Manosque industrial zone, 23,000 people around, north of Aix-en-Provence. Wedged between the A51 and the Durance, a former warehouse of L’Occitane, the neighboring soap factory, houses the Proman head office. Fence, bitumen, gray building. A well-known cliché from peripheral France. But as soon as you enter the reception area, there’s a surprise: in the atrium, the vibrant decor seems straight out of Silicon Valley. Table football, gym, open kitchen, giant screen, blue beanbags and orange sofas, the colors of the house. Upstairs, 150 employees, transparent partitions. On the walls, alternating injunctions – “Work hard, Play hard” – and benevolence – “No talking between us” – the slogans flash. Like the countless photos of parties organized by the company, employees and bosses mixed in the same sincere pleasure of being part of the adventure.
Last memorable trip: Marseille-Barcelona by liner, to celebrate – two years late, due to Covid – the 30th anniversary of the temporary employment specialist. Coming from the four corners of the world, more than half of the 4,400 employees found themselves on the Costa Fortuna, privatized for a weekend in October 2022. The opportunity for the master of ceremonies, Roland Gomez, to solemnly entrust the presidency to his eldest son and faithful second, Roland. Same first name, distinct temperaments. Change of captain, but no direction. A psychologist would make it his honey. “He would be wrong,” says someone close to the two men: “the driving force for them is action, not Oedipal introspection. Even if they like to argue.”
The 4th player in Europe, behind three behemoths
High verb and gravelly accent, “Mr. Gomez”, as the employees call him, to distinguish him from his runner-up, pretends to be scrapped. “Look, it’s written there. I’m nothing more than the “founder,” thunders the patriarch, 74, brandishing his business card. Affable smile from the successor, who has heard others: “All strategic decisions continue to be taken as a family.” The method has proven itself, with deliberate discretion. As at CMA CGM, another southern dynasty, where Rodolphe Saadé, the current boss, regularly communicates with Gomez fils.
Many French people only discovered the existence of Proman during the Rugby World Cup, of which the group was an official sponsor and recruiter. How many know that it achieved 3.8 billion euros in turnover last year, half of which was international? Every day, 100,000 of its temporary workers are made available to 45,000 clients in 17 countries. And thanks to its 1,000 agencies, including 400 in France, the French brand has become the 4th largest player in temporary work in Europe, behind the Swiss Adecco, the Dutch Randstat and the Americans Manpower. All listed on the Stock Exchange, while the Manosquin company, 100% controlled by the family, prides itself on having remained independent.
Tenacity and “common sense”, the values of the house
In the magazine’s latest rankings Challenges, the parents and their sons – Roland, 51, and Romain, 38 – emerge 104th among French fortunes, with 1.2 billion euros in estimated professional assets. Billionaires who owe nothing to anyone. But it’s all about their tenacity and their “common sense”, cardinal values hammered home from one Roland to another. “This entrepreneurial success is a textbook case that we are teaching our sales teams today,” reveals José Santucci, general manager of Crédit Agricole Provence Côte d’Azur, the first bank to have placed its trust in the clan. Grateful, the latter gave him 9% of the capital in 2007. Before buying this stake from him, in 2011. No hard feelings. “The loyalty that binds us has more value than the payment of dividends,” assures the banker, a good player.
An orphan, raised by his peasant grandparents
At the entrance to the vast office that he has kept, two framed patents are the pride of the creator: the Legion of Honor, pinned in 2019 by Christophe Castaner, and the medal of honor for work, gold level, awarded in 2021 by Elisabeth Borne. Late diplomas. The fault lies with a tormented youth, which makes the rise of “Mr. Gomez” all the more extraordinary. At the age of eighteen months, his father, a Catalan who took refuge in France to escape the Franco regime, disappeared overnight, taking his sister Violette, two years his senior. Rumor says they are exiled in Argentina. The orphan will never see them again. “As my mother was not very loving,” he says with sudden modesty, “I was raised by my grandparents, penniless peasants, in a small village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. , in Lardiers. After a chaotic schooling, I went to see the general supervisor of the high school. I wanted to earn my living quickly. He replied: “Boilermaker welder, you will find work as soon as your apprenticeship is over, like an enarque “. That’s how I fell into the pipes.” Married at 18 to an aspiring hairdresser, he then moved from site to site on behalf of a subcontractor from Pechiney. “Between each mission, I had two days to pack my bags and find furnished accommodation. My life with Evelyne fit into our Simca 1 100”.
Fréjus, Martigues, Avignon, Commentry, Ferney-Voltaire, Pauillac, and even Cuba, where he stayed for three years: the qualified worker rose to prominence, becoming team leader, then director of an industrial maintenance agency. But in the refineries where he trained, the two oil shocks are gradually draining the workforce. At the dawn of his forty years, this traveler decides to return to his native lands. With one idea in mind: to offer these employers that he knows well, and sees sinking into the crisis, the new and beneficial flexibility of temporary work. The first Proman agency, for Professionals of Manosque, opened its doors in the fall of 1990. Roland on the ground, Evelyne in accounting. New start. And the start of trouble.
Five years in the hard
“We learned the job on the job and made all the possible mistakes, such as accepting companies that others didn’t want,” relates Roland Junior, who joined his parents in the following months, as soon as he completed his baccalaureate. Very quickly, unpaid debts pile up. The nightmare of the sector. “Every week, we made the pay slips for the temporary workers,” continues the father. The clients paid us within 90 days. The slightest delay put the cash flow in the red. our margin. We remained in the tough for a long time.” The entire family survives through and for the store. Opens on Saturday, market day in Manosque, so that the men, who accompany their wives on the stalls, can stop by. Takes the jokes of competitors without flinching – “Gomez? It smacks of the Marseille environment and money laundering…”. She believes in her star, which finally begins to shine after five years, thanks to the takeover of one, two, then ten agencies in the region.
France to the father, the international to the son
In 2004, the Gomez poached Laurent Robert, key account manager at Manpower. Good pick. With him, the father began to travel across France, to expand the network. Two years later, when the number of branches had jumped from 40 to 80, the SME planted its first flag in Paris, Boulevard Magenta, the nerve center of temporary missions, between the Est and Nord stations. It then expanded its clientele beyond industrial groups, affected by the 2008 crisis, and crossed borders. Switzerland, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Netherlands… Morocco and Romania in 2021. Germany in the crosshairs today. The targets ? Family groups in which Proman increases the capital at his own pace, without rushing the owners, according to the successions. “National expansion is ‘Papa Gomez’. International, his son, summarizes Laurent Robert, who has since become CEO. The first had the intelligence to gradually gain ground. The second, to structure the box on an administrative and financial level, without ever losing a deep respect for his father, his work. And his flair.”
Professional love at first sight
Because with the Gomez, the flow goes straight away. Or die as dry. Head of the American branch since 2017, Gilles Tanneur completed the acquisition of PeopleShare last April – 40 agencies, 250 permanent staff. A fourth acquisition which now brings the turnover achieved across the Atlantic to half a billion euros. Dazzling growth, which played out… in one meeting. “One Saturday in Chicago, I received a phone call in my car: ‘Roland Gomez would like to speak to you,’” says Gilles Tanneur, an interim veteran at Adecco and Crit, whose subsidiary in the United States he had set up. I knew the family by name, nothing more. He suggested that I come to Manosque straight away. I told him that it was not possible for several weeks. The following Sunday, the son took a plane to Marseille and landed here We talked the next morning at a hotel bar. Four delightful hours. He told me the story of Proman, before asking me all the key questions about this US market about which he didn’t know much… and get back on the plane that same evening! A ‘first date’, as the teenagers say.”
Conquered, and delighted with the autonomy that has since been given to him, the manager praises from the Gomez this “countryside” side that Americans love, a mixture of humility and hard work, which makes you want to surpass yourself.” Will the next generation have the same drive? “My three boys will do what they want,” evades Roland Gomez. The eldest, a third Roland, does not seem ready to take up the gauntlet. But Jean, the youngest, has already come to the United States to witness the signing of two deals. “He’s interested…”, slips his father. A confidence filled with hope.
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