“The singular story” of Adovi Adoté, the child of modest origins who became a leader in Seine-Saint-Denis

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Born in a very modest family from Lomécapital of Togo, in the mid-1980s, Adovi Adoté held positions of responsibility in different countries within the oil services giant Schlumberger, before work at McKinseyfor the Hilti group and finally to be appointed general manager at the headquarters of URSA France, in Noisy-le-Grand (Seine-Saint-Denis), in September 2023.

Entered the Choiseul 2,024 ranking of “40 decision-makers who make the Grand Roissy of tomorrow”, including Paris news is a partner, the 39-year-old manager replays the film of his inspiring journey.

The roots of success

To stack the bricks of its future success story, Adovi Adoté probably had a smaller margin for error than others. When he was young, he dreamed of coming to study in France. And to achieve this, one of the only ways is to be one of the selected few by the French cultural center of Lomé.

He is then quickly plunged into a competitive world, with the rigor that this implies. He remembers the evenings when he worked late with his friends: “I wanted to be the best in class,” he says with a smile. A childhood that will also nourish his inexhaustible desire to innovate.

“I come from a very modest family, so I had to have ideas. The school must have been almost 15 kilometers away, so we found abandoned bicycles and they were restored. We also had to imagine games, toys and be creative to have access to books,” he modestly summarizes.

I don't like the status quo, the routine. We live in a volatile world and the idea of ​​providing solutions that adapt perfectly to the situation and are highly differentiating has always fascinated me.

With his scientific baccalaureate in hand, he will embark for France, heading to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle. Before jumping on the TGV and heading to Villeneuve-d'Ascq, in the Lille suburbs. Its hunger to succeed and optimism were already sweating: “I was very excited, I like new challenges,” he remembers.

A leader guided by his human values

No matter the setting, the future leader says he stays on course thanks to three cardinal points unchanged since childhood.

” There is honestytowards myself and towards others. This allows you to factualize the situation and therefore to think based on concrete things. Then, the work. What can we do to move forward? What is in my control and what is not? Finally, I am certain that an adventure, whether professional or personal, is better in team. Even today, I create an inclusive environment so that everyone feels the right to say what they want. This allows me to ask for help and advice,” he explains.

At a glance, we understand that the place given to work in Adovi Adoté's life is considerable. And this has been happening for a long time. “It is central, it’s true,” concedes the manager. This paints a picture of a typical day: “I get up at 5:30 a.m., I work out and get ready until 6:30 a.m., then I have an hour with my childrenbefore leaving for work. Then, I rarely come home before 9 p.m., I have dinner with my wife, then I work a little again, before going to bed with a book.”

The subject of the latter? Businesses, often. And autobiographies, sometimes. It's this constant commitment which notably enabled the new general director of URSA (a major player in energy efficiency) and his teams to launch their first biosourced insulators, only one year after the arrival of Adovi Adoté to the position.

Ask him what drives him on a daily basis, and he will answer you – like a good business manager – with a list of objectives for his current company. To conclude the exchange, however, he has a sentence, which in a certain way links his past to the present, while summarizing the state of mind which allowed him to succeed: “It is doing in the present that we build a future for ourselves. »

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