Guillen's studies at ENSTA Paris included an Erasmus Programme year abroad studying at the engineering department of the Technical University of Madrid (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales, ETSII), resulting in dual degrees; BS Mechanical Engineering from ENSTA in 1993 and BS Nuclear Engineering from ETSII in 1994.[5][2]
Guillen completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1999. Upon graduation, Guillen was hired by McKinsey & Company.[2][6][5]
Beginning in 2003 Guillen worked at Freightliner Trucks, reporting to the company CEO Rainer Schmueckle.[7] He was later promoted to General Manager of New Product Development.[8] Guillen was project leader for the Freightliner Cascadia program, which was plagued with repeated recalls of hundreds of thousands of vehicles for dozens of reasons including multiple brake system design failures, and wiring systems designed and installed backwards.[9][10][8]
On 7 July 2007 Guillen was approached by Dieter Zetsche of Freightliner's parent company, Daimler, and starting in September 2007 became Daimler's Director of Business Innovation.[11][12] During 2010 Guillen launched the car2go service for Daimler.[13] By October 2010, the Business Innovation unit of Daimler, as headed by Guillen, was profitable and self-funding.[14]
In November 2010, Guillen moved to work for Tesla Motors.[12][15] Whilst demonstrating the Tesla Model X at the North American International Auto Show in January 2013, Guillen stated that he did not regret the move to Tesla in California, but did miss the German dishes of Käsespätzle and Maultaschen, plus visiting the Stuttgart Ballet.[16] By April 2015 Guillen was receiving a remuneration of $4.5 million per year.[17]
In a 2013 interview, Guillen discussed "BlueStar" (codename for the Tesla Model 3 project), stating that Tesla was expecting to produce 400,000 cars per year.[6] During ramp up of the Tesla Model 3 in June 2018, Elon Musk stated who should be contacted to offer help, with Guillen listed as overseeing General Assembly 4 (GA4):[18]
Wherever you are in the company, if you feel you can help out in any of those areas, please check in with Jat DhillononGA3, Jérôme Guillen on GA4 and OmeadonEoL and JB Straubel or Chris Lister on Module Zone 4.
^ abc"L'interview de Jérôme Guillen (Promo 94)" [Interview with Jérôme Guillen (Class of 1994)] (2018210559_newsletter-juin-2018.pdf). Newsletter (in French). Paris: École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées. June 2018. p. 4. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
^ abcRougerie, Paméla (9 September 2018). "Qui est Jérôme Guillen, ce Français devenu le bras droit d'Elon Musk?" [Who is Jérôme Guillen, the French person who has become the right-hand of Elon Musk?]. Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 17 September 2018. Originaire d'Avignon, l'ingénieur a quitté la France il y a plus de vingt ans, après avoir obtenu un diplôme de l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (Ensta) de Paris
^ abCypel, Sylvain (12 August 2013). "Tesla, la dernière coqueluche de la Silicon Valley" [Tesla, the latest darling of Scilicon Valley]. Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 17 September 2018. Le premier, Jérôme Guillen, 41 ans, est né à Avignon. Parti de France à 20 ans, après un doctorat d'ingénierie mécanique aux Etats-Unis, un passage chez McKinsey et DaimlerBenz … Nom de code : BlueStar. Ce sera, promet M. Guillen, "un véhicule encore plus technologique mais moins sophistiqué. Un jour, nous aussi, ici, nous fabriquerons 400 000 voitures".
^ abLockwood, Rolf (June 2007). "Ready to Roll: The Cascadia"(PDF). Today's Trucking. pp. 48–51. Dr. Jérôme Guillen, Cascadia project leader and Freightliner's general manager of new product development,
^Guillen, Jérôme (24 October 2014). ""Wir wollen 500.000 Autos im Jahr verkaufen"" ["We want to sell 500,000 cars per year"]. Manager Magazin (Interview) (in German). Interviewed by Michael Freitag. Retrieved 17 September 2018. Jérôme Guillen brachte bei Daimler das Carsharing-Konzept Car2Go auf den Weg - und wechselte anschließend zu Tesla
^"Le patron de Tesla gagne le "Smic californien"" [The patron of Tesla earns "Californian minimum wage"]. Les Échos (in French). 23 April 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2018. Quant à Jérôme Guillen, en charge des livraisons et du service à travers le monde, sa rémunération était de 4,48 millions de dollars
