Where I’ve led R&D

As Vice President EMEA Engineering at OTIS, I run elevator engineering for new equipment and IoT-based predictive maintenance — 250 engineers across Spain, Germany, France, and Turkey, serving a >3B$ business. We launched two global product platforms, tripled material productivity in three years, and lifted on-time project delivery from 20% to 87%.

As Global Technical Director at Somfy, I led ~300 people worldwide on BLDC motor technologies and IoT-enabled smart-home systems, industrializing re-use and front-loading practices across electromechanical, electronics, and embedded software domains.

As Vice President Global R&D at Danfoss Compressors, I ran 350 people across four technical centers in France, the US, China, and India — including building the China and India R&D centers from green field — delivered 30 global programs, and grew a 300+ patent portfolio. Earlier at Danfoss I ran global manufacturing strategy, key accounts (Carrier, Trane, Lennox, 30 M€/year), and led the 25 M€ green-field build of the Tianjin plant in China over 18 months.

Background & education

I started in research at Renault — alternative materials for vehicle weight reduction, aluminum design and LASER-assembly processes, split between Paris and Cambridge. I then spent four years as a lean change agent at Delphi Automotive Systems and built early production engineering experience at Cabot in Marseilles, before joining Danfoss in 2000.

Education. Master’s in Materials Science & Simulation from Polytech Orléans (1992), Executive MBA on the CEIBS Global Track in Beijing (2007), and INSEAD’s Transition to General Management program in Fontainebleau (2013).

Languages. Fluent English, basic Chinese, basic Spanish — carried over from years on the ground in Tianjin, Lyon, and EMEA.

What RD Chronicles offers

A perspective sharpened at the industrial frontline. RD Chronicles combines three things most R&D advisory services don’t put under one roof:

Thought leadership. The blog and LinkedIn newsletter cover topics that actually matter to R&D executives today: agentic AI in development, Industry 5.0 operating models, open innovation governance, electromechanical and IoT product design, and the regulatory shifts reshaping industrial manufacturing.

A diagnostic framework. The RD Chronicles Excellence Framework evaluates your organization across 28 functional activities and 8 strategic pillars, benchmarks you against global R&D standards, and returns an AI-enhanced transformation roadmap.

Applied tools. The apps I build solve specific R&D problems I have run into myself: portfolio prioritization, NPD acceleration, decision frameworks for open innovation.

Domains I work in

• Global R&D and engineering leadership across Europe, North America, and Asia
• Modularized product platforms and Model-Based Systems Engineering
• Electromechanical design — BLDC e-motors, electronics, embedded and safety-critical software (SIL3)
• IoT and predictive maintenance, smart-home and smart-building systems
• Agile PMO at scale, multi-site program governance, on-time delivery recovery
• Manufacturing footprint strategy, green-field plant build, make-or-buy and externalization
• Portfolio governance, patent strategy, front-loading and reuse discipline
• Cross-cultural leadership and organizational transformation at multinational scale
• AI applications in R&D: agentic systems, in-silico simulation, virtual sandboxing