Lyon is home to one of France's largest industrial hubs outside Île-de-France: the chemical valley south of the metropolitan area, proximity to the Oyonnax Plastics Valley, and a dense mechanical and metalworking fabric. A transition industrial director operates here in an environment with heavy regulatory and safety requirements.
South of Lyon, the chemical valley spans the municipalities of Feyzin, Pierre-Bénite, Saint-Fons, and Solaize: roughly 14,000 direct jobs in chemicals, energy, and environment, and 2,500 researchers, according to Grand Lyon's press materials. Arkema (Pierre-Bénite), Kem One, Rhodia Operations, Elkem Silicones (Saint-Fons), TotalEnergies (refining at Feyzin), and Rhône Gaz (Solaize) are based there, on a continuous industrial site dating back to 1853.
This chemical hub sits under an hour from the Oyonnax Plastics Valley, France's leading plastics cluster, and from the mechanical and metalworking corridor extending toward the Loire and Isère départements. Lyon remains France's 2nd or 3rd largest economic metropolitan area depending on the indicator used, with an industrial density rare for a city of this size.
A significant share of the chemical valley's sites are classified Seveso, which requires demanding process safety culture and regulatory compliance (environmental permitting, technological risk prevention plans) — an industrial director taking on a role in this hub must master these constraints from day one, with no learning curve. The proximity of major groups like Arkema, Solvay, or TotalEnergies also pushes compensation levels and expectations upward, which complicates leadership recruitment for SMEs and mid-caps in the same hub.
A transition industrial director must therefore combine conventional performance management (production, costs, quality, lead times) with an immediate ability to secure regulatory compliance and risk culture — two requirements rarely found together in a single profile quickly available on the conventional recruitment market.
The context: a 120-employee industrial SME in Lyon's chemical valley must finalize a regulatory compliance upgrade (revising its hazard study for environmental permitting) while maintaining production, and its industrial director leaves the company mid-way through the critical phase of the case.
The stakes: a delay in the compliance upgrade exposes the company to the risk of an administrative shutdown of all or part of production, with a direct impact on clients and delivery times.
The assignment: a transition industrial director takes over site leadership, secures the compliance case with the relevant authorities, and maintains production without interruption.
The process: an express audit of the regulatory case and blocking points, an action plan with milestones shared with the regional environmental authority, and daily production oversight in parallel. The assignment typically lasts 4 to 7 months.
The expected outcome: compliance secured, production maintained without disruption, and a permanent industrial director recruited during the assignment.
MT-Transition mobilizes transition industrial directors with direct experience of sites classified under environmental permitting or Seveso regulations, capable of securing both operational performance and regulatory compliance from the first weeks of the assignment. Our network covers the entire Lyon hub and its extension toward Grenoble, Saint-Étienne, and Clermont-Ferrand.
Every assignment starts with a precise scoping conversation on the stakes with the executive or shareholder, before presenting 2 to 3 targeted profiles within 72 hours.
The daily rate for a transition industrial director typically ranges between €1,000 and €1,600 depending on site complexity and assignment length. See the detail on our dedicated page on the cost of a transition manager.
Yes, some of our profiles have proven experience with lower- or upper-tier Seveso sites, along with the process safety culture and regulatory knowledge (environmental permitting, technological risk prevention plans) that this requires.
The industrial director focuses on production performance, costs, and industrial organization, while the site director carries broader responsibility including support functions. On a single-activity site, the two roles often overlap.
Our network covers the entire region, with major industrial hubs in Grenoble (microelectronics), Saint-Étienne (mechanical engineering), and Clermont-Ferrand (Michelin and its subcontracting chain).
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