56 years old, sporting a stylish jacket and exuberant shirt, Philippe Roux-Salembien is a joyful, creative entrepreneur. A graduate of the European School of Biotechnology in Strasbourg, this epicurean native of the Gironde has several strings to his bow. An IT consultant, he also helps companies develop innovative organisational solutions. Pragmatic and down to earth, Philippe proudly upholds his humanist values and is committed to the growth of developing SMEs and SMIs.

From international research…

How do you go from a biology student with a tendency to explore everything but not always in depth, to an engineer with a passion for innovation? The discovery of genetics, “a discipline known for its rigour and requiring a highly analytical approach”, led Philippe Roux-Salembien to study at the prestigious European School of Biotechnology in Strasbourg⁽¹⁾(ESBS). “It was a voyage of self-discovery!” he enthusiastically declares. “I developed a comprehensive strategy to get into ESBS, which

included working on my English during internships and in laboratories abroad!” With a passion for research, our freshly graduated engineer began his professional life in the laboratories of the multinational Solvay in Brussels. But a redeployment of this large group’s activities led to a change in his plans. He retained an unwavering commitment to applied innovation, reflected in the patents filed by Solvay based directly on his work!

…to computer engineering

Philippe then embraced IT, a fast-growing sector full of opportunities. He worked for a series of Digital Services Companies, including ATOS, SOGETI/CAPGEMINI, and ACIAL/QESTIT. His career progressed, presenting numerous challenges along the way. “I followed a path that started out as technical, then moved from development to software testing, mobilizing cross-disciplinary skills.” Over the years, Philippe Roux-Salembien has built up solid expertise and practical experience as a Test Manager. Transmission is thus one of his cardinal values. Training, for him, is not simply the dissemination of technical data. His approach owes much to his personality and his ability to quickly link complex data. Our IT engineer is pragmatic and down to earth, but also benefits from an HIA profile and powerful reasoning skills.

Innovation and entrepreneurship

“I use my tree-structured thinking to continuously improve engineering methodologies,” explains Philippe. In 2010, during a conference given by the educationalist Armelle Géninet, he realized the full potential of the millennium-old mandala-based system. “I was inspired by this circular diagram to create a way of facilitating understanding, exemplified here with testing techniques, which I use every day in my training sessions. At this decisive moment, I decided to build a team with other software quality specialists. We published the results of our work in the European journal Testing Experience in December 2011. The MandaViews method was thus born, offering a way of representing, understanding and memorizing, in this case, testing techniques. However, the generic approach of MandaViews is perfectly valid in all disciplines of the engineering field.

Philippe has developed a more complete, comprehensive and efficient version that is easy to deploy with his clients.

In 2019, he embarked on an entrepreneurial adventure, energetically wearing two complementary hats: software testing trainer and creator of engineering solutions. In 2019, as the COVID crisis began to slow the global economy, Philippe Roux-Salembien took advantage of the situation to work on his visionary project: the Sustainability Mirror Tree (SMT). This agile, simple yet powerful graphical tool, dedicated to project management and continuous improvement, is universal and customisable. Its goal is to boost efficiency through an efficient, fluid sharing of experience.

The next step is to co-develop a proof of concept for the SMT, initially with European SMEs/SMIs.

Transmission, with agility and benevolence, remains the credo of this curious mind. “My leisure time is devoted to my family and my community commitments.” Providing education and support remains a fundamental commitment for Philippe, “I am godfather to many godchildren on several continents, and I like to follow young people as they pursue their training goals. Education is a form of liberation, of taking one’s destiny into one’s own hands,” he declares, with characteristic optimism.

Other projects are on the horizon, in particular with IT companies. : “I know their requirements and I already support their teams with software quality.”

There is no doubt that his 360° vision will enable him to help ambitious companies bring their projects to fruition.