March 2, 2020
Moore School alumnus Lyderic Champetier (’18 MBA) immediately applied the skills he learned through the Professional MBA program to his full-time position at Michelin, the French tire manufacturing company.
A Frenchman himself, Champetier was a test engineer at Michelin North America when he started the Moore School’s Professional MBA program. Champetier focused many of his course assignments on his real-world employer, which allowed him to gain exposure to the company’s other departments.
“I was able to share [my assignments] with some of the managers at Michelin,” he said. “They appreciated my insight about the company’s marketing and sales value.”
Champetier was promoted to service operations account manager at Michelin about halfway through his MBA coursework. He thinks this promotion is largely due to his immediate application of the skills he was learning at the Moore School to his work at Michelin.
Based at Michelin North America Headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina, Champetier chose to pursue his MBA through the Moore School because of the on-demand live classroom learning options the Professional MBA program offers.
“The class delivery format seemed like the best compromise,” Champetier said. “Nothing is quite as good as sitting in the real classroom, in my opinion, but the live class through TVs at the remote sites is very good. And the option to take the classes live through Adobe Connect is still far superior to an online, non-live delivery.”
Champetier also added that the Moore School’s international recognition was appealing to him because he wanted to grow as an international businessman.
“I appreciate that [the Professional MBA program] offers many different high-quality electives that enable [students] to focus on what we want to learn,” Champetier said. “The classes international management and HR and the global firm, for example, provided me with a great understanding of the opportunities and challenges that multi-national organizations face. I think these classes give students the right knowledge, skills and tools to become better global leaders.”
Due to his desire to obtain international business skills, Champetier was eager to take advantage of the hands-on global-learning opportunities offered by the Moore School, so he studied abroad twice for his MBA coursework. He said that traveling to Sweden/Denmark and China were some of the best learning experiences he ever had.
“[When I was abroad], I met executives and leaders and learned about the opportunities and challenges of various companies that often have a strong impact in the world's economy and society,” he said.
Combining his experiences from studying abroad with those gained from being a remote student, Champetier said that one of the greatest skills he learned through the Professional MBA program is the ability to work and study in a variety of environments. He said he learned to be flexible with teammates and projects but also how to be productive in airports while traveling through different time zones and even work around technological barriers like “the ‘great firewall’ of China.”
Champetier said he also learned about managers’ decision-making processes as they apply to new technology through the Moore School, specifically in Professor Laura B. Cardinal’s Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation class. After taking the class, he said he has a better understanding of the high-level decisions that Michelin’s leadership team makes and the technology competition among similar companies.
“I can now see in my industry whether a competing new technology can disrupt my company and how we could respond or how we could grow a new technology ourselves,” Champetier added.
After graduating from the Moore School in December 2018, Champetier changed roles at Michelin and is now a supplier and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) program manager. He hopes to undertake an international assignment at the company soon; he said it looks like the Professional MBA program has prepared him well for larger roles at Michelin.
-Erin Mooney