Manganese, nickel, mineral sands, Eramet reached production records in 2022, and posted a 37% increase in turnover. On the African continent, the interests of the mining group have been defended for a year by Loïse Tamalgo. Portrait of a Burkinabe, passionate about strategy, signed Marie-pierre Olphand.
Loïse Tamalgo entered the business world thanks to her first passion, IT. ” I created my first company in my dorm room in 1999. There were three of us and we worked almost 24 hours a day. When we were tired we went to a corner to sleep. It was exciting and I thought to myself, this is what i know how to do and what i will continue to do “. On his professional LinkedIn page, the young student who has long repaired computers and boasts, with a smile, of typing 25 words a minute without looking at his keyboard describes himself today as ” an experienced manager, a man who likes to meet challenges with tenacity “. His journey, however, was not linear. ” I studied brilliantly, I didn’t suffer at all at school, but when I finished school I failed a lot. I failed the diplomacy exam five times, five years in a row, I failed several job applications to the point that I wondered: who am I, do I have value, is, is…? »
In full questioning Loïse Tamalgo finally finds a way out thanks to a job offer from the Huawei telephony group. Very quickly he won the esteem of the Chinese management, who awarded him several medals. “Without being a telecom engineer, he managed in no time to master the specificity of his equipment and sell it, remembers Brice Levry, one of his former colleagues. He had contracts signed, turnkey projects, obtained contracts with the government with disclaimers and the band liked that a lot.” Year after year, Loïse Tamalgo rose through the ranks to take care of the group’s public relations for 22 African countries. 14 years at Huawei, a record longevity that Loïse Tamalgo did not expect: “ There was a first beat period where I was looking for myself and at one point I said to myself: you have to study, understand the culture, adapt and use strategy, an area that fascinates me to find the solutions and methods to survive. I said to myself, I necessarily have a potential inside myself and I will find in me what is original in me that others perhaps do not have. Including weaknesses that I can transform into strength and inevitably, they will keep me. “For 14 years, Loïse Tamalgo evolved in a Chinese corporate culture and also learned a little of the language” but not too much he confides. “ For questions of strategy, I avoided understanding Chinese too much. ».
“Passionate about success”
Arrived at the highest position ever held by a foreigner in the group, Loïse Tamalgo leaves Huaweï to fly away to other horizons and discover other cultures. He then receives an avalanche of proposals according to one of his relatives, and chose to join the French mining group Eramet. He is not a man of the seraglio and nothing predestined him to enter this sector, but that does not surprise one of his former professors Xavier Willemart, founder of the Belgian firm CrossMind. ” He is someone of great humility, quick-witted, very attentive, very diligent and who has a great capacity for analysis. He is passionate about success. He could have been brilliant somewhere else ». « He asked me every evening at the end of class for permission to get up, he stood up behind his chair, he clung to the file, closed his eyes and listened to the end of class with his eyes closed because he was exhaust. I’ve never seen such a hard worker, even when he’s resting, this guy is alert! » recalls the teacher.
Today Eramet’s General Delegate in Africa, Loïse Tamalgo has earned a reputation as a discreet but efficient man in Libreville, where he is based. We talk about him as the architect of the retrocession of a rare earth mine to the Gabonese State, as part of the group’s refocusing on its main activities, he personally prefers to highlight his action for the benefit of women and local entrepreneurship. “ When I arrived at Eramet, I was behind the impetus to set up an accelerator for Gabonese women’s businesses in collaboration with Women in Africa, called Femmes d’avenir which over three years, and since year, will help accelerate 130 Gabonese women’s businesses. We are going to replicate the experience in Senegal and elsewhere. »
Defender of a responsible mining industry, Loïse Tamalgo dreams of participating in the mining development of Burkina Faso. The subsoil of his country of origin is full of treasures of manganese. Deposits for the moment unexploited, for reasons of insecurity, but also of economic strategy.