Édouard Michelin (born 1963)
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Édouard Michelin (August 13, 1963 - May 26, 2006), was managing partner and CEO of the Michelin Group.
After first studying at Ecole Massillon, Clermont Ferrand, he entered the Lycée Sainte-Geneviève, Versailles.
An engineering graduate of the École Centrale de Paris, he joined the Michelin Group, which was then headed by his father, François Michelin, in 1985. He initially worked at the lower levels of the company, including a stint on an assembly line. In 1987–1988 he completed his military service on French nuclear submarines.
When he returned to the company in 1989 he was first appointed production manager at the Puy-en-Velay (France) plant, then team manager at Montceau-les-Mines. He was appointed CEO of Michelin North America, in charge of both industrial plant and truck UOT sales and distribution, under the leadership of Carlos Ghosn, a future Renault Nissan CEO.
In 1993, he joined François Michelin and René Zingraff in Clermont-Ferrand as Managing Partner of Michelin. He was appointed Michelin Group CEO at the Annual Shareholders Meeting in June 1999, 110 years after the establishment of the company (his great-grandfather, also named Édouard Michelin (1859-1940), was a co-founder). In 2004, he proposed marketing the Michelin brand without its most recognized mascot, the Michelin Man (Bibendum). However stockholders voted against this idea.
In 1992 he was married to his wife Cécile in a ceremony at Chartres Cathedral presided over by his elder brother, Father Etienne Michelin, the second part of the celebration took place at the Chateau de Baronville. He was the father of six children. Fond of theology, Gregorian chants, and mountain walks, he was a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
Edouard Michelin died by drowning, while fishing near the island of Sein, off the coast of Finisterre in northwest France, on May 26, 2006.