Julia Cattin, the French Entrepreneur of the Year is a Bocconi Graduate

For Usine Nouvelle, a magazine for businessmen, the French entrepreneur of the year is Julia Cattin, a 30-year-old Bocconi alumna, CEO of Momentum, a €14 mln family-owned group including two main companies, Fimm and Manuvit, active in the production of machinery and tools for lifting and handling heavy loads.

Julia, a BSc graduate in International Economics and Management from Bocconi in 2012, was two exams short of graduation at the MSc in Economics and Social Sciences in 2014, when she had to return to France because of her father's death. The family group at that time included a chassis and pedal manufacturer for high-end racing bicycles and two manufacturers of machinery and tools for lifting and handling heavy loads. The day after his death, her father was supposed to sign the acquisition of a third operator in the same sector. «My father suddenly passed away on the day of my 26th birthday. He had never been ill and there were no plans for succession», recalls the entrepreneur. «I was studying at Bocconi, thinking of a career in international organizations and my sister is an artist in Berlin. I was forced to decide whether to change my life all of a sudden».

Julia had to make difficult decisions immediately. The chassis company was in crisis and in danger of dragging down the others, and Julia decided to sell it to a giant in the ski industry, Rossignol, to focus her efforts on the rest of the business. «I thought of the 30 years of his life that my father dedicated to the family group and I thought it couldn't end like this», says Julia. Thanks to the sale, the entrepreneur was able to invest in the lifting and handling business, with the intention of focusing more and more on innovation, which in that sector means designing machinery that meets the specific needs of customers, by applying the principles of ergonomics to avoid wear and tear and personal injury. This policy has proved to be extremely effective if, in a few years, the group's turnover has grown by 30% and Manuvit's by 50%. The French postal service, for example, is a customer of Momentum since its operators risk suffering from back problems due to the continuous bending down to collect envelopes and packages from stacks that, as they become thinner, go lower down. Manuvit, then, has designed constant level stacker, which progressively rise as the stack of envelopes becomes thinner, ensuring that the operator can always make the least wearisome gesture.

Despite the sudden change of life, Julia finds elements of continuity with her years at Bocconi. «I was interested in development economics», she explains, «because I wanted to do something that could change things, improve the world around me. Now I'm doing it in a different way, by designing products that can improve the condition of those who make the same movement 100 times a day and by maintaining production in France despite strong competition, as my father has always wanted to do. In addition, the knowledge of different languages and cultures and the open-mindedness that the University gave me have proved to be decisive for my business».

In the photo by Danielle Aspis, Julia Cattin at the prize-giving ceremony for French Entrepreneur of the Year