The Untold Story Behind Aerospace Innovation | Ep. 81 [Damien Marc]

Damien’s journey is anything but ordinary. After losing his father, he stepped into leadership with little experience in the industry and a promise to keep the business alive. Today, he leads a company at the forefront of aerospace innovation, turning simple mechanical parts into smart, connected technologies.

In this conversation, he opens up about overcoming rejection, scaling from scratch, betting big during COVID, and building a culture that drives performance. If you're an entrepreneur, engineer, or leader navigating complex industries, this episode offers powerful insights on innovation, leadership, and the courage to take risks when it matters most.

𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 https://industryignited.com/
𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 https://www.instagram.com/industryignited/
𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 https://www.facebook.com/industryignited/
𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 https://www.linkedin.com/company/industry-ignited
𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 https://open.spotify.com/show/3TX1L5LPr4lt1UtcSpSvlN?si=7037433a58c54162
𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/industry-ignited-podcast/id1824619671

𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜
https://www.linkedin.com/in/damienmarcjpbsysteme/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/jpb-syst-me/

#podcasts #podcasts #podcastshorts #podcastinterview #podcastlife #businessgrowth #industryignited #drleeanneaguilar #damienmarc #leadership #innovation #aerospace

Transcript

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 0:06

What if a small overlooked component like a fastener could save millions in maintenance costs, improve safety, and even become intelligent enough to communicate in real time? Welcome to Industry Ignited. I'm Dr. Leanne Aguilar, and today I'm joined by Damien Mark, CEO of JPB System, a global aerospace innovator transforming mechanical systems into smart connected solutions. Damien, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hey, thanks, Leanne.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 0:35

You got it. So you took over your family business with a bold fission and a million-dollar loan to repay. What was going through your mind in those early days?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Wow, uh honestly, I was uh a bit scared. You know, my father uh has set up this business uh a few years ago. He got sick and passed away. And uh before that, we had a discussion and he asked me to do a promise to him to take care of my father, take the rein of my mother, uh take the reins of the of the company and take care of my sister. So that was like a really uh family goal that I had first. So he took the rein. I was I was scary when you took over, you know, uh, from a company that is just three people that you had a loan on your shoulder of one million euro. Uh that's a big, big thing. Uh, but I was dreaming big and I told myself if I failed, uh at least I tried.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 1:28

Yeah. Wow. So were you already involved in the business before you took over?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

No, really a few months ago. I was a young engineer in the computer skills and electronics skills. So I was really far from this business. My father was set up in this with uh his boss at the time. JPB means Jean-Pierre, my father, and Bernard, his boss. Uh, and my father passed away, and I had to to buy the shares of Bernard to continue the story of my father. So this is really the beginning. I make it short, but uh it can be a full podcast on this one because it took three years, you know, this process of fighting uh to get uh okay.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 2:04

Oh wow, all right, just a transition to take over the business and continue his legacy. Yeah. Now you travel globally to introduce a completely new technology into a conservative aerospace industry. What did that journey teach you about resilience and conviction?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Well, you're right, you know, aerospace is um a very conservative industry. People do not change things easily in their aerospace, and it's a good thing, to be honest, for the security. So I traveled the US and the world world because you know, the engine maker, there are a few of them. Safran was the French guy, but GE and Pratt and Whitney was in the US, Rolls Royce was in UK. So I traveled everywhere in Europe, in Asia, knocking the door with my backpack. Many people said no to me at first. Some did not even, you know, open the door. But I believed in our product. I I knew that the patience in the aerospace, I mean, no nobody takes risk without clear data and experience and legacy that was my my difficulty. But uh I sent an email, I opened the door, and it finished by working because today, you know, we are working with all the care engine makers, Safran, Pratt, GE, Rolls-Royce, they are all our tier one customer. So resilience and perseverance is one of my key, and uh, you have to drink big, as you said, and be resilient in this business.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 3:25

Yeah. Now, like you said, your father built the foundation of JPB, and then you scaled it from a small company to over 200 people. And you mentioned it was just three people to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, that was three people, including me.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 3:38

Uh-huh. Yeah. So, how did you your leadership evolved during that transformation? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I learned while I was working here. My father was an inventor, uh, very technical guy. I learned a lot from him. But scaling, you know, a company is very different from just inventing a product. Inventing is probably the biggest part and the most complicated. But uh at three people, to be honest, you do uh everything yourself. Uh you you uh pack the things, you uh answer the phone, you travel, you you do uh almost everything. At 50 people, you need to structure a bit. And uh at 200, like this is today, we are more than 200 people. You need a strong team with you, you need a clear vision. I had to learn a lot about delegation, you know, to trust the people also and to let go of control, which was difficult to me because I was dreaming JPB, I was sleeping. When I was not sleeping, I was thinking about that. So the hardest part probably was to changing my mindset. I had to become more a leader than a doer, and this is what you know part of my my journey. So today I I spent more time on the strategy, on people, on vision, uh, and less time on workshop and machines, to be honest.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 4:57

Right. So it's really an evolution. You've gone through, like you said at the beginning, you're doing most of it. You're you're doing like pretty much everything if it's a team of three people, and that evolved along the way. And you've said like building the right team was one of the hardest challenges. What did you learn about hiring culture and making tough leadership decisions during that time?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

I had success. I made mistakes, I hired people who were very sometimes good technically, but that did not share the values of a company. I hired my best friend also at the time, which is not anymore longer with us in the company. We are not talking too much to each other. So, you know, those part of the mistake, but I do really appreciate what we have done together. Uh, that was a real real part of the foundation of the company. Now I'm looking for people more in the attitude first and skill second. Okay. Uh, this is what I try to do because the the attitude is very important when you when you build a team. So I look for people which are curious, how we want to learn. Today we have the AI to help us to to become better, uh to augmentate ourselves. We are not afraid to do new things because this is really the GPB things to do new things all the time. And uh yeah, I think culture is everything.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 6:10

Yeah. So it's really mindset you're looking for, and it's that you know, looking for the right people. Tell me more about that. Why is it more important to have that attitude and that mindset of growth than having the skill set?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

We build this team with a DNA, with a culture. That was the one of my father, then that was the one of the five first people and the tents. You know, we were really pioneers inventing disruption mechanical devices, fasteners, implementing that on the customer, which were highly demanding. Uh, aerospace is a very, very tough business to enter. So, I mean, the pressure is high, and I don't know how to explain, but the one of the most value of my company is the quality of my team. And I need to have this feeling that my team is pushing me and I pull them, to be honest, to be also the best. And if you just enter into this team one one wrong guy, you will really create a big pollution everywhere. And this is my experience. So, attitude, respect of the history and the goal and the vision is a key for me, really.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 7:14

Yeah, no, and I've experienced that too. I think you're you're so right. I mean, one person, you know, they say one rotten apple can spoil the the bunch. Is that something that you knew going into business, or is that something you discovered along the way?

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Discovered, uh, and I still make some mistake, you know, and and we have a saying here. I I think it's not saying from JPB, but this is really true. This is we say that when there is adapt, there is no adapt, right? And and and this is true that most of the time when we have adapt about a candidate at the really beginning of the of the journey together, most of the time the end of the story is not good. So and sometimes you discover that like six months, one year uh after that. And and as you know, we are in France. I in US, I know it's not the same. In US, you can hire and fire people quite easily. Uh, there is a kind of liquidity of the of the people in the market. In France, there is some strong rules of retention of the people. So you kind of get married with the people when you welcome them in your company. It's very hard to uh fire them without good reasons.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 8:18

Yeah, so they say slow to slow to hire and quick to fire, but there in France, you have to be very slow to hire because it's slow to fire as well. I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And at the end, it's not good for the employee. Uh, I think it's uh it's uh that's my point of view.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 8:32

Yeah. Now JPB started with a simple but powerful idea: eliminating lock wires with self-locking fasteners. What made this such a breakthrough for aerospace maintenance?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Well, um, to explain it simply, in in an aircraft engine, there is hundreds of fasteners of nut bolts, and they are very critical. And most of the time, the engine is vibrating when it's running, there is thermal dilatation, there is a lot of reason that can create those fasteners to get disassembled, okay, to get loose or disconnect uh some connection. And that's very dangerous. Uh so to avoid that, uh, most of the time we use uh what is called a lock wire. So a lock wire, really basically this is a piece of wire that you twist uh in the fasteners and in a fixed part in of the engine to make sure that the connection will not get loose. This is a piece of metal wire, and and this is used for years and years and years and decades, but this is very dangerous because this is long to apply. You can forget to put it and then you are on risk. And in the the business of the airlines changed drastically, they were going to pay by hours, okay, more than paying for an aircraft and engines. So the the strategy changed totally because they they they were looking for solutions for short maintenance to make the aircraft fly, you know, the maximum time in a day. And um, and this is where came those those first reflections about having self-locking fasteners. That means removing this locking wire and having something that is automatically locked and automatically unlocked when you want to make it. So this is basically a matter of time saving in maintenance. We save like sometimes one hour per month per maintenance operation uh and per connections, so that means it can be several hours, so that's millions, you know, at the end for the airlines. And this is how we started with our business. So we are equipping the areas that are quite often assembled and disassembled for maintenance operation.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 10:37

So it's a huge time saver overall and over the lifetime of the aircraft, is what I'm hearing. It's a small part with huge implications. Today, your products go far beyond mechanical solutions into smart sensor-enabled systems. How are you transforming passive components into intelligent assets?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

The idea comes from two sides. First, I was saying to myself, well, we are doing smart products, mechanical smart products already, how to make them smarter. And in another way, I went to a big customer making helicopters that was playing with most of my product and told me, Damien, this is great, but I have no need right now for one of your products. My my pain right now is I want to know in real time the tension in the assembly of few bolts on my helicopter. Because I have to check the tension and the torque of those bolts every 500 hours of flying. That's very costly. This operation, you have to stop the helicopter for more than one day and a half to do this operation. So if you can give me a technology that will tell me in real time if this is connected without doing any maintenance phase, yeah, it will be great. And this is how we decided to implement in our fasteners some sensors and some protocol of communication. And uh, this is how Ball Track was born pretty recently. So this is a smart fastener monitoring system, and this is a big success. So right now we are qualifying this technology with the helicopter business, but also with all the amusement park section, I was amazed to see that there is a big demand in the amusement park, okay? All the roller coaster. Here you have a lot of bolts that are you know here for the security of the passenger and that need to be checked, checked pretty pretty often. And uh here also we supply our technology of uh bolt track, which is doing lifetime monitoring of tension of any bolts.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 12:34

Interesting. And so is that a vertical that you were already in before? I mean, the amusement park rides, or is this something new that you're entering?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

It's new, it's new, both sides. It's new. Uh the technology we were doing only mechanical things from my father legacy. As I told you, I was a student in electronics and and computer skills, so I knew that the technology can bring you know some additional stuff to product, but I didn't know how to introduce it. So the opportunity came with these ball track things. So today we have electronical guys, we have uh IT guys here in in the company that were not here a few years and a few months ago. So this is a new vertical in terms of research and development at JPD, and it's open new doors and new verticals with the amusement park all over the world because I'm amazed to discover you know how many amusement parks there is all over the world and how you know safety is important for them.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 13:26

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

And pretty quickly, when you talk about amusement park, you go to the ski lift, you know, and all those installations in the mountain that can also be equipped. We are talking with uh oil platforms also that are very demanding in terms of security. And uh now we are talking about some mix about our self-looking product on one hand and our connected product for some other application. Very interesting.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 13:53

Exciting, right? Lots of lots of opportunity, I'm hearing. Now you've invested heavily in Industry 4.0, like you mentioned, from robotics to your proprietary MES and IoT systems. How has data visibility reshaped your operations and decision making?

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Well, it changed a lot. So maybe you know your question is going quick on these data things, but as I told you, we were three people at the beginning. So we were not having any machine. After selling, you know, all those products at Safran G, Pratt, we we started to get some business and more and more business. We were subcontracted most of our business, and I decided to incorporate every uh operation uh in my company one by one. Okay, so we started with assembly, uh, welding, painting, then machining, and now we do a lot of more, you know, a basic operation. So um and putting putting in place a machining workshop in France in 2018 was a challenge because you know everybody was moving outside of France in the low-cost or best cost countries, and I was doing the opposite way. I was building an industrial site from there. And I understood quickly that the people to run my workshop was not anymore at school, you know, there is no more school for CNC manufacturer in French. So I realized quickly that I had some difficulties to hire people, so I invested heavily in robots to compensate the lack of people at the time, and I invested a lot in the 4.0 industry to be data driven and be able to control my workshop from all over the world. Okay, so I really basically connected all my machines together. My CNC machines, my CMM machines doing the inspection were connected, talking to uh computers, IT, and all the data were centered in in a database, and I was able to, you know, look on my data, look on the my my workshop in real time from all over the world. So that was this app was built in 2017. So I introduced at the time uh the first IT guys to do the first line of code uh in JPB uh in 2017. And uh we will talk probably more about the data in the podcast later, but it's it's very, very, very important. So from those data, we build our own MES uh system because nothing was on the market, and we also use a lot of robotics to have more precise and reproductive capacity. And the result right now is really uh a better quality, less west in in uh waste in our in our workshop, and faster to our customer. And it will be a good introduction to to keep prod, I think that is your probably one of your questions. And I will explain you how all these four.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 16:40

No, that's awesome. But that that's so interesting that your main issue was not having the skilled people. And so you brought robotics in to fill that gap of the technical people, I guess weren't there. You were saying that they here we kind of have the opposite problem where we have the skilled people and they're afraid of the robots coming in to replace them. So, but I'm hearing that you introduced the robots because the people weren't weren't there.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, in your case, that was that. And I I I can tell you that every robot that I put in place, I hired eight people, you know, around to do the other other stuff. Um, robots for us didn't kill any any job.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 17:19

Any jobs, they actually introduced jobs. Huh, that's really cool. So one of your innovations has been described as the shazam of manufacturing, using vibration data to monitor machines. What does this mean for the future of industrial productivity and efficiency?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I set up my machining very connected from scratch, screen everywhere, you can follow in real time what is going on. And in 2017, I opened the doors of my factory to any people that wanted to visit it. So I welcomed a lot of CEOs from all over the world, including Safron, including Boeing. The CEO of Boeing came to visit, the CEO of DMG Mori came and visited my company, and they were amazed. Probably today, we are 10 years after. It's more and more common to see such kind of modern workshop, even if we don't see so much of them. But 10 years ago it was amazing. So and at the end of the visit, almost all my people, all my friends and all my CEO was like having stars in the eyes and wanted to have the same. They say, Damien, how can I do? I want to have the same, but I don't know how to start. I don't know how to start because I don't understand the IT, I don't understand these 4.0 things. So I decided to create a startup that will help them to digitalize their workshop in a very easy way. And my way was quite complicated because I definitively open all the machines, connect all the wires to the machines. All the machines have a different language of communication depending, you know, on the PLC inside. So I discovered it was a very complex world. And finally, looking at my workshop, I found that all the machines have the same language of communication. You just have to hear them. So you know Shazam, okay, so you put your phone near the music and it tells you the song. So for keyprod, it works the same. Same way but with the machines, production machines. We just put a small sensor on the machine, just a magnet, no wires, no installation. And these things listen to the vibration of the machine. And our software with artificial intelligence, machine learning inside, tells you in a minute if the machine is running or not, producing or not, how many parts you produce per minute. It will give you the cycle time. Uh, if the machine is stopped, if you have any problem, and it just takes five minutes to install. Right. No IP, nothing, just Wi-Fi connection. And this is KeeProt. And this is an idea that I founded in you know a few years ago, and now it's uh it's a full startup with 25 people inside, and we are selling uh mainly in Europe now, and we are starting uh the sales in US this year.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 19:57

Okay, so it's a completely different business, it's separate from JPB.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

It's inside JPB as a pure other vertical with a lot of tech uh guys, so it's really a startup. So we have a CTO, a CPO with a product, you know, the product design is very, very important in this startup. We have uh 15 developers, front, back developers, we have DevOps, the whole uh infrastructure is based on Amazon Web Services. We are designing our own IoTs, so we have the electronician people there. The assembly of the IoTs is made in France with my team that is doing the assembly of the other stuff, the fasteners. So now we assembled also these electronic fields. So we do everything, the production. And so this is part of JPB as a as a kind of startup.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 20:42

Okay, fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

And so is there competition in this area that you've identified or yes, there is there is few, but nothing, as far as I know, that is as disruptive as keyprod. Really, keyprod is the Shazam. Yeah, you just magnet it, it will listen to your the music of the machine and understand in a minute what is going on. So, this is the beauty of it. You don't have to stop your workshop, you just magnet it on your machine and you you get your first result uh 10 minutes later. You can start to monitor your stuff. And the the savings are massive, you know. It's finally a business that is pretty close to the fast owner business because we are saving, in average, 10 to 15 percent of productivity to our customer. That means that if you have a small workshop of 10 machines, you install KyProd, and in a matter of one month, you have the equivalent of 11 machines. You save one, yeah, you save one machine for free almost because keyprod we sell it as a SaaS business, so it's very cost effective effective. It's uh it's a subscription. You pay it for a month. If you don't like it, you just stop to pay for a month. And so there is no risk, and the savings are big, are huge.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 21:52

Right. And it sounds like I mean it goes well beyond aerospace too. Your your potential customer base is yes, we started from the aerospace.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Space because I had a lot of friends in this field, but today we are almost everywhere in the automotive, in the uh in the food business. We have a customer that is doing the watch, we have some luxurious brands in our portfolio also, uh, and some big, big, big industrial people that are doing you know, many industries, aerospace, automotive, some big names. So we are at the level of scaling, keep prod right now. So that means most of the customers have installed small batches of our IoTs right now. So we started by five, now maybe it's 40 in average. And for some of the customers, we have potential to deploy like 500 of them in the in the workshop, and we are entering this phase right now, which is very, very challenging and very interesting. And this is a totally new business from the industry to the tech industry that's totally uh different, two ways of thinking, but it's very complementary. And I think there is a lot of things that the tech can bring to the industry, and a lot of things that the industry can bring to the tech.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 23:06

Right. Yeah, I can see that. Right, very complimentary, like you said, and and mutually beneficial. Yeah. So, Damien, after COVID disrupted aerospace, you made a bold decision to accelerate rather than pause. What strategic moves allowed you to come out stronger in the process?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Well, when the COVID uh hit, you know, everyone in the aerospace stopped almost everything. The orders dropped drastically. We we have lost 40% of our businesses uh during the COVID, and we were expecting to do plus 30 at the time, and we did minus 40. So that was a huge shock. Most of the company reduced their teams, they had count. We decided to do the opposite. When uh it comes about the football, I'm not a big fan, but we call that the Mercato. We did our Mercato, uh, we kept all of our people in France and in Poland. In Poland, you know, there that was no uh specific um grant from the from the country to keep our employees, so I decided to pay them doing nothing for months, and they clearly remember that today, and I'm very happy about it. We invested heavily in a new factory, so I built uh a 10,000 square feet factory. Sorry for the unit in the US, but this is big. This is four times bigger than the factory that we have now. We have also started to build a new factory in Poland, twice time bigger than the factory that we had in France at the time. We invested 30 million of euros at the time of the COVID to accelerate all of development. We accelerated and created the development of Kiprod that I just talked about, these IoT things, okay. And why? Because I knew the industry, the aerospace will come back. I was sure. But to be honest, it's easy to say that now. But when at the time, when you opened the newspaper, industry was dead. Uh, aerospace was dead forever because you know that was a new way of thinking, the green stuff, and and nobody wants to fly again. That was, you know, I I thought it was a mistake, and I decided to invest a lot. And I said to myself, when all those things will come back, we will be ready. Okay. And and we had the people, the technology, the capacity, while the other was were rebuilding. Uh, we were already delivering at this moment. So that decision to invest during this crisis was probably one of the best decisions I ever made.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 25:29

Right. Yeah. So you took that huge risk and you saw the potential, you knew that it would come back, and but you made that counterintuitive decision to invest instead of pulled back. And they often say that. I mean, you want to invest when the markets are down, right? But that's when fear sets in. And so that's when most people are doing the opposite because they follow their their gut and their instinct, which is fear. However, you overrode that fear, you know, you went beyond that.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

You describe it very well because again, it's easy to say now, and then people can say, wow, that's a nice storytelling, but no, basically, you don't sleep for weeks because you don't know how many times you know this will take, you know, maybe 12 months, maybe 18 months. Finally, it was more, and you start to you know count how many cash you have to stay alive at this moment, and yeah, it's a lot of fears that you need to fight. So, well, it's done, well done, and I'm very happy about it.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 26:26

Now you've expanded into sectors like helicopters, defense, rockets, and even smart infrastructure. How do you evaluate which markets to enter next?

SPEAKER_00 26:34

I will say that there is at least you know two questions, or uh let's say uh three questions. Maybe the the first is you know, though does the market need high reliability? That's I think very important because our products are designed for extreme conditions. If reliability is critical, then we can help. The second question we ask ourselves is is the market big enough to justify an investment. That's important because sometimes there is some really clever application, but there is no market, and we have to say no. Sometimes it's difficult. But uh the third question we ask to ourselves is can we bring real value, you know, and not be just another product? And I think yeah, this is with these three criteria that we are evaluating how to expand our business. And and today we decided to go you know into defense, into energy, into amusement park uh for some and and few you know other sectors.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 27:29

Yeah, a lot of things to look at and a lot of opportunity is what I'm hearing too, especially as you're developing new new whole product lines.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yes, there is so many. There is with our current customer, uh, because you know we didn't have time to talk about that, but we are delivering on time our product, we are 100% on time, zero defect of quality. Nowadays, it's very rare to find you know such um a level of deliveries. So our our current customer they want to do more with us, they like us, they said we want to develop, we want to grow JPB. And again, sometimes we have to say no because we want to diversify, we don't want to be too dependent to you know one specific customer or one program. So this is it. And as we evolve, you know, we are becoming more and more visible, and this brings you know some some new opportunities. And has with the new product that I explained before, it's opens a lot of new doors. So yeah, now it's a matter of scale.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 28:25

Right. So your fasteners are the ones you're talking about with the zero defects and being able to guarantee that quality and then support it with your the software applications that can monitor it and ensure that uh reliability.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 28:40

Now with recent investment from Ardean, uh you're preparing for significant growth, including potential acquisitions. What does the next phase look like for JPP?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Well, we will see. I will not you know describe all the business plan, uh, but um, yeah, Ardean uh joined us in 2025. So Ardean, I don't know if you you know your auditors know Ardean, but this is the number one probably found in Europe. 200 billion euro of assets uh managed. So they they enter as a minor minority uh investors in JPB. So this is uh a big first step for us. This is new. I I was uh 100% the owner of my company, you know, I was the sole owner a few weeks, few few months ago. That's a big change uh for me. A quite important step that I decided. Okay, so it's uh not something that um I have to live with. This is something I decided and I actively, you know. And they I'm very happy about the first month of collaboration with Ardean. They they bring to us a lot of experience in scaling industrial companies abroad in many countries, so they bring us the best method of management of the company, of reporting, of KPIs. You know, it sounds basic, but when you grow fast, sometimes you forgot about the basics. And today, so we are much more better in terms of uh reporting, management, communication, transparency, and everything. I appreciate that. The next phase is is quite clear. We we want to grow faster internationally again. We already make a lot internationally because more than uh 90% of our business is is is made outside of France, but we want to be probably closer to a customer once we are looking for potential acquisition, you know, it's not for sure, but why not? We are looking for acquisition. Probably before that, we need to scale a little bit the team uh and structure the team to be ready for that. And we we can look for companies that can be you know complement to uh our technology or to open new markets, and we will continue to invest evil in keyprod in bold track or digital solutions. So the goal with Ardeon is to become the global leader in smart fastening and industrial monitoring.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 30:46

Okay, and you said this was a strategic you know move. It's something that you you sought out and and carefully considered.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

That was the perfect moment for me, uh, drive a lot of you know uh interest for me. First, 12 uh 20 20 years of of uh big investment, good investment, you know, that was for me an occasion to do a cash out first, to you know, uh transform a bit of my journey in in cash just for me, my family, just make everybody uh secure. And that's very important to be to feel secure uh at one point of this journey, just uh to be able to sleep, you know, a little bit and and and relax. That was number one. The number two was this this capacity to help us to grow, structure and build the plan and challenge, you know, our strategy, the reporting things, and also my team, you know, my closest team, my team of directors will become uh shareholders also uh of the of the nature. So they will not only work for a salary but also uh to share uh uh the result of our uh global strategy in the next five, seven years.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 31:55

Yeah, so they'll have a stake, you know, in the game as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

So that's being a great alignment between all the parties.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 32:02

Yeah, that makes sense. Now you mentioned the importance of balancing opportunity with discipline. How do you decide when to say no to growth in order to scale sustainably?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, but that's probably, as I said before, one of the hardest parts of being, you know, a leader or CEO. Because it is the the opportunities they come every week, almost every day. A new market here, a new customer, a new potential, a new idea. Sometimes when somebody says, see keyprod, you know, this this Shazan thing, uh, oh I have a great idea for your keyprod. Maybe you can sell a bit on my machines, you know, that are working in the mud here on the mine, on the mining stuff. And and first you say, Oh yes, that's great, and you go there, but you just lose your focus, you know. Uh, you so you have to stay strong on your vertical, and sometimes you you just have to understand you cannot do anything, everything's you cannot do it. So you have to say no sometime, right? Uh I learned about to say no uh in some time, and this is probably for the best uh yeah decision. So we say no when when it does not fit with our strategy. Uh we say no when we do not have the right team for it. Sometimes it's just a matter of sorry, I don't have the capacity to do it. I like the idea, but I don't have the team. We say no when you know it will put too much pressure on quality, for example, because in aerospace, if you lose quality, you lose everything. So grow growth must be controlled, and speed is good, but not at the cost of the reliability. So this is how I learned to say no.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 33:39

Yeah, staying focused, clear to your your mission, and having your priorities straight is what I'm hearing too. Because yeah, every time you say yes to one thing, you're automatically saying no to something else because of capacity, because of the things you mentioned, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:52

I used to say yes to everything, you know, at the beginning. I was I was a yes, a yes man. I was not uh so I learned by experience that sometime you need to say no.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 34:03

Yeah, no, I like that. Now you bridge two worlds, advanced manufacturing and cutting-edge tech. Where do you see the biggest gap and how can companies close it?

SPEAKER_00 34:12

The biggest gap is between the factory floor and uh digital world. There is a big gap there. Many companies, you know, have the old machines, the old processes, the old software, no data or very siloed data that you cannot access. They know that they need to change, but they don't know how to do where to start. This is basically what I hear all the time. My advice here to them is start small. Just start by something. Key prod was an answer to that. Just start with keyprod, you know, it will change your mind. I think when you start small, when you start with experience, then you you you create traction in your company, and you say, okay, I understand what can bring the data, I understand what can read the AI. Um and this is my recommendation. Yeah, do the do this on the small uh scale, then then take the next machine and try to do it and expand it. This is exactly what Keeprot does. It makes industry for the or uh accessible to everyone, even the small factories, no big IT projects, just start. Uh it's very cheap. Uh, learn and grow. That's it.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 35:14

So, as manufacturing becomes more digital and connected, what capabilities do you think will define the next generation of industrial leaders?

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Uh yeah, that's an interesting question. It's a difficult one. I I will say again two things or three probably. The first is for the the next generation of uh industrial leaders will be the ability to use the the data, definitively. It's not just about collecting it, but uh how to use it and make this decision with them. I think it's very, very important and key in the industry right now. Right. The the second probably will be the the speed. Uh the speed. The companies today they have to adapt very, very fast. And the ones that are able to adapt very fast will win. I think. We were talking about the COVID, we were talking uh before this we start this interview about the situation with the war and everything. Come on, let's look about the world. There is no stability anymore, and we have to change, we have to adapt ourselves, we have to understand uh how it works pretty fast, and the technology is moving so fast. Look, the AI. Okay, the AI, we are all working with chat GPD and Chat GPT and so on for the last two years, but now I'm experiencing you know the the cloud co-work and the cloud card and everything. It's it's a game changer in a matter of weeks and months. Yeah, it's a new revolution. And you we need to embrace this revolution, we need to understand it, we need to grow because the ones that will make it, the ones that will understand it, have the understanding of the data, the speed will go very fast in this new world. Yeah, so this is my my beliefs, and just to not be the tech guy, I think that you were talking about the next generation of leaders. I think the third probably point will be the people, okay? Because we talk a lot about technology, but the people. Technology is important, but uh the people makes really the difference, as I said at the beginning. So the next generation of leaders will need to understand both manufacturing and technology. They will need to speak the language of you know the engineer, uh, the language of the software uh developers. I think the the next factory will be all about software more than machining. And and to be honest, this is rare today. But it will be essential tomorrow.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 37:29

No, I'm hearing that though. So it's like you have to be very comfortable with change and just be willing to embrace change because change is going to happen. So it's like not expecting things to say this stay the same same, not um depending on stability, like you were saying, but being very willing to be agile and um because like you said, speed too. It's about being able to pivot quickly.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, pace, speed, you know, all those words are are really the key right now. And I'm quite worried because the the world of the industry is moving slow. The people that run those factories most of the time are getting older and they don't, you know, look at the technology uh on the good side. So yeah, the next generation, it will be the tough, tough things. But the good the good side of it is that there is so much things to do in this industry. So that's the big message for the young generation. You know, go there, go and do some real things. Industry is about doing real things.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 38:26

Yeah, lots of opportunity. So, final question, Damien. You've said success starts with dreaming big, but execution is everything. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs building in complex and industrial sectors?

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Uh I don't know who I am to give you know advice, but I will say dream, dream big, but start now. You know, I want to what I want to say is that uh I I've met a lot of people reading all the books about how to become the best entrepreneur, doing a lot about you know personal improvement and stuff, but never never took the opportunity to start to do something. You know, they they were always waiting the perfect moment. So and this moment sometimes sometimes never exists, right? So yeah, dream big, but start now. This is my best advice. And I start, as you said, with the three people and the big loan on my shoulder today. We are 200 people, and we are expecting to double in the size of the company in the next five years. We are working with the biggest name in the industry of the aerospace. So yeah, my advice is you know, first believe in your product. If you do not believe, you know, nobody will, uh to be honest. And and second, just be patient in the industrial sectors, you know, the things that the take times, yeah. Take time, so be patient, certification, test, approval. That's all about it. It can take years, so yeah, patience. Uh, but once you are in, you are in for a long time, okay? At least industry. If you are delivering on time, on the quality, you are here for a long time.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 40:02

Yeah, so taking action but then fully committing is what I'm hearing too. Just dive in all the way, make sure that you're in it for the long haul because there are lots of ups and downs on the journey.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Exactly. And make sure you build a team, you know, of people who share your passion. You cannot do it alone. So the team is everything.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 40:21

Great advice. I love that. Well, Damien, thank you for joining me. How can listeners learn more about you and JPB?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yeah, me, you can just connect with me on LinkedIn, Damien Mark. You can also visit the website, JPB System and KeeProd, you know, and bolt track for uh connecting bolts. Uh and yeah, I'm here on LinkedIn. If you want to uh book me, uh send me a message, I will be happy to answer.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 40:44

Great. Well, thank you again. And to everyone listening, thank you for tuning in to Industry Ignited. Be sure to subscribe and join us for the next episode. Until next time, stay bold, stay curious, and keep igniting industry.