Jérôme Guillen

Jérôme Guillen
A sitting man facing the audience.
Guillen in 2010
Born
Jérôme M. Guillen

1972 (age 52–53)[1]
Cavaillon, Vaucluse, France[1]
NationalityFrench
Alma materENSTA Paris
University of Michigan
OccupationAutomotive manufacturing
Years active2003‒
Known forTesla Semi

Jérôme M. Guillen is a transport executive working in automotive manufacturing.[2] He holds a Doctor of Engineering from the University of Michigan and has worked for Freightliner Trucks, Daimler AG and Tesla, Inc. Guillen previously studied in France at ENSTA Paris.[3] Guillen worked at Tesla, Inc. for ten years between 2010 and 2021, including as President of Automotive, having previously led both the Tesla Model S and Tesla Semi manufacturing programmes.[3]

Education

Guillen was born in 1972 in Cavaillon, Vaucluse, France and grew up near Avignon.[3] He attended the Ismaël-Dauphin school in Cavaillon, followed by the Lycée Thiers secondary school in Marseille.[4]

Guillen's studies at ENSTA Paris included an Erasmus Programme year abroad studying at the engineering department of the Technical University of Madrid (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales, ETSII), resulting in dual degrees; BS Mechanical Engineering from ENSTA in 1993 and BS Nuclear Engineering from ETSII in 1994.[5][2]

Guillen completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1999. Upon graduation, Guillen was hired by McKinsey & Company.[2][6][5]

Career

McKinsey & Co (1999-2003)

Upon graduation, Guillen was hired by McKinsey & Company.

Daimler (2003-2010)

Beginning in 2003 Guillen worked at Freightliner Trucks, reporting to the company CEO Rainer Schmueckle.[7] He was later promoted to General Manager of New Product Development.[8] Guillen was project leader for the Freightliner Cascadia program, which was plagued with repeated recalls of hundreds of thousands of vehicles for dozens of reasons including multiple brake system design failures, and wiring systems designed and installed backwards.[9][10][8]

On 7 July 2007 Guillen was approached by Dieter Zetsche of Freightliner's parent company, Daimler, and starting in September 2007 became Daimler's Director of Business Innovation.[11][12] During 2010 Guillen launched the car2go service for Daimler.[13] By October 2010, the Business Innovation unit of Daimler, as headed by Guillen, was profitable and self-funding.[14]

Tesla (2010-2021)

Jérôme Guillen, in front of the first 2012-Tesla Model S (VIN 1), bought by Steve Jurvetson

In November 2010, Guillen moved to work for Tesla Motors.[12][15] Whilst demonstrating the Tesla Model X at the North American International Auto Show in January 2013, Guillen stated that he did not regret the move to Tesla in California, but did miss the German dishes of Käsespätzle and Maultaschen, plus visiting the Stuttgart Ballet.[16] By April 2015 Guillen was receiving a remuneration of $4.5 million per year.[17]

In a 2013 interview, Guillen discussed "BlueStar" (codename for the Tesla Model 3 project), stating that Tesla was expecting to produce 400,000 cars per year.[6] During ramp up of the Tesla Model 3 in June 2018, Elon Musk stated who should be contacted to offer help, with Guillen listed as overseeing General Assembly 4 (GA4):[18]

Wherever you are in the company, if you feel you can help out in any of those areas, please check in with Jat Dhillon on GA3, Jérôme Guillen on GA4 and Omead on EoL and JB Straubel or Chris Lister on Module Zone 4.

— Elon Musk, 15 June 2018, [18]
Roles of Jérôme Guillen whilst at Tesla
From To Role
2010-11 2013-04 Tesla Model S Program Director
2012-01 Acting Vice-President, Vehicle Engineering
2013-04 2015-03 Vice-President, Worldwide Sales and Service
2016-07 Leading Tesla Semi-truck program[19]
2018-06 Leading Tesla Model 3, General Assembly 4[18]
2018-09 2021-03 President, Automotive[20][21]
2021-03 2021-06 President, Tesla Heavy Trucking[22]

Guillen left Tesla in the role of president, Tesla Heavy Trucking on 3 June 2021.[22]

References

  1. ^ a b "Un Provençal poids lourd de Tesla" [A Provence heavyweight of Tesla] (PDF). La Provence (in French). No. 7709. 23 July 2018. p. 1. Retrieved 17 September 2018. Jérôme Guillen, né en 1972 à Cavaillon (Vaucluse)
  2. ^ a b c "L'interview de Jérôme Guillen (Promo 94)" [Interview with Jérôme Guillen (Class of 1994)] (2018210559_newsletter-juin-2018.pdf). Newsletter (in French). Paris: École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées. June 2018. p. 4. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Rougerie, Paméla (9 September 2018). "Qui est Jérôme Guillen, ce Français devenu le bras droit d'Elon Musk?" [Who is Jérôme Guillen, the French person who has become the right-hand of Elon Musk?]. Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 17 September 2018. Originaire d'Avignon, l'ingénieur a quitté la France il y a plus de vingt ans, après avoir obtenu un diplôme de l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (Ensta) de Paris
  4. ^ Pompey, Julien (14 September 2018). "Un Vauclusien prend les commandes de la division auto du géant américain Tesla" [A person from Vaucluse takes command of American automobile giant Tesla]. La Provence (in French). Retrieved 17 September 2018. près son bac passé au lycée Ismaël Dauphin de Cavaillon, il a rejoint le lycée Thiers de Marseille en classes préparatoires,
  5. ^ a b https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromeguillen/ [self-published source]
  6. ^ a b Cypel, Sylvain (12 August 2013). "Tesla, la dernière coqueluche de la Silicon Valley" [Tesla, the latest darling of Scilicon Valley]. Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 17 September 2018. Le premier, Jérôme Guillen, 41 ans, est né à Avignon. Parti de France à 20 ans, après un doctorat d'ingénierie mécanique aux Etats-Unis, un passage chez McKinsey et DaimlerBenz … Nom de code : BlueStar. Ce sera, promet M. Guillen, "un véhicule encore plus technologique mais moins sophistiqué. Un jour, nous aussi, ici, nous fabriquerons 400 000 voitures".
  7. ^ "Freightliner hires Guillen". FleetOwner. 25 April 2003. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  8. ^ a b Lockwood, Rolf (June 2007). "Ready to Roll: The Cascadia" (PDF). Today's Trucking. pp. 48–51. Dr. Jérôme Guillen, Cascadia project leader and Freightliner's general manager of new product development,
  9. ^ "ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:WIRING Recall for 2014 CASCADIA FREIGHTLINER Auto Recalls - Justia Car & Truck Recalls".
  10. ^ "2008 Freightliner Cascadia | Nhtsa".
  11. ^ "Thinking outside the car". The Economist. Stuttgart. 21 October 2010.
  12. ^ a b Jolley, David (2 December 2010). "Daimler top executive Guillen moves to Tesla". Autonews. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  13. ^ Guillen, Jérôme (24 October 2014). ""Wir wollen 500.000 Autos im Jahr verkaufen"" ["We want to sell 500,000 cars per year"]. Manager Magazin (Interview) (in German). Interviewed by Michael Freitag. Retrieved 17 September 2018. Jérôme Guillen brachte bei Daimler das Carsharing-Konzept Car2Go auf den Weg - und wechselte anschließend zu Tesla
  14. ^ Flehmer, Thomas (13 October 2010). "Daimler-Denkfabrik trägt sich erstmals selbst". Auto Gazette (in German). Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  15. ^ Shahan, Zachary (4 August 2016). "The Curious Case of Jerome Guillen, Tesla Semi Trucks, & Nikola One". Clean Technica.
  16. ^ Pretzlaff, Harry (17 January 2013). "Kalifornien statt Käsespätzle" [California instead of Käsespätzle] (Part 1). Stuttgarter Zeitung (in German). Detroit. Retrieved 18 September 2018. Pretzlaff, Harry (17 January 2013). "Tesla gibt es auch in Europa" [Tesla is also available in Europe] (Part 2). Stuttgarter Zeitung (in German). Detroit. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  17. ^ "Le patron de Tesla gagne le "Smic californien"" [The patron of Tesla earns "Californian minimum wage"]. Les Échos (in French). 23 April 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2018. Quant à Jérôme Guillen, en charge des livraisons et du service à travers le monde, sa rémunération était de 4,48 millions de dollars
  18. ^ a b c Kolodny, Lora (16 June 2018). "Elon Musk tells Tesla employees that 'radical improvements' are needed to hit quarterly targets". CNBC. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  19. ^ Musk, Elon [@elonmusk] (21 July 2016). "Jérôme is driving Tesla Semi & doing a great job with his team. At Daimler, he led their most successful semi truck program ever" (Tweet). Retrieved 17 September 2018 – via Twitter.
  20. ^ Wang, Christine (7 September 2018). "Tesla says Jérôme Guillen has been promoted to president of automotive". CNBC News. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  21. ^ Musk, Elon (7 September 2018). "Company Update". Tesla, Inc. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  22. ^ a b Kirkhorn, Zachary J. (2021-06-08). "Departure of Directors or Principal Officers". Tesla, SEC Form 8-K. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Archived from the original on 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-06-09. As of June 3, 2021, Jérôme Guillen, President, Tesla Heavy Trucking, of Tesla, Inc. ("Tesla"), departed Tesla. We thank him for his many contributions and wish him well in his future career.

Further reading