The Autodidacts awards aim to honor entrepreneurs who,
through their success, contribute to the vitality of the economy.
Since 1989, more than 30 business leaders have
distinguished themselves in the Nord, Pas-de-Calais,
Picardie and Normandie.
Being awarded the annual "Autodidact"
prize is very important to me,
but the boss doesn't do all the work on his own.
This prize is not for me, it's for the Staphyt team.
Jacques Boisleux is convinced,
you never succeed alone.
He's a calm man
who doesn't get carried away, who…
Who doesn't talk much, but who analyzes a lot.
Someone who may seem very distant on first meeting
but in the end, you realize that
in fact he's extremely human.
Who controls himself, but who's not emotionless.
He's very reserved, but when he has something to say, he'll say it.
When Jacques says something, he means it...
I'm very proud to have a dad who's built a great business like this.
He is a good captain of the ship.
It's not the boss's charisma that enables a company to develop,
it's the team.
The company head must be a coach
but mustn't put himself in the front line.
I think that being humble, calm, discreet and thoughtful,
it's these character traits that have really made Staphyt take off.
Staphyt is at the service of the agriculture of tomorrow.
A turnover of 38 million euros in 2016,
60% internationally.
The company is in the top 5 worldwide in its field of activity.
Staphyt evaluates innovative agrochemical products
that will help plants to grow while respecting the environment.
Tests, approvals that begin in laboratories, greenhouses
or in open fields.
Contrary to what people might imagine,
the process of marketing products
is a long process that takes more than 10 years,
during which time we eliminate a many molecules,
the most harmful and the most toxic,
and our role is to actively contribute to this "cleaning" process
or to the identification of the most appropriate molecules.
Vegetables, lettuces are part of the studies,
they're not the main part since the main part is the field crops,
but the lettuces are also important in our research.
You find a lot of aphids on them
and so it's time to do a little counting.
"Hi Jacky, how's it going?
-Fine
-You've come without Catherine?
-Well yes
-Everything's fine, let's go in."
For Jacques, it all began in an very big family,
between Ghislaine and Yves.
"Ha, it's beautiful eh, it's beautiful at the farm"
You're driving the car?
The fregate and you've always really liked cars.
Oh, he was a well-behaved child.
He fed his rabbits, kept himself busy,
was very fond of trees, and farming.
He didn't draw attention to himself, he was very quiet.
I was a child, probably the same as the person I am as an adult.
"And you're here.
-I'm sulking there.
-Oh yes Jacky, you're not looking good there.
We're all cousins, we were many, weren't we?
Yes, easy to find your place in a large family of 12.
Everyone pitched in and helped and especially the boys,
since for my parents the boys were outside,
and the girls were more indoors.
"Well, I've seen the candidate who could make
a very good financial controller, or a CFO assistant,
but there is a problem,
she can't speak English.
-Well without English it's impossible"
When I hold a job interview, it's very short,
in fact, what interests me today is to see the person's soft skills,
and for the technical aspect of things,
the HR department takes care of that.
Staff are correctly chosen right from hiring,
because honestly, I find that there's a really good atmosphere.
As for me, all I can tell you is that I came to work here at STAPHYT,
I should have stayed 4 or 5 years,
I had other career goals, and I've now been here for 20 years.
For Jacques, wellbeing at work is one of his core concerns.
We are in early stages of our goal for
total autonomy and complete freedom,
in complete transparency with Jacques.
Freedom-form company is the stage we've been in for 1 year
with the formation of business units, as they are called,
where the idea is to give more autonomy
to key actors in the company.
The result is that of the 425 staff,
a quarter of them take their work home.
Staphyt has been a telecommuting pioneer for 15 years.
Well I don't know if I have a unique or unusual style of management,
since I have no points of reference,
I started out as the boss and I've never been an employee in my life.
So I've acted based on what I thought,
based on what I was able to pick up here and there.
I've trained myself a lot in management and administration.
"It's maybe changed a little,
-It's changed a lot,
-When we were together, back in the day.
-How many horsepower does that have?
-About 175.
-Wow! It's awesome, beautiful!"
For my father, you had to be a farmer to have a good job.
"You remember Jacky, that's your car there,
and we put fertilizer here, right here,
and there we put 4,000 certified chickens."
Dad practically didn't go out onto the land any more
so I ended up with a team of 3 or 4 employees to manage
but very soon I felt that I needed something else.
The "something else" was daring to leave his parents' farm
farm and looking to the future with Catherine.
She is an agronomist and works in Paris.
Jacques is a farmer.
Together, they want to construct a project in the North.
He was a farmer, strongly attached to his land,
and to his family as well,
so we thought about it for a long time, between 1983 and 1988.
And after a year, we said to ourselves OK,
agricultural experimentation is undoubtedly a business of the future.
But it was not so sure as we had conducted
a marketing survey that was negative.
We said to ourselves that we'd go for it anyway,
since the business barely exists
so the development should take place over the years to come.
The Inchy-en-Artois farm bought by Jacques
a few years earlier requires renovation.
To finance the work, he sells his herd and some farm machinery.
He also takes out bank loans thanks to guarantees
from family and friends.
Staphyt was born in 1989.
The early days are difficult,
but the calendar proves the Boisleux couple was right
as the new company benefits from legislation coming
into force requiring the approval of agrochemical products.
So in fact the company was created
at the same time as the procedure.
Staphyt thus creates the market.
With his wife, Jacques forms a professional couple
with shared responsibilities.
We defined the roles quite clearly right from the beginning,
to work as a couple within the same company,
I think that both of you must take care of different sectors.
I think that I very quickly came to rely on him,
telling myself that all the things I don't know how to do,
obviously it won't bother him to learn and then know how to do.
So Catherine had taken charge of the customer care
and technical side.
I was outside working in my wellies or with the tractor
and I'd taken charge of the administration
and management side of things,
since we'd started straight away with an employee.
Because Jacques was a farmer, we already had a guarantor
of practical farming sense with his plots to manage,
who knows exactly what production means,
who knows how to protect crops.
"Next year's investments are substantial."
It's the day of the meeting of the board meeting
the main shareholders are there, the children.
Jacques is already thinking about handing the business down.
This is a meeting with the main shareholders of Staphyt,
so even if it's family, it's still a working meeting
that allows us to report on the main information.
I'm too young to understand everything, but yes,
I think that it's still important to be informed about all that.
We meet around 4 times a year to talk about everything.
We're interested to see how things are developing
and how the business will continue to work.
Even to see that the parents are happy
because their "little baby" is gradually growing up.
It's very important to us, and who knows,
I'm only 23 years old, I may end up by coming back to Staphyt
"And on the subject, what about retirement?
-Well it's not far off, it's officially in September 2018,
but I'll still be there to advise obviously.
-We still need you."
The Boisleux family is appreciated.
They are appreciated as they create jobs,
which brings a positive image,
they are people who, in the village get involved in the associations.
He was also president of the village events committee
at one point when he had a little spare time.
He is an open man, I mean he's a simple straightforward guy
and if you meet him at a village event he's just like anyone else.
That's normal , of course, but what I mean
is he's really easy to approach.
They are well integrated in the village.
From local to international, Staphyt's growth is regular,
from 10 to 20 % per year.
In 2009, the family business opened up to Europe
by buying companies or by creating its own stations,
over 100 today.
In this new geographic network,
Jacques must organize himself and build the right teams.
He's had a good nose for lots of situations
and that's enabled the business to develop,
surrounding himself with competent people
at pretty much every level of the company.
Because on our own in that situation we didn't know what to do.
Today Staphyt exports its working methods to 36 countries
spread over 3 continents, from Russia to Australia.
My personal pride isn't important because
that's not what drives the company forward,
on the other hand the pride of seeing the business thrive as it has,
yes I'm proud of that.
Jacques Boisleux is convinced, we never succeed alone,
and nature is a common good.
Nature is unique.
The soil that's there under our feet is alive,
it is absolutely necessary to respect these plants
these trees, this soil, the air.
It's extremely important.
It is essential to realize that tomorrow
there won't be enough food for man.
It is therefore imperative that research develops
so that tomorrow humanity can continue to grow.
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