Renaud Vencatassin

Company director

My career path

It was definitely because of my passion for chemistry that I chose to study in this area and this decision was made in high school. As an adolescent, I was interested in the chemistry of stellar bodies; I therefore joined a science club which also helped me discover organic chemistry through sometimes very elaborate syntheses. This naturally led me to try for competitive entry to schools of chemistry at the end of “classes préparatoires” with the firm intention of taking on the career of researcher.

The different internships in companies that I did during my studies at the ENSCM showed me other facets of chemistry in particular in industry. In addition, on graduating from the ENSCM, I obtained a diploma in aptitude in company administration (Certificat d’Aptitude à l’Administration des Entreprises, a DESS) equivalent to a master’s, from the IAE of Aix-en-Provence. After these studies, my first work experience concerned the starting-up of installations in pharmacy (ASSYSTEM) more specifically in the validation qualification of the process. This enabled me to learn more about the industrial world, especially in production maintenance. However, the human dimension was necessary, and this I found by working in a daughter company of ARKEMA (MLPC International) with the job of chemical products manager of the CS2 and zone manager (leadership of a distributor network) in Western Europe then in Asia and Eastern Europe. This experience was particularly rich because of the discovery of different work cultures across the world.

My job

After working for a short while in LABO SERVICES (a daughter company of the Suez Environment group) specialized in the treatment of conditioned dangerous waste, I returned to work in the Maintenance Service Environment department where the founder of the company had just retired. This company, MSE, employed 7 people in 2005 with a turnover of 0.9 M€ and was specialized in collecting dangerous waste and in recurrent operations on the site of a client for the management of dangerous waste. Now, this company realizes a turnover of 1.5 M€ and has 11 employees, and is specialized in:

  • The complex operations of decontamination or the dismantling of chemical installations necessitating competence in processes. 
  • Emergency operations for setting up safety measures for tanks and the means of transport of dangerous materials. 
  • Depollution operations of industrial wasteland.

In conclusion

In a very small company, as company director, you are required to have a very varied knowledge of almost all the functions within the company, such as: sales, technical knowledge, people management, accountancy, and strategy. This versatility is one of the most attractive elements of the position with a freedom of action where the only limits are defined by the market. It is finally in this function that I use my chemistry knowledge the most notably in the domain of chemical risk and reactivity.