Par
Camille Larher
Published on
Jan 12, 2025 at 11:26 a.m.
“My nickname was the banker! » Olivier Rousseille remembers the first years when he became boss. When he dared to take the plunge. Today, he runs three companies near Dieppe (Seine-Maritime): Louvet Jad at OffranvillePrior to Calleville-les-Deux-Églises and Verhaeghe to Rouen.
The new president of the Rouen-Métropole Chamber of Commerce and Industry is even preparing to acquire its fourth company, still in the construction sector. Sector in which he is particularly involved since he is also president of the FFBthe French construction federation of Normandy.
Beginnings in banking
The entrepreneur therefore began his career in banking. A ten-year experience during which he rose to the position of director of CIN, Crédit Industriel de Normandie, in Dieppe, Place Nationale. Not so surprising for someone who passed a technical-commercial DUT at Havre and a DTA then Duta, a university diploma in in-depth technology, in marketing at Rouen.
Born in Mont-Saint-Aignan the January 10, 1970Olivier Rousseille was educated little by little Bois-Guillaume and teenager Corneille high school in the city of a hundred bell towers. It was a bank client who poached him to become sales director of an air networks company. That is to say everything relating to the flow of uncompressed air in ducts, such as ventilation, air conditioning, dust removal, etc.
A little unconsciousness
“I traveled a lot at that time,” he confides. But I had to settle down, I wanted to enjoy my family more. » In particular his three sons, now aged 25, 23 and 19, one of whom took the reins of the Chiodo waterproofing company. A transmission that is going well. “I’m proud to have given him the virus,” smiles Olivier Rousseille.
Don’t be afraid to think big
What is Olivier Rousseille’s advice for becoming a boss? “Don’t be afraid to think big, to buy companies that have around fifteen or twenty employees,” he says. It is possible to earn a salary quickly. When you are alone, the difficulty is that you have to create everything. I am very wary of self-employment, for example. We are really facing an impoverishment of business leaders. I fear for the future of these people, especially their retirement. »
According to him, buying a company is a wonderful adventure, with a lot of satisfaction. It requires optimism, like having that ability “to see the glass half full rather than half empty.” Not being afraid of change, daring to launch into entrepreneurship, taking risks… So many impulses that “give a little adrenaline, force you to go to the end of things and surpass yourself,” he says.
He bought his first box in 2005in Calleville-les-Deux-Églises. Prieur SAS has around twenty employees. “It takes a bit of unconsciousness to become a boss,” he says. The Rouennais chooses an already structured company. Why this one, specialized in masonry? “With the aim of arriving first on a construction site!” » he says.
Continuing on, he acquired roofing and waterproofing companies: Fontaine à Aumale which it transmits in 2017 and in the same year bought Verhaeghe in Rouen, Jouvet Jad in Offranville in 2021Chiodo sealing in Grand-Quevilly taken over by his son in 2024. And soon a new “latest” will enter the Rousseille holding company.
Advantages and disadvantages
Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, the president of the Rouen-Métropole chamber of commerce was able to draw on his experience, knowing the advantages and disadvantages of this profession. In fact, his dad ran a company that managed the stock market on the Minitel. The courses were updated daily.
“He sold it to the newspaper The Echoes who used it,” explains Olivier Rousseille. His father then became technical director of the press company. Then, he took over a contaminated waste collection company. The sleepless nights, the worries of everyday life, the non-stop thoughts… Olivier Rousseille saw them at his parents’ house.
“The people of Dieppe are workers”
But that doesn’t stop him from going there too. Nor to take responsibilities at the Rouen-Métropole Chamber of Commerce and the FFB of Normandy. “I have a 360° vision,” he notes. Commerce, industry, services… Nothing escapes anyone who needs intellectual stimulation: “I have the opportunity to help economic activity with a capital A.”
The manager likes the term captain to describe him. No orders, but rather collective work for the general interest. Major projects will keep him busy, such as the EPR2 construction site in Penly: “We need local businesses to have the markets and not have their workforce stolen.”
From his years spent in Dieppe, he remembers the coffees taken at the Tribunaux bar, taken over a few years ago by his friend Stéphane Novick. “I love this coastal city with its unique mentality, I feel good there. The people of Dieppe are workers! » he smiled.
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