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Episode 14

The 1000-Day CEO · Interview

The Deal Is the Easy Part: Christophe Piron on M&A Integration

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The short version

Christophe Piron has worked M&A from origination through execution and integration — by his count on this episode, 23 deals totalling €2.3 billion. He is the former CEO of Bihr, the European powersports parts and rider-gear distributor he grew from a French market leader into a pan-European business, doubling revenue from roughly €110 million to €220 million before negotiating its sale to Arrowhead Engineered Products — the deal that first put him and Bill Canady in the same room.

The conversation is about everything that happens after the signature. Piron’s opening claim sets the tone: no two deals are alike, and the smallest acquisitions are the hardest to integrate, because a small company has no middle-management bench to carry the work. From there they work through the parts of a deal that decide whether it earns its price — how advisors become the obstacle and how a dinner unblocks what a data room cannot; when to impose one system and when to leave a business alone; why an earnout sets the seller against the synergies.

The hardest lesson arrives as a confessed failure: a €40 million German acquisition where a well-liked CEO quietly stopped integrating, then admitted the money had changed his life and the job no longer made sense. Piron’s rule since — if he cannot see a credible number two, he does not do the deal.

Four takeaways

  1. The small deals are the hard ones. A large acquisition arrives with a management layer that can absorb the integration work. A small one does not — you end up doing your piece and their piece, and the ticket size is no guide to the difficulty.
  2. Get the seller a level up, not an earnout. An earnout pays the seller to resist every synergy that touches his numbers. Move the seller and the key people into the group’s equity a level higher and they become the first actors for synergies instead of the first objectors.
  3. No credible number two, no deal. Selling changes a founder’s life, and some of them discover on the far side that the job no longer motivates them. Piron now underwrites the succession before he underwrites the business.
  4. You would rather miss a good deal than make a bad one. Losing a competitive auction bruised Piron’s ego and made him too fast on the next target. He names that as his key learning — and Bill’s version is blunter: the most money he has ever made came from deals he did not do.

“If I have a little doubt about the possibility to have a number two — inside or outside the company — then I don’t do the deal.”

— Christophe Piron, former CEO, Bihr

Full transcript

[00:00] Welcome everyone. It’s Bill Canady with The 1000-Day CEO. Today we are honored to have Christophe Piron, a European CEO, CFO, and M&A leader. As a CEO of Bihr, Christophe helped turn the company from a French market leader into a European powerhouse, doubling revenue 220 million uh euros and quadrupling operating profits. He led acquisitions across the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, unified the business under one management technology platform, ultimately negotiating Bihr’s sale to Arrowhead Engineered Products. That’s where I came in. That’s where we got to know each other. He went to Ecostal Group raising €100 million there and completing three cross-border acquisitions as part of his expansion from Belgium into a pan European renewable energies platform. uh today he is founder and CEO of Canbelis and serves as interimm CFO of EVS Broadcast Equipment. How you doing? >> I’m very well yourselves, Bill. >> Well, listen, it’s fantastic for you to be here. You have sat in so many different roles. Uh you’ve been the CEO, CFO, you’ve led integrations, you’ve done it around the world. you know, talk to us a little bit about what that looks and feels like and the challenges that you’ve had to deal with. >> It’s true. actually have worked from origination to execution integration on 23 deals for a total of 2.3 billion and I can tell you there is no deal which are equivalent to the other and strangely enough I think that the smallest one were the more the most difficult in integration >> find that same thing the smaller is harder you got to do your piece and their piece >> and their piece and when you the acquisition is done you don’t have the size the management size to integrate on the acquisition part so actually now

[02:02] when I see businesses willing to acquire small companies I tend to be reluctant and uh and tell them you know what you’re probably underestimating the fact that there is no middle management enough in small companies in order to uh to lead the the integration and that makes It’s bloody complex. And that actually uh was true. The biggest one, okay, fine. The ticket was uh much more much bigger, but in the end much easier to put in the company. That is so true. You know, it’s funny. I I’ll go do a small deal. We like buying products and things. You you know about that. And And so the person you’re going to buy it from, we’ll just say the guy. So you meet his attorney. It’s his divorce attorney. You meet his accountant, the guy that does his taxes. So, no one has any deal experience, and you wind up finding that you have to close their books for them in many cases. You have to show them uh the deal piece. And then some of their advisors want to prove their worth and they actually can kill deals, right? Instead of getting through it and and and and being kind of good partners, it’s hard. How how do you handle it? >> Well, actually, you made a very good point. I mean many times the advisors are a pain an additional hurdle to to the success and getting personal relationship with the buyer or the seller is absolutely essential. First to really understand what drives them, what drives the sale, what drives the acquisition, what drives the reason. And once you understand them, I mean the negotiation becomes much easier because sometimes you know the advisor are are focusing on on steps which are absolutely not important to the to the principles and they’re they’re making it’s just additional eros and a number of times where I said if you want this deal to continue you know what you and I

[04:05] we will go outside together we will have a good a good dinner. We will have an afternoon together and we will try to understand what blocks and it takes no more than two hours most of the time to unlock the deal and then you have a a handshake and then we go back to our adviserss to tell them okay this is what we want and that’s it and it works perfectly. It’s so well said you know the the issue it’s just factual is the lack of trust. You don’t know them, they don’t know you. They feel like you may be taking advantage of them, but you know, the honest piece is this may be the one deal they do in their whole career and we can’t afford to have our reputation sullied by doing anything than than right down the middle of the road. But they don’t know that about us. And so taking that time uh uh to get to uh know them, taking that time they can see inviting them in, helping them talk to other people we’ve done deals with can really make a big difference in that. So that that’s to me it’s essential and and also you know sometimes you see people blocking on on certain aspects of the deal which you simply don’t get and then by just discussing by just understanding their their needs sometimes you propose something a bit different which is absolutely neutral to you I mean it’s no better no worse than the other proposition and it’s done and that’s really and that also creates the the trust to continue to work together afterwards. And to me, that’s that’s absolutely essential. >> I really agree with that. Um, you need the owners and the key leadership. You like for them to stay forever. It’s not always the case. When do you find that as an acquirer, it’s important to start imposing one system. You know, you get them integrated into your platform, one culture, one operating cadence, right? When when should you do it and when should you lose leave the business alone?

[06:06] when the companies I I worked for were really willing to acquire a business which is totally equivalent you know same thing somewhere else or uh same thing same place then it makes sense because suddenly you know you will see your working capital more clearly so your inventories all your stuffs and it’s become much easier to manage and to drive synergies that’s number one Um when did I leave it alone? When you know it’s a diversification type of business. Let them run, let them go, let them develop. Give them the means to grow but uh don’t force you know a system which is not uh probably applicable to the to the way they work and try to understand them. Try to to get the best out of it but let them grow. I’d like to talk about a failure I had. It’s a company we acquired in in Germany. Sizable I mean uh sizable everything is relative but still 40 40 million business. Okay. uh ex outstanding contact with the CEO, outstanding and uh very very very nice guy and we worked together for a year and he was actually blocking the integration while it had to be so and at some point after a year we go for dinner together and said you know Christophe I’m tired I’d like to leave uh it doesn’t work I said I agree it doesn’t work or teams do not you you know talk together it doesn’t work well but very nice conversation nothing I mean we got along well as human beings so we agreed he would leave and then I asked him but what happened you were so motivated during the deal and he told me you know Christophe when I was CEO of that company I didn’t have cash and I didn’t realize

[08:06] that at the moment I would sell I had this type of amount of money on my bank account and now my life is changed and frankly speaking waking up in the morning to do what I used to do in the past doesn’t make any sense and I cannot motivate myself and I thought that that was very honest from him and that’s something I’m checking all the time now when we acquiring a company is does it change the life of the person and is this person ready to continue under those new circumstance senses and and that person in particular he said you know I simply want to sail now I want to go on an island sail and I will be happy and that’s respectable I mean the guy has worked a lot he does the stuff and he and he apologized and he said I truly apologize I didn’t expect to feel that way and I think it was really sincere but that’s to me that was an eye openener to okay pay attention to what’s next for that person what does he planned to do with the cash he got, how how will he react, how do we prepare succession because that may come in any case. So, but that’s to us was a failure because we we struggled afterwards to find the number two and to ensure the succession of that uh of that business. You know that is so insightful and every founder le or every private company I should say that I have bought uh the culture before was they were frugal and so they led a certain life even though they had this massive asset everything was tied up in it and so their life was pretty normal. And now all of a sudden they’re made uh wealthy uh wealthy beyond their wildest dreams and it was a small company very very profitable and we paid $112 million for the business. So how do you plan for that? What do you do? What do you look

[10:08] for first? Now I try to avoid that situation and and make sure that there is a very strong number too. >> That’s the key. >> So that’s because you cannot control it. You know, some people are just workaholics and they will continue anyway. But not everyone is like that. >> Not everyone’s there. >> And >> and sometimes the workaholics, you don’t mind if they kind of retire anyway. You you need to get the company into your culture. >> That’s true. Because you you you tend to have a problem to take the control on those companies. The point is make sure you have a strong number two or make sure within the company already or make sure that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find someone who can lead that business quickly and pass the baton, you know, in a in a very friendly way with the with the existing owner. To me, that’s essential. But if I have a little doubt about this, the possibility to have a number two inside or outside the company, then I don’t do the deal. >> In most private equity businesses, we like buying private uh founder companies. There’s a lot we can do with them and professionalizing them and putting them into our system. But I count today on 100% of the people lead. And I look very carefully at that number too. What is the capability? So, we’ll spend time with the founder for all the obvious reasons, but we’ll spend an unusually amount of time with whoever we think their successor is, getting them a good contract where they feel comfortable, getting them into our culture. Uh, what do you do about the other pieces of it though? What do you do about like the systems and and the back office stuff? Because most of the deals we do, we depend on the synergies. In other words, the cost out or the go faster pieces. >> How how do you push that in? First, the first thing I try to do is making sure the companies we acquire,

[12:10] the the actually the sellers are reinvesting in our business. So, one level above. Why do I prefer that over earnout? It’s simply because they will be the first actors for synergies, >> you know. uh I really tend to bring them up front otherwise it will always be a discussion ah yes but if you implement this it will uh it will be a burden for us it will we will have additional cost so I don’t want that because my earnout won’t be good because this and that so the first thing is bring them a level higher a level higher in the in the or so so that uh we have them fully aligned with the the value creation for the group and not for themselves. So that’s number one. And we tend to do that with the the key people. So not only the the CEO and the seller, but the key people. So everyone within the acquired organization so that they’re not thinking about their own piece, but they’re thinking about the group. If you have that, it becomes much more easy to have the people thinking about, okay, what really makes sense, you know, and if they find that putting an an ERP, putting the stock, the inventory together, sharing the clients list, you know, doing normal integration type of things, everything becomes easier because you’re just aligning the incentives of everyone who is in the organ. organization to the inter to the the organization’s interests and to me that’s really something I push and if we do that you know we think together I’m not the type of person who thinks okay we need to take uh the holding or the groups uh ERP system at all cost because we we have already done that I prefer having you know people thinking all over the the place about what truly makes

[14:11] sense for the group and uh if there is a better tool M at the acquired company, let’s use that. If it’s better somewhere else, let’s you let’s use it. But so that they are all thinking not about protecting their own kingdom, but really thinking about the interest of uh the new group. >> Earnout is another uh uh language for saying you’re going to get sued, right? because you you you put it in and then if you uh want to integrate the businesses, which we typically have to if we’re going to be successful, >> they’re going to it’s not going to go as well. They’re going to injure their earn out uh because the resources are are diverted. Is there one place you tend to focus more than other? Are there there certain levers you pull that you feel you can count on to produce results? uh depends on the type of business but in general I will start with finance to make sure that I have the good dashboard and the facts and figures to be able to manage the company not on feelings but on on hard facts. So certainly started at that by that >> and depending on the type of of businesses but I would say I’ve done 80% of my career in in wholesale. So there operations, inventories, you know, all those stuffs where it’s it’s thin margins. So being extremely efficient there truly make the difference. and and often in working capital there’s a hell of a lot of money to uh to bring back quick to the shareholders that that’s most often where if you’re really fast in in in slimming the working capital I know you’re a big fan of the of the 8020 uh but but uh that that’s really it. making sure that you you spend your time on the most important clients that you stop with slow uh slow turning uh assets these type of things and there is a hell of a lot of money to uh to be uh brought

[16:11] back to the to the shareholders and super quickly in the end it’s a matter of few months so that’s where I >> I agree the two things that flow through the quickest uh is pricing if you can look at your pricing and get it correct you can drive growth and and probably and the second one is you got stacks of cash sitting on those shelves and all those warehouses no one’s looking at. How do you get those out? How do you monetize them? Because not only do you get the money for it, you also don’t have to continue to carry the cost of maybe you don’t need that warehouse anymore. Some of this inventory ages out either becomes unusable or the market just moves on to it. Is there something else that you really pay a lot of attention to that that you find is is pretty important? Um obviously culture I tend to you know test it before the deal because there I mean changing culture is something extremely complex. >> Yeah. uh when we work together by the way that’s a good uh that was one of the trick and that’s was one also one of the reason why I left by the way uh working for me was miserable that’s why we used to work for a family business where yeah the time horizon is extremely long so I was leading that company leading Bihr for four five years I think with time horizons which are obviously much longer than what Arrowhead because owned by a private equity owner and the choices to be made were naturally totally different and the reason why I left not because I disagreed with those choices but I found it extremely difficult to explain to a team where you told them this is where the north is and obviously the north is not at the same place when you have a shorter time horizon right I simply thought well you know what I might not be the right guy to to to lead with such a quick change of time horizon. It was nothing more, nothing less than that.

[18:12] But I think that’s very important and that’s part of you know the time horizon is also part of the of the culture because that’s the culture of the company the speed at which at which it works and what you you tend to focus on the KPIs you’re focusing on and that’s by nature not the same and that was that was to me something I clearly pay attention to but I would say it’s even before the deal. It’s a really insightful point is when you go through a transition from a privately held business, the culture changes dramatically. Speed changes, what we look at changes, how we treat those things changes and uh you know besides a very few people at the top, no one else in that business made that decision to go with it. And uh and they don’t all want to make that journey. So keeping that team together, keeping those people together and showing them what’s in it for them and why this is good. Speed changes dramatically. >> Speed changes. >> Yeah, exactly. That’s the time horizon. >> So hence the name of the thousand days and it takes a while, you know, to get systems in, get the people stabilized, allow integrations to happen. That doesn’t happen overnight. About 70% of the CEOs who come in for this, they don’t make it. And uh and so it’s this ability to build a team, understand what your partners and the board and your LPs want and keep that team together. >> Yes. >> How have you how have you made that work through your career? I mean, you’ve had an extraordinary amount of success. Well, as I said, when you are in a situation where the entire team is already uh structured around that time horizon, you know, for the moment I have the shortest possible time uh time horizon um it’s simply adapting to that and I think the style, the level of decisions, um the the dynamics you simply need to to adapt, you know, um you’re working

[20:15] for a privately owned but really private private a family of so own company about the next crisis it won’t change what’s important to them is most of the time will my son my grandson and so on be able to live on the on the dividends as you said so there is a crisis they don’t care they will still do the investment right because that’s >> as long as they’re not going to injure their family >> mater they’ll go with it. It is uh critical. On the opposite side of that, it also allows complacency to come in. It allows it to be a little more comfortable. You don’t run it as lean. And that’s why private equity loves buying those companies because there’s a lot of fat in there that you can trim out that the business will be leaner. It’ll grow faster. It’ll push into areas that normally it wouldn’t do. It’s actually easier to be a CEO coming from outside the company when the the P is just B. Why? Because he will be the the person giving the tempo, you know, the new tempo and you can adapt. I mean, if your employer is a PE, okay, you will go you have this seven years or 5 years horizon, you go full speed. There’s no discussion. I mean you know that anyway you’re fully supported by by the P investor and that’s his expectations and you simply I think as a CEO you’re a professional manager you simply have to adapt to your employer your employer is the shoulder right >> absolutely that’s a it’s simple your boss is one company one one person whoever you’re reporting to there >> you just focus on that and you know the levers and you execute the levers it’s as simple as that >> absolutely and and and it’s even more true on the on the stock market. >> So, when you’re going through this and you’re building these companies up and you’ve bought a lot and put them together, what’s the earliest signs of your buy and build strategy in your platform? It’s really becoming a collection of companies versus a a truly

[22:17] integrated system. How how do you how do you notice that? What do you do about it? If anything, I can talk about a couple of them. The first one I became CEO and there was already two three companies within it with clearly I mean they were clearly uh working separately >> to a point that they were competing each other. >> Mhm. >> Right. I mean uh one company uh was uh discounting to clients of the other while they were in the same group literally. Yeah. >> I see that. That’s so true. >> It was it was just unbelievable. You just looked at the list of clients and then you see why why did you come here? I guess because uh our sister company is making good money with them. Do you realize that you’re actually uh jeopardizing their own business and cannibalizing that business and and at what cost? It’s lower margins. You we’re just killing the killing on own food. So you stop you stuck by that. You stop. Okay, fine. Suddenly the margins come up. You haven’t done anything but just prevent them to work together. Then it’s organization it’s one clear leadership you know uh cross border cross entities once this is done you can make the decision about the system to me organization good governance within the group management governance so that you have full alignment and then you can deliver I would say roll out the system the processes and so on and it’s just faster to uh to put and the SER to put in place. >> Interesting. You’re talking about companies competing against others. They don’t always have to be it can be just different divisions. And uh as the parent organization, it’s all the same ledger, right? And so we want to win and we want to win successfully. When you buy competitors in the same field, they’re used to trying to kill each

[24:18] other and now their their brothers are families in arms about doing it. You gave the example of competitors that that’s Can you imagine? They’ve been trained for years to beat the others. Why would they stop? >> It’s in the DNA. So, it’s a hell of a lot of work. You have to start by the organization by one boss, one stuff so that they’re all looking at the same sun. you know uh when you were at Ecostal you pursued a kind of a seven to eightfold uh growth ambition and you did pretty quickly three acquisitions. Did you experience any of these issues there? M uh it was it was quite interesting because we had to raise a lot of money uh in parallel a lot again relative to the size of the company everything is relative um it was fast it was reasonably fast uh because we were it was really a buy and build but on non-competing entities and since all entities of the group saw the interest of becoming bigger for purchase. I mean we entered into an over capacity business right I mean the solar panels is it’s over capacity worldwide so you see the the prices going down very quickly so the purchasing capacity the purchasing power of the group was super attractive for everyone so that was extremely easy to put all those guys together I mean they were sizable businesses but they all said you know we’re not sizable enough to to survive to to this worldwide over capacity So we need to to grow grow fast. In 18 months the prices were divided by three. So you better sell fast. >> Yeah. It better sell fast. If you if you only had a,000 days today to go build a company for a premium X, what would you

[26:20] standardize that first 100 days? What are you going to focus on to make this the best outcome possible? I think I had that discussion no later than today with with with someone who has become CEO and and asked my my opinion. I said first take your 100 days to to get you know a grip on the on the figures and then when you’re building your strategy you know when there is a tsunami you have two things to do. Either you take your surfboard and you serve the tsunami or you’re playing the big boy and you try to hit it in front. And you know what? Hitting it in front, it never works, right? You die. >> That’s a great analogy. >> And I said, you know what? Look at the mega trends. Look at the mega trends within your business and adapt your business. And that’s an example for Bihr. We grew it. You told it. We doubled the the size. We had plenty of failures. Obviously when you run a business there are things that works well and others that do not. But one stuff that worked well was rider gear. Rider gear was a two three million business when I entered and 40 million 3 years and a half afterwards. Why? Because the the the the mega trends were in Europe uh electric driving, electric mobility, that was safety, you know, the EU who doesn’t stop putting regulations in all sense in order to protect everyone from whatever they do. So that was obvious, you know, it’s looking at a few a few mega trends and then you select what you do and you focus on really being excellent on this and stop what you’re not good at or not brilliant at so that you free up capital in order to be able to invest in businesses where you will take your surfboard. you know because you know that whatever you do

[28:21] you will always have a regulation that will come up and that will help you you know can be an additional protection system that they want to to put in I don’t know in some countries they’re not they’re obliged to uh to ride with gloves with stuffs but it’s not the case everywhere it was not the case everywhere in Europe and the only thing that happened is adding those regulations everywhere and for us it was additional markets and we were ready because we had the goods right so I take that example But it it’s true for any business. Really think about, okay, where will we be held from really the long-term perspective? Focus and be excellent on that. Stop what you’re not excellent at or where you you see it’s going to be it’s going to be tough because the market is going down, declining like hell. You sell it. You free up capital and you invest where you’re supposed to be good at and you invest to be better at what what goes in the right direction. I agree. So how do you decide what to stop doing? What customers, products, markets, initiatives, how do you prevent these things from just adding complexity instead of profitability? First the trends I mean if the past the story historical figures if you see that it goes down like this and in the end you see the more difficult it is the more time people will focus on that. >> Mhm. So basically the more expensive it becomes as well huh the management if you have a division that doesn’t go well everyone is trying to sell to save uh to save that division. So the full attention is put on that. >> Mhm. >> Uh in the end the people are not working on something where we could easily grab money, where we can easily create value, >> you know. Uh and you see it, you see the trends, you see people are working spending way too much time for something which is not value creative and and increasingly more time. When I became CEO of one of the

[30:21] company, the first thing I did was putting one of the of the subsidiary bankrupt and the previous CE told we’re really really struggling with that market. We are not succeeding and my predecessor was already succeeding and then you know if it’s been two generations of CEO not able to fix the business. I don’t see why I would be able. So the first thing I as I did was liquid liquidate the company and again and it didn’t bring a scent but the management attention was refocused on what created value suddenly and that helped to to grow the rest of the business and that was just fantastic. So for me looking at backwards see whether you know we put the right level of attention and then same stuff looking at the potential you know of some businesses by looking at a market how to deliver a market the way we used to deliver it and just comparing it to to to competition and to see okay how are they are they working does it work better does it does it work less as well what are our key differentiator how can we make sure our differentiators are valuable for the client because the number of companies where I worked I said well that’s a key differentiator and I said okay what’s the value for the clients don’t know I said so it’s not a differentiator >> it’s not a differentiator they just like it they find it interesting >> it’s true but it has no value in that differentiation so why do we do you do it you know and that’s the type of things where I try to have a view because that’s not easy. I mean, you also make mistake and and that’s normal. >> Looking back, what is is there one integration decision that you’ve made that if you had to do it over again, you probably wouldn’t do it except when I when I looked back, I thought, my god, why did I do that? What was I? >> We were actually competing with with

[32:22] with another another player, a great company as well. And we were both in buy and build more. So it was really most of the time it was the first one on a target, right? It was really a race, a rat race and they got one of the company I really wanted to have and we were on it at the same time because we were it was it was an auction and at some point I said stop that’s in my eyes that was too much but still my ego was touched and then I was too fast on the second on the next one because I absolutely wanted to have it because the other and I would say That’s my key learning. You’d better not make a bad deal that miss a good one. >> Boy, there’s words of wisdom there. I uh the most money I’ve ever made is from the deals I didn’t do because I would have lost so much and it’s hard. I mean, so I try to keep myself somehow separated enough so I can not get emotionally involved because when I get emotionally particular if you’re the person in charge, uh you you it’s hard uh and you can lose sight of what the goal is because we’re competitive and we want to win. Uh okay, so you’ve accomplished all these great things. What’s coming next for you, Christophe? Where are you taking all this? It’s a good question. Um I like what I’m doing for the moment. It’s the first time honestly that I’m working at executive level on a listed company. So I mean there is learning everywhere. Um so what I would like to really do is you know lead another another group another group wherever it is. By the way, I’m

[34:23] quite mobile. Uh, and it’s make sure that we can grow it again. But I would say on a more a less shaky way. I had mistakes as well quite a lot by the way. And by the way, I think that only the people who do nothing do not make mistakes. [snorts] Just growing growing a business, turning one around. I’m looking for companies for myself as well you know uh smaller size and then I’m hesitating shall I do it or not might be too small you know because I also think that I run company from 100 million to half a billion of a billion that’s the size where where I used to to work and I wonder person you know to to work for smaller smaller groups not the same business because you hardly have management you really have to do this stuff by yourself and u I’m attracted by that but I’m not sure the same skills so I’m I’m still careful so for the moment I’m uh I’m discovering the the listed company executive mode that’s very interesting and then we will see what I can bring to the to the market you sound like you got a lot of exciting times ahead of you but I have no doubt someone with your background and experience and acumen is going do great at anything you touch. So, this is it’s wonderful having you today on the show. I can’t thank you enough for taking some time out and sharing your wisdom and your wins and losses. >> Thank you, babe. >> You bet. Bye. >> Bye-bye now.

Guest card

Christophe Piron is a European CEO, CFO and M&A operator with roughly 25 years across industrial, distribution and listed businesses. He was CEO of Bihr from 2019 to 2023, doubling sales from €110 million to €220 million and acquiring in the UK, Belgium and Germany before the company was sold to Arrowhead Engineered Products, where he went on to serve as a president of the powersports business in Europe. He then led Ecostal Group, raising €100 million and completing three cross-border acquisitions. He founded Canbelis in 2026 and is interim CFO of EVS Broadcast Equipment. Earlier: Alcopa, Ymagis, Boston Consulting Group. MBA, HEC Paris.

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