Having began his career with ELF over 30 years ago, Olivier Denizart has enjoyed a long and successful career within TotalEnergies in a number of its business units across the world.
Here he shares some of his experiences through his career and talks about his new role as Technical Manager within Lubmarine.
Can you tell us a little more about your background and some of your roles within TotalEnergies?
I grew up living in Ghana, Iraq and Lebanon so travel is in my DNA. As a result I have really enjoyed my career with TotalEnergies as many of the roles have enabled me to work, live and travel across different countries around the world.
Having gained a PhD in mechanical engineering, I started the first part of my career in plastic processing – with Elf – or the ‘blue guys’ as they were known when Elf merged with Antar.
My working career has been spent across different TotalEnergies business units, which has enabled me to build up a real diversity of experiences that I have been able to call on through the years and also bring to my new role as Technical Manager within Lubmarine.
The early stages of my career saw me build up a broad experience in plastic processing before moving to the lubricants side of the TotalEnergies business – specifically working within gearbox lubricants.
It was a challenging move but certainly an interesting one. At that time I had been based in the head office in Paris but as my role grew, I was in charge of the gearbox and engine oils side of the business, which was a worldwide role.
As a result I spent a lot of time travelling to locations including Japan and Korea. I really enjoyed meeting and working with different people and customers around the world, which has stayed with me to today. It was an exciting role.
In 2011, I was appointed as head of TotalEnergies’ first technical center for the lubricants division in Mumbai, India, spending three years there.
The TCAP – Technical Center for Asia Pacific- was an exciting challenge as was living in India. Starting a new technical center from the ground up really was fascinating and offered a lot of learning.
From India I took a new position in the Americas Zone in 2014 as Lubricants Technical Manager in charge of business development and supporting the blending plants with optimizing formulations, dealing with pricing and taking responsibility for HSEQ training and managing the team.
It was another great experience. I was living in Panama & Santo Domingo for 5 years working with our affiliates across South America including Argentina, Chile and Mexico.
In April 2019 – I was brought back to France where I was a lead buyer for all lubricant components within TotalEnergies Lubrifiants.
After the diversity of roles within TotalEnergies – What brought you to Lubmarine?
Through my time within the lubricants side of the business, I was aware of Lubmarine as a business unit. It’s interesting because Lubmarine stands alone through its reputation and how it operates and I was very curious and eager to work there, using my core knowledge and interest in the business and its operations.
So when I realized the role for Technical Manager was going to become open I jumped at the opportunity and I was delighted to be appointed.
It’s early days for you still but how are you settling in and what do you see as some of the challenges?
As I have said, Lubmarine is a stand-alone business with a model that is different from other parts of TotalEnergies, so one of the early challenges has been to really understand and get under the skin of the business as quickly as possible.
I have certainly needed to learn a lot of things very quickly, which has been a really enjoyable challenge. I have been able to call upon my predecessor as part of my transition, which has been really beneficial.
What was very clear from day one is that I have a great team to work with here. A team, which is highly knowledgeable and passionate, and I am learning a lot from them already. Lubmarine is regarded as a world leader in the marine lubricants market and you can certainly understand why when you are working in the team.
So I see myself playing an enabling role to coordinate that knowledge and expertise for the benefit of our customers. I have also been working with OEMs for many years in TotalEnergies so this part of my role is something I am very comfortable with and really enjoy doing.
This new position for me is a dream.
Travel is also going to form part of the role and I will be spending time visiting our main ports and hubs around the world, and meeting and working with our customers, suppliers and engine makers.
We also have our Marine Lubricant Engineers working worldwide so I will be working closely with them, as they are a critical point of difference in terms of the level of technical knowledge and support we can offer our customers.
Will you be utilizing your previous experiences in TotalEnergies to add value to this role?
Absolutely – having spent a long time over my career working on and developing new lubricants – I believe I can bring new aspects and insights to the way we develop new products and lubricants in the marine industry.
Working with and developing teams is also something I am passionate about and enjoyed a great deal of experience doing over my career and again, I see that as adding value to this role, harnessing the knowledge and expertise within our team to solve challenges and deliver even higher standards of service to our customers and affiliates.
We will also be looking at R&D in greater detail as with the energy transition in shipping we will be facing new regulations which will mean not only updating and renewing our existing range of lubricants but developing new lubricant solutions to meet new regulations and standards.
So R&D will be increasingly important and this is certainly one of my passions.
When you are not working what do you like to do?
I live in Paris, near a forest, which is great because I love the outdoors and in particular love mountain biking. This is my favorite sport. It's a great way and a great place to give balance to work and a way to stay healthy.
I have 4 children – all adults and all carving out their own careers, which is really lovely to see. One is in Cambodia, one is in Canada, the other two are in Paris so it certainly seems like the travel DNA is continuing again!