Women who make TV – Marie-Philippe Bouchard: place for female leadership
Marie-Philippe Bouchard is now CEO of the TV5 channel.
After a career spanning more than 35 years – including 29 with Radio Canada – Marie-Philippe Bouchard is now at the head of TV5, a channel that promotes the Francophonie in Canada and abroad. international. Throughout her career, she has been able to seize opportunities and create her own style of feminine leadership based on a collaborative approach where everyone has their place.
In 1987, Marie-Philippe Bouchard had just completed her law studies. She specialized in communications law and is delighted to join the legal department of Radio-Canada in Ottawa.
For 11 years, she worked in close collaboration with journalists before also falling into the pot by becoming director of general affairs at the French-language television service, then editor-in-chief for Le Téléjournalin the early 2000s when Bernard Derome was in office. Subsequently, she continued her ascent to lead strategic planning before becoming general manager of music and digital services, a position she left in 2016 to take on new challenges as CEO of TV5.
From these 29 years spent in the great house of Radio-Canada, she takes great pride, in particular for having largely contributed to “the overhaul of Radio-Canada's Journalistic Standards and Practices in 2010, at the launch of the Extra component of ICI.Tou. tv in 2012, and the preservation of the ICI Musique radio station when major budget cuts threatened its existence,” she says.
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Encouraging diversity
Even if management positions were more rarely held by women 15 or 20 years ago, Marie-Philippe Bouchard does not feel like she had to break down doors that had never been opened.   ;
“I was lucky to have inspiring role models of women leaders who had set precedents, like Michèle Fortin [ex-PDG de Télé-Québec], she says. I believe that, on the contrary, there was a change in philosophy in the management models that was taking place and several women had already taken decision-making positions.”
It is moreover with her management style, which the president of TV5 believes has had the most positive impact in terms of diversity.
Without wishing to fall into clichés, I believe that leadership feminine can be more resilient, more collaborative, moving away from the idea that it is by crushing others that we succeed. This is also the approach I had when I arrived at TV5: I didn't want us to be perceived as a competitor, but as a media complementary to other channels and open to collaboration.
Marie-Philippe Bouchard
Grateful to the women and men who have allowed her to find a place for herself, Marie-Philippe Bouchard in turn makes sure to welcome diversity within her teams. . According to her, this approach is essential to make content more relevant.
“I believe that women are open to making more room for diversity because they are aware of what it means. There must be people from diverse backgrounds around the table to show different realities and pull society even more towards inclusion,” she summarizes.
And c&rsquo ;is on this benevolent, agile and inclusive philosophy that the chain’s corporate culture is based, a culture that it considers today as its greatest achievement and its greatest pride.
