The CV tells you the jobs. The metro map tells you the cities. This page tells you who I am, what shaped me, and what I now believe about work. Longer. More honest.
— and a bit of RC Lens, when no one is watching.
I was born in Northern France. Lens, Bollaert stadium, Sunday family lunches, Flemish carbonade. The region gave me two things: a very direct relationship with people, and an instinctive distrust of empty corporate talk. That demand for authenticity stuck with me.
My grandfather was an engineer: technical precision, patience with a complex problem, the idea that you don't cheat with reality. My mother, an associate professor of haematology, built a demanding academic and hospital career. She passed on two things to me: a taste for travel and a taste for work. I grew up in a house where intellectual rigour was a given and where effort felt obvious. That shaped how I relate to work, to curiosity, and to the way you build a position: through what you bring.
I went to Sciences Po Lille, then started my career in retail at Auchan. That's where I learned to manage, at 22, with a team of 8, at 6am, on a department floor. Not glamorous, but formative.
— My friends always say you never stop being from the North. I think they're right.
I was selling B2B solutions to small businesses in the North. I'd signed a deal in five minutes over the phone. Three weeks later, the client cancelled, they hadn't really understood what they were buying. That day I learned that selling fast isn't selling well, and that a sales cycle doesn't end at signature but at retention.
At 26, I left France to discover EdTech. First culture shock: you don't sell the same way in a multilingual, multicultural environment. First personal shock: you find out who you really are when you're outside your linguistic comfort zone. Expatriation taught me to listen before speaking.
I was running the French market remotely, from Barcelona, with a team of 15+. All the classic management apprenticeship collapsed: no in-person meetings, no coffee, no weak signals to read. I had to reinvent everything, 1:1s became my main tool, management by trust replaced control, written communication replaced verbal. That period forged my current method.
After eight years in a large international structure, I joined a fast-growing French SME to develop and build teams and strategy. First time in my career as a builder rather than an operator, where decisions take two days rather than two months. And Madrid changes the other half of the equation: the city is not Barcelona, more direct, warmer, a growth tempo you feel in the streets as much as in the office.
— Madrid is meant to be walked. Las Tablas in the morning, Chamartín in the evening, and a coffee with colleagues in between.
A few convictions that guide what I do, you'll find them in my articles if you dig:
Three things that matter as much as the job:
RC Lens. I've been a supporter since childhood — it's a story of roots, family, Sunday lunches in the North. What I know about this club, and what I take from it for my work, I put into this article. Football has taught me a lot about collective management. And about the opposite of permanent urgency.
Thailand. I lived two years in Bangkok and I come back whenever I can. It's my son's country, he's French-Thai-Spanish, three languages from day one. The Thai culture of slowness, street food, evenings along the Chao Phraya, that country gave me a different relationship with speed. When I get too tense, I think back to Bangkok.
The world, as a vantage point. Travelling, living elsewhere, eating what others eat — for me it's not a hobby, it's a discipline. Each new country reveals that something I held for obvious isn't. I think this constant unlearning is also what makes me good at my job: never assume you know your client, your team, your market, just because you've already met them.
Four things pull my curiosity and energy in 2026:
If any of these resonate, or if you just want to talk, write to matthieu.thuillier2022@gmail.com. I always reply.