François Michelin
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Born | (1926-06-15)15 June 1926 |
Died | 29 April 2015(2015-04-29) (aged 88)
Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne, France
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Nationality | French |
Occupation | Businessman |
Title | CEO, Michelin |
Term | 1955-1999 |
Successor | Édouard Michelin |
Board member of | Michelin |
Spouse | Bernadette Montagne |
Children | 5, including Édouard Michelin |
Parent(s) | Étienne Michelin Madeleine Callies |
Relatives | Édouard Michelin (grandfather) Rémy Montagne (brother-in-law) |
François Michelin (15 June 1926 – 29 April 2015) was a French heir and businessman. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Michelin from 1955 to 1999. Under his leadership, a family business founded by his grandfather became the leading global tire manufacturer, dominating the market in Europe and the US. A practising Roman Catholic, he was idiosyncratically non-hierarchical and conducted business from his hometown of Clermont-Ferrand in the rural Auvergne.
François Michelin was born on 15 June 1926 in Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne, France.[1][2]
His grandfather, Édouard Michelin, was the founder of Michelin, when it was known as Michelin & Cie.[2][3] His father was Étienne Michelin and his mother, Madeleine Callies.[3] He became an orphan at the age of ten.[4]
He received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics.[5]
Michelin started his career in 1951.[1] He worked under a false name with regular factory workers, to learn on the job.[1] He first worked as a fitter, then a driver, and later in sales and marketing.[1]
He served as the CEO of Michelin from 1955 to 1999.[1]
He increased the marketshare from the tenth top tire manufacturer in the world to number one.[2] For example, from 1960 to 1979, he opened twenty-five new factories globally,[3] even as far away as Vietnam.[2] He hired Carlos Ghosn in 1978 to expand Michelin's marketshare in the United States.[3] After he acquired Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co. in 1990, Michelin dominated the US marketshare.[3] While the buyout incurred debt for the company, Michelin stood firm in his decision to consolidate.[2] By 1994, he was proved right, as the company was solvent again.[2]
He pioneered the use of the radial tire, which became the gold standard of tires globally thanks to him.[1] In 1993, he launched the green tire, which helps cars consume less fuel.[2]
His leadership style was non-hierarchical.[1] He believed in listening to all employees no matter what their ranks or social statuses were.[1] He also believed in letting his employees take risks to innovate.[1] Moreover, he believed business needed to be conducted discreetly and stressed the need for confidentiality.[2]
He became co-Chairman in 1999, when his son Édouard Michelin stepped in.[1] He retired in 2002.[1]
He published And Why Not? The Human Person at the Heart of Business, a non-fiction book published in English by Lexington Books in 2003.[6][7] A speaker read a text he wrote about the same topic for a conference organized by the Acton InstituteinRome in 2007. He served as the Vice President of the Association Nationale des Sociétés par Actions alongside Edouard de Royère and Bertrand Collomb.[5] He turned down the Legion of Honour.[5]
In 1951,[3] he married Bernadette Montagne, whose brother, Rémy Montagne, was a politician and the owner of Famille chrétienne, a Catholic French magazine.[1] They had six children.[1][2] One of his sons, Édouard Michelin, died in a fishing accident in 2006.[4] They resided at La Bosse, his grandfather's mansion in Orcines near Clermont-Ferrand and summered in the Luberon.[5] He also owned an apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.[5] He flew his own helicopter to go to Paris.[5] His wife died in 2013.[1]
He was a practising Roman Catholic.[4] He shook the hand of Pope John Paul IIinRome in 2004.[4] By the end of his life, he lived at EHPAD Ma Maison, a retirement community run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic charity in Clermont-Ferrand.[3]
He died on 29 April 2015 in his hometown of Clermont-Ferrand.[1] He was eighty-eight years old.[3][8]
French President François Hollande called him, "one of the greatest French industrialists in the postwar years."[3] He added, "He understood the importance of innovation and of long-term industrial development. By developing the radial tire, he transformed a family and regional company into one of the biggest French groups and one of its best-known."[3]
Former employee Carlos Ghosn, who served as the CEO of Renault and Nissan in 2015, called him "a humble and honest man, a humanist boss and captain of industry deeply attached to the global performance of a French industry with solid French roots."[3]
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