Jean-Michel Con­damin, who grad­u­at­ed from UTC, major­ing in Process Engi­neer­ing (UTC-GP), is cur­rent­ly the Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer for the Cab­in & Struc­tures Seg­ment for the Zodi­ac Aero­space Group, with its 56 fac­to­ry sites and just over 15 000 per­son­nel spread round the world. His suc­cess sto­ry is the fruit of a rich track-record where he was able to prove his pos­ses­sion of man­age­r­i­al and strate­gic pol­i­cy skills, in addi­tion to his tech­nol­o­gy-inten­sive acu­men and know-how. 

“It was the close links with the indus­tri­al world and the strong inno­va­tion & research pol­i­cy thrust at UTC that large­ly enriched my years of study there” recalls our 53 year old senior man­ag­er, who has sev­er­al thou­sand per­son­nel report­ing to him. Whilst mak­ing the most of the high qual­i­ty teach­ing he enjoyed at UTC, Jean-Michel also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the UTC Junior Enter­prise to apply new­ly acquired skills and knowl­edge pro­fes­sion­al­ly. The bal­ance struck between seri­ous engi­neer­ing stud­ies and a rich stu­dent asso­ci­a­tion world, with its numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties, are among the high­ly pos­i­tive fea­tures he remem­bers from his years at Com­pieg­ne. He was, for exam­ple, Pres­i­dent of the UTC Under­grads’ Gala in 1989. Dur­ing his UTC stud­ies, his intern­ship at the Yves ‑Saint-Lau­rent, Las­signy site allowed Jean-Michel to com­bine a pas­sion for elec­tron­ics, com­put­er sci­ences and chem­istry. Dur­ing these 6 months in the world of lux­u­ry goods, he took part in the imple­men­ta­tion of an auto­mat­ed analy­sis set-up based on chro­matog­ra­phy to improve qual­i­ty assess­ment (QA) and to reduce needs for resources: 

“The organ­ic mol­e­cules used in per­fumes are very com­plex and can led to cre­ation of unwant­ed by-prod­ucts. The chal­lenge con­sist­ed of facil­i­tat­ing indus­tri­al stan­dard­iza­tion and reas­sign­ment of per­son­nel to tasks that car­ry bet­ter added val­ue”. After grad­u­a­tion, Jean-Michel was offered a first job in research with Rhône — Poulenc in its British site. It was here that he improved his knowl­edge and flu­en­cy in Eng­lish and his appre­ci­a­tion of Anglo-Sax­on cul­ture. It was a strate­gic move that aid off a few years lat­er when he was recruit­ed by the giant US oil com­pa­ny Exxon. “My ‘GB’ expe­ri­ence allowed me to adapt very quick­ly to the Exxon com­pa­ny unit in France and to com­mu­ni­cate eas­i­ly with expe­ri­enced man­age­r­i­al staff, most­ly US expa­tri­ates”. He learned a lot dur­ing these 4 years at the Nor­mandy unit, based at Notre-Dame de Graven­chon. His direct access to the cor­po­rate hier­ar­chy and objec­tive-dri­ven man­age­ment enabled the Frenchie to hold his rank and posi­tion well. After prov­ing his tal­ents in the field, he was then offered strate­gic respon­si­bil­i­ties at the Exxon Euro­pean HQ in Brussels. 

“My job con­sists of facil­i­tat­ing the dis­sem­i­na­tion, in appro­pri­ate terms and ways, of HQ pol­i­cy ori­en­ta­tions to the 24 Euro­pean sites”. This was a func­tion that made him become a mem­ber of the Group’s world man­age­ment net­work, car­ry­ing out numer­ous pro­fes­sion­al vis­its and trips over the entire Euro­pean continent. 

Technological know-how, strategy and human contacts

Inas­much as he want­ed, now aged 35, to widen his hori­zon to take on more inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ties, Jean-Michel aimed at direct­ing a fac­to­ry unit. The plas­tic engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny Alfa­pac (lat­er renamed the Sphere Group – invit­ed him to direct their bench-mark­ing site at Luner­ay, near Dieppe. Draw­ing on his expe­ri­ence with a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny, he suc­ceed­ed in increas­ing the com­pa­ny turn over by 50% in a lit­tle less than 3 years. The Board mem­bers than asked him to save their Czech Repub­lic fac­to­ry which had been accu­mu­lat­ing poor returns and was sub­ject to numer­ous plant break­downs. This mis­sion too as a suc­cess, both in terms of man­pow­er ques­tions and tech­ni­cal improve­ments. Dur­ing the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis, the Sphere Group had to repa­tri­ate Czech-made goods back to France to avoid mas­sive per­son­nel reduc­tion. Jean-Michel Con­damin assumed the per­son­al task of help­ing rede­ploy­ment of most of his salaried Czech work­ers to oth­er local com­pa­nies. The fac­to­ry site was then sold and the pro­duc­tion tools were brought back to France. This was some­thing of inter­est to the Zodi­ac Group who recruit­ed him in 2009. “At the time I was total­ly igno­rant of the aero­space sec­tor but for­tu­nate­ly my knowl­edge of indus­tri­al process­es is some­thing that runs trans­verse in essence to all indus­tri­al activ­i­ties”. He was giv­en the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the aero­space equip­ment mak­er Driessen Gal­leys based both in the Czech Repub­lic and in the Nether­lands, a com­pa­ny recent­ly acquired by the Zodi­ac Aero­space Group. Jean-Michel suc­ceed­ed in restor­ing the con­fi­dence of the company’s per­son­nel, saved it finan­cial­ly and, more­over, signed a superb con­tract with Air­bus Indus­tries, amount­ing to 1 bil­lion euros, two years lat­er. In 2012, he was giv­en the respon­si­bil­i­ty for a com­plete seg­ment, with its 4800 per­son­nel before being appoint­ed to the role of COO (Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer) in the Zodi­ac Group’s Cab­in & Struc­tures Seg­ment In 2015. His new func­tions, how­ev­er, do not stop him from going into the field’ reg­u­lar­ly. “Even if the pure­ly tech­ni­cal issues are no longer my main areas for con­cern on a day-to-day basis, deep down I remain an ‘indus­tri­al man’ ”. Indeed, our high-fly­ing, senior man­ag­er Con­damin has an acute sense and aware­ness of human con­tacts, which togeth­er with the rea­son­ing of an engi­neer, rep­re­sent qual­i­ties pri­mor­dial to the job.n

Bio notes

1992 — 2000 Exxon: Pro­duc­tion Engi­neer, NCS Europe planner 

2000 — 2009 Group Sphere: Fac­to­ry Gen­er­al Man­ag­er at Luner­ay and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor for the Czech Repub­lic 2009 — 2012 Group Zodi­ac Aerospace: 

Man­ag­ing Direc­tor for Driessen Gal­leys in the Czech Repub­lic and the Nether­lands, CEO of Seg­ment Gal­leys & Equipment, 

2012 – Cur­rent­ly with Group Zodi­ac Aero­space: Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer (COO) of the Cab­in & Struc­tures Divi­sion, mem­ber of the Group’s Exec­u­tive Board