Interview with graduates

Promotion 2001
Double-degree ESME-Sudria General Engineering / Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh

« You had to follow lectures in a foreign language ? From day one ? You lived like an expatriate ? You were parachuted without a parachute!

I heard these phrases at each job interview. We would discuss the school a bit, talk a little about my training periods, and then, for the rest of the interview, mostly about my experience abroad.

I had interviews to integrate different sectors, and finally decided to get into investment banking. I saw many advantages and poles of interest : I do data processing, so use my initial formation. Now I am learning about financial aspects that have always interested me. English is my working language, (it was only after a very difficult test of advanced English that I was selected, which I would never have passed without the year of total immersion in English during my studies). To conclude, my year in Edinburgh was very enriching, and gave me a double degree, an excellent knowledge of the English language, friends all over the world, (the campus was very cosmopolitan), and a profession that I love ! »

Promotion 1983
Consultant, Project Manager - BMIA

« I began my career as an engineer as a Field Engineer in Venezuela, with Schlumberger Wireline, subsidiary specialized in on shore and off shore petrol prospecting. After three years I was appointed Base Manager in Equator, in charge of follow-up of the local clients, team management and on-site measures and interpretation.

I returned to France to establish, with two partners, (one of whom was an ex-ESME) a service enterprise specialized in Automatism and Industrial Electricity applied to galvanoplast and treatment of surfaces. As a manager, I was in charge of the management and realisation of automatism and industrial technology projects. This enterprise expanded and we set up a branch in province. I was the initiator and designer of different projects realised by the company in the fields of industrial technology and applied mechanics (specialised in handling machines). When the enterprise was taken over by a group eight years later, I became Head of Engineering Services responsible for the installation of non-destructive controls, and treatment of *effluents for two years.

Since then, I have become an independent advisor to large industrial groups and civilian engineering as a control expert for different procedures, (water treatment, networks, etc.) in national and international projects. Over the last three years I have specialized in road tunnels as a conceptor of the command controls and necessary supervision for the exploitation. I also intervene as advisor for software design, test platforms and start-up. »

Promotion 1987
Export engineer - Alstom Power

« After a first experience of six years with Cegelec, as an industrial technologies software engineer applied to electricity power stations, and energy transportation networks, I reoriented towards business engineering in 1994. With three other ESME engineers, we participated in the modernisation and computerisation of the electricity transportation network of the Indonesian Islands Bali and Java, as well as various other Middle East projects, (National Dispatching in the Emirate Qatar in 1996) and in South-east Asia.

In 1998, I joined Alstom Power Hydraulics for the renovation of hydraulic energy production plants in Ukraine. Since 2000, still in the field of hydraulic energies, I have taken on managerial responsibilities, in sales and marketing, in the framework of setting up projects for export to China, Korea, Brazil, Cameroon, India and Mexico.

My daily tasks include coordinating international teams of engineers, lawyers, financers, quality control experts, and insurance, transport, logistic experts.

The ESME-Sudria enabled me to acquire solid bases in general engineering, (especially in the fields of electrical engineering and data processing) and an approach both methodical and pragmatic towards all industrial subjects. I could thus advance successfully in the realisation of big international projects »

ESME 1971 - ESSEC 1973
Associate Director - CLESYS

« A business degree after the ESME-Sudria general engineering degree opens all doors!

1 - General technical sales position (for five years) : sales of Alphajet motors to the Snecma, French and German armies, forge and metal parts (or "from electronics to metallurgy"), nuclear submarine ballistic missiles to the Navy

2 - Managing sales teams (four years) within a small family business in the Sarthe manufacturing brass and copper amalgam bars

3 - Developed a global start-up in the hi-tech field of active magnetic bearings for compressors, turbines, alternators, motors, vacuum pumps, etc.

4 - Became General Director of a small enterprise in Brittany which studies and manufactures automatic handling facilities.

5 - Finally, for the last seven years, Associate Director of a micro-enterprise of human resources counselling specializing in direct approach executive recruitment. »

Promotion 1980
International Business
Advisor on French Foreign Trade

« After starting my career as a survey engineer in France, I went to Switzerland to take up a marketing position, and then managed the business side on a global scale. I continued in this direction in four companies, from small businesses to multinational firms, in the field of industrial high technologies, including embedded electronics and aeronautics.

At the present time, I am in charge of the international development of the Leclanché Group, specialized in electrical energy storage.
In 1990, I was appointed by official decree, simultaneous to my professional activities, as an advisor on French Foreign Trade.
I obtained from the ESME an excellent basic formation, perfectly adapted to the market needs, which developed the qualities of adaptation in the industrial environment that have characterised my career. »

Promotion 1976
Manager of the Organisation Sector at Société générale

« With a formation as an Electrical Engineering, I am now in banking! At first sight, a strange career path. How did I get here? It was very simple. After graduating, during my military service, I studied data processing. I then spent four years with Schlumberger in industrial automatism. First I worked in sales of equipment to add a commercial dimension to my scientific training, then I became product manager.

One day the light dawned. Yes, why not computer science? My training was solid, and I had gained a lot of valuable experience during my military service. And why not in a bank? A generalist training enables one to easily transpose problems and their solutions to other environments.

Today, I no longer work in data processing, but I still use the scientific form of reasoning in the Management Advisory sector in an internal division of the Société Générale. A generalist formation enables one to adapt quite happily to all environments. »

Promotion 1978
Quality Control Manager - Project Manager - LOUIS DREYFUS TRAVOCEAN

« With my degree as a mechanical and electrical engineer completed by a formation in metallurgy and welding, I rapidly integrated the submarine off-shore works operations because at that time, (1979!) I simply could not imagine working in the closed environment of a research group, or a conventional plant.

This career start as a welding engineer joining of submerged pipelines and repairing off-shore structures through different high or atmospheric pressure, electrical bow welding procedures was the only direct connection to the electricity or electronics I had studied at the ESME-Sudria.

The very special organization of practical work in this domain enabled me to find my affinity for running project teams and technical business management in an international context. I therefore progressively abandoned my position as a specialized expert to continue as a generalist engineer, then Project Manager, where the large range of activities, such as getting the contracts, negotiating and realizing the projects, the possibility of A to Z follow-up in all the dimensions (sales, technical, economic, legal, human polycultural, etc.) have always been a real source of motivation to constantly go further and a guarantee of sustained professional interest.

In 1995, these achievements were crowned by an additional academic certification in Management at the CPA. Finally, the preparation and acquisition of an ISO 9001 certification for a system of quality management for a services engineering company specializing in the installation and maintenance of submarine power and telecommunications interconnection networks, meant that I had sufficiently satisfied my professional curiosity in most sectors, and acquired a transversal vision valid in its application.

I remain convinced that this unusual career path for an engineer was largely helped by the polyvalence and a certain scientific curiosity acquired and cultivated very early, at the ESME-Sudria. »