a marriage of private and public belief. Even in his public life, he did not compromise his convictions: that the company came first, that people mattered and that the truth was the key to leadership. He was not a nationalist seeking to impose his vision on other nations, but considered the company a vehicle to assist Third World nations. Riboud, posthumously awarded the Padmabhusan on 2nd January, 1986, by the government of India, was proud that one-third of his employees came from the non-developed world.
He disliked complacency and transferred executives when he thought they were becoming too comfortable. He rewarded independent thinking, and infused Schlumberger with a sense of freedom. To him each employee was equally important. His team comprised talented, but restless, men and women who, like him, challenged conventions and were driven by an urge for' perfection.
What is the business of Schlumberger? Firstly, it is an oilfield services company bringing technology to the oil industry - anytime, anywhere. Schlumberger is also an electronics company. The business environment of 1985 was a difficult one for Schlumberger. The oil industry, especially in the United States and the OPEC countries, was thrown into disarray: it was plagued by oversupply, expectation of so oil price decline, excessive debt after restructuring and difficulty in securing financing. The semi-conductor industry was passing through the worst recession since is origin. But crises had their value: they helped Schlumberger become stronger and better. After Riboud's death, the control of the company has passed; into the hands of Michel Vaillaud; who assuredly says: "Nothing worthwhile is easy and we are fighting...we have the best people, the imagination, the courage and the patience." We hope that under his firm hand Schluemberger will continue translating Riboud's vision into reality.