Interview with Hugues Dumas for the French Chamber Singapore, SYNOVIVO & MANAGERIA

21 October 2022

How did your career path lead you to found SYNOVIVO CONSULTING and then to run SYNOVIVO-MANAGERIA Alliance?
With more than 15 years in Agribusiness from seeds to crop nutrition and biosolutions, I was wondering why investors and peers trusted me and how I could create added value in my different management & executive officer positions. I defined 3 main axis in which my understanding and skills were efficient:

• Corporate organization
• Market feeling
• HR sensibility

Added to my willpower to start an entrepreneur story, HR and Operational Consulting was an evident track to create SYNOVIVO Consulting.
Then when you like what you do and you perform, the market feels it and opportunities start to come. It was then that I met Cécile Boulaire, CEO MANAGERIA, with who we design all strategical decisions.

The wonderful Alliance SYNOVIVO-MANAGERIA started like that!
A human compatibility, common values and of course incredible synergies in our strategies and competencies. SYNOVIVO is agile and fully involved in Agriculture & Biotechnology partnering with MANAGERIA, very well structured and a pure player of the Food Industry. Together we are leader of HR services covering the complete Food chain from field to fork with the same excellence of expertise!

What about the team?

We are 13 consultants SYNOVIVO-MANAGERIA, 2/3 come from operational and executive positions within our Agri Food Tech market. Other come with their international background or specific skills, which complement our collective knowledge.

How is recruitment in the Agri Food Tech’ sector different from other sectors? 
“We have dirty boots and ideas in our HR Brain !”
The process of recruitment is not different! If you like what you do and you do it with an efficient method, you optimize performance and success.
However as all specific industrial sector, if you don’t know how works the market, if you don’t understand how people behaves in B2B relationships, if you can’t create values while preparing missions, if you can’t have an understanding of technical & development strategy of your partners… you will only be an administrative support as many other HR agencies. This is not our strategy and if we keep on, years after years, working with same customers and ecosystem, this is not a surprise!

Hugues Dumas and Cécile Boulaire, CEOs SYNOVIVO & MANAGERIA

Why do you think people and companies in the Agrotech sector trust you and sets you apart from the competition?
“We talk the language of our customers and their markets !”
We work with private equity, investors, food industry CEO,ag riculture leaders, factory managers, breeders, technician,
international marketing managers, Professional Syndicates,… we are directors and experts talking to other directors and experts. It makes the difference.
In fact, we do not have real competitors. What we offer is unique; no one has the same level of expertise to recruit executives and managers controlling, as we do, the complete Agriculture and Food chain.

How would you describe SYNOVIVO MANAGERIA’s positioning on the European and Asian markets?
“SYNOVIVO-MANAGERIA is a pure-player of Agriculture, Food Industry & Biotechnology markets.”
We are the only international recruitment agency providing HR services with the same level of market expertise and jobs’ knowledge, from upstream to downstream of the agriculture and food chain.
We drive our European, Middle East and Africa missions from our Hub in France with the same quality process and performance than our Asian activities monitored from our hub in Malaysia.

What do you wish and plan for the growth and future of SYNOVIVO MANAGERIA?
We have 3 corporate projects to support the organic growth of SYNOVIVO-MANAGERIA. One of them is the international
development.
Our hub in France is mature and efficient. From this hub, we had more and more Asian collaborations so we decided to structure our Asian activities around an hub in Malaysia, a central and easy access platform, where we can spread out our know-how and networks.

Our strategy and our values imply a strong proxy
Of course, we will keep our organization in Business Unit with our 2 brands! BU SYNOVIVO covers all agriculture, agro-industry and biotechnology markets while BU MANAGERIA deals with all Food Industry markets from the 1st processing to the distribution of final products including Food Tech & Services.
This organization makes the difference.

What do you want from the partnership with the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (FCCS) for you and your company?
The French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore & the Team France Export is an excellent concept to promote French industries. Agri Food Tech Expo Asia is a pillar of their strategy and when we decide to set up durably in Asia, we have seen a common interest to work together.
Our expertise and knowledge are useful for FCCS and FCCS network and market watch could be a good vector of business for SYNOVIVO-MANAGERIA.

We know that you are participating and will be a speaker at the Agri-food Tech Expo Asia…
Why are you speaking at this international exhibition? What do you expect from this tradeshow?
My position is unique in our Agri & Food Ecosystem!
Combo of market skills, management experience, knowledge of trades, international dimension with an entrepreneur dynamism creating an Executives & Experts Search Agency, is not common and even intriguing !
I will try to share my experience and my projection of HR challenges in Agriculture & Food Industry in the next 5 years.

For more information and to keep up to date with SYNOVIVO MANAGERIA news, visit:

https://www.synovivo.com

https://www.manageria.fr

Source : https://www.fccsingapore.com/news/n/news/interview-with-hugues-dumas-ceo-synovivo-manageria.html