Cultural, generational diversity keys to success at Vallourec’s Aulnoye-Aymeries ONE R&D center
Vallourec’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program, We Are Vallourec, supports and celebrates collaboration among its diverse employees. When people come to a challenge from different perspectives, the results are invariably positive, including for the company and its customers.
Véronica Scheiber and Guillaume Néel, colleagues at the ONE R&D center in Aulnoye-Aymeries, France, share their experience of the benefits of intercultural and intergenerational collaboration at Vallourec. They explain how their differences enrich their joint work in research and development.
Véronica Scheiber and Guillaume Néel possess vastly different experiences and timelines in their trajectories as engineers. However, both were drawn to a career at Vallourec for the same initial reason: the company’s international scale.
Throughout her first year at Vallourec’s Aulnoye facility, Véronica has noticed the impact of that global character every day.
The diversity present here truly enriches our performances as individuals as well as a collective.
That sentiment is shared by Guillaume, whose 17 years at the company speak for themselves.
It’s enriching to evolve in a multicultural environment, especially in regard to R&D. It complements the field of oil country tubular goods (OCTG), which is already a huge playground for engineers!
Driven towards exploration
Guillaume’s journey at Vallourec started with an internship in Brazil, followed by a decade spent in the country in various engineering jobs. He returned to France in 2016 and now oversees a team of 10. Based in Aulnoye, his team helps customers find the right materials for their specific reservoir conditions, while developing new applications and techniques. “As a manager, I strive to encourage a constant circulation of knowledge within my team,” Guillaume says.
Véronica’s path initially began with learning French as a hobby as a student in Argentina. Combining this interest with a background in chemical engineering, she relocated to France to pursue a PhD in the latter. Degree in hand, Véronica was recruited to Aulnoye. “It was very easy to integrate into the team,” she says. “I also had some foreign colleagues, which helped, since they had gone through the move to France before me and could show me the ropes.” An R&D Corrosion Engineer, Véronica works in material selection for traditional and new energies alongside Guillaume.
Determining the right materials for CCUS
Véronica and Guillaume recently provided material selection and qualification services to major O&G players for a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project.
“We’re gathering data on the performance of different materials used to inject and store CO2 captured from industrial sources,” Guillaume explains. “Ultimately, we hope to identify ways to store carbon for centuries – not just for a few years.”
To make this happen, the team analyzes the impact of different impurities, and then works to adapt its equipment to the specific operation’s needs. Meanwhile they are developing guidelines for material selection. “In this way, we can recommend to our customers the best materials for their project’s unique conditions, simultaneously establishing good guidelines for proper material selection in the future.”
Building bridges to innovation
For both Guillaume and Véronica, intercultural collaboration has been a fixture at Vallourec from the start. Guillaume credits this aspect as integral to his formation as an engineer. “I love the time I spent with my colleagues in Brazil,” he says. “With their insight, I learned how to solve problems using eye-opening, innovative solutions.”
Of course, working in different countries brings its share of challenges. Véronica notes how she found herself adapting to contrasting norms from Argentina to France. “When I was researching at a lab in Argentina, we had fewer resources, so we had to be more creative in some respects. We also had to work longer days – between 10 and 12 hours,” she says. “In terms of social relationships at work, we’re more informal in France and address each other using the ‘tu’ form to say ‘you’ instead of the more formal ‘vous.’ That changes relationships in a way I like.”
At Vallourec, nurturing those relationships across barriers gives way to authentic growth. “Learning is a two-way street,” Guillaume says. “As people from older and younger generations, we have a lot of wisdom to offer one another.” For example, Véronica has introduced Guillaume to methods for using technology, such as AI, to save time on tasks.
For Véronica, Guillaume’s guidance has likewise been a major asset. “I had no experience when I first arrived at Vallourec – CCUS was especially new territory for me,” she says. “Guillaume shared a lot of his knowledge, so I could adapt what I learned from him and apply it within that domain.”
An ongoing conversation
Although they come from different backgrounds and stand at different points in their careers, Véronica and Guillaume share a common vision: to shape the future through science.
As they advance in their paths as engineers, sharing their unique experiences only serves to further that goal. “I think of it as a process of mutual growth,” says Guillaume. “As we exchange ideas, we serve as constant sources of inspiration to one another. That’s part of the day-to-day at Vallourec.”
