Michel Denis will take over as chief executive of Daher on July 1, closing out his final weeks at the head of Manitou Group. He will lead the French family-owned group in tandem with Aymeric Daher, deputy CEO since April 1, who also keeps direct charge of the Logistics division.
A Planned Succession
The dual leadership structure was announced by Daher’s board last autumn to succeed Didier Kayat, who ran the group for a decade. The brief: develop all four of Daher’s businesses at once. The group employs 14,500 people across some fifteen countries and combines the roles of aircraft manufacturer, aerostructures supplier for major civil and military programs, industrial services provider and logistics operator. Logistics is the most labor-intensive of the four, accounting for 45% of headcount and 25 to 30% of the group’s €1.9B revenue.
An Industrial and Services Profile
Aerospace remains Daher’s anchor, but the recruitment of Denis bets on complementary experience. A graduate of Centrale Lyon and Essec, he started in consulting at Gemini Consulting in the early 1990s before operational roles at Dalkia, then as France managing director of Johnson Controls, followed by a decade running industrial vehicle rental specialist Fraikin. He took charge of Manitou Group in early 2014 and drove the international expansion of the French handling and lifting equipment maker, now present in 35 countries with €2.7B in revenue.
How the tandem splits aerospace ambitions from logistics growth will shape Daher’s next decade.
