TESTIMONY – The man left a high position in international logistics at Geodis to live from his passion: the restoration of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
What if life didn’t necessarily bring us to the right place? In 2020, at the time of the Cavid crisis, Boris Pernet was at the height of his career at the international carrier Geodis. As director general of the supply line supply chain optimization, he managed almost a billion euros in turnover, negotiated international commercial contracts and had 1,200 employees under his orders distributed in fifty countries. “It was a life of airports, from travel to right to left“, He describes. “”I had toured the questionBoris quickly cuts when you talk about his life before. In other words, “fed up“Of this using world, where” we never really cut “And in which” There is always a residual mental charge which is complicated to separate». Finally the only times when he managed to step back, it was in his garage by tinkering.
At the end of 2021, it hung up. After a year of break, he created his business called “American import machines”: we are then in 2022. His idea is to import Harley Davidson from collections from the United States to restore and sell them. His knowledge of the country facilitates things. “”I gathered my expertise in the logistics chain, to a passion that I have always maintained for mechanics“Explains Boris. “”My grandfather and my father were handymen, I always liked it. It’s my Madeleine de Proust“, He said.
Reduce your salary by 25
Boris does the restorations himself, but his business does not yet enter the category of garages, he therefore does not benefit from advantageous prices on new parts and consumables and he cannot meet the growing demand of his customers for the maintenance of the machines he sells. “”I subcontracted to local garages to do complicated things, then I decided to spend a CAP of Motorcyclette mechanics, which I prepare for the month of June“, He announces.
He will then be officially a mechanic, he who earned around 500,000 euros per year in Géodis regrets anything of his choice. “If I manage to pay myself 15,000 or 20,000 euros in annual remuneration, it will be good. It’s not that I don’t like money, I put it aside. But I had a fed up of a society where we consume to consume, where we are a slave of our own consumerism ”. “I meet great people, it’s different, it has a nice side to have your own job, your own income. The relationship with myself has changed ”he adds. “Tbefore, if that should not work as expected, I would have to put my lumen coat ”he laughs, “But I will have tried! »
“France from below”
He therefore regrets anything. “Before, I was like a mouse in a wheel. Now, I agree with my intrinsic values, I found joy. At 54, I told myself that there are other things to see in life. ” This leap into the unknown is just halfway. At the time of his studies Boris was not already very comfortable with the world in which he intended. “”I obtained a DEA in economics in Paris 1 and Sciences Po Paris, but I felt far from my roots, I liked to learn, I was curious, but quite offbeat compared to those around me. To finance my studies, I worked in Rungis at night as an order trainer, I was an atypical profile. But the most important thing was that I had more fun with France from below, as would say Jean-Pierre Raffarin »he laughs.
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Now his life is to develop a network of partners, buy parts still in the United States, “Sweet machines, suppliers, models that my customers are looking for». He details his daily work: “I organize transport, arrival in France, I will look for them when they arrive, I inspect them closely and I make them desirable. For marketing, I go through my facebook page, or my shop the right corner or the living rooms dedicated to two wheels. I assure the sale, accounting and sometimes delivery myself. Last week I was in Metz, the week before in Strasbourg, still before in Charente ”, he sums up. In his life before Boris Pernet was traveling all over the world, now he does it everywhere in France. “”I like to realize the dream of my clients, see their face when they receive their motorcycle“, He concludes.
