Teleperformance lays off 33% of its french workforce. Who is Karine Jan, CEO TP France ?

Karine Jan, Transforming agent ? This former robotics specialist discovered the world of call-centres in Ireland at a young age. Since then, she has enjoyed a demanding and exciting career with Teleperformance. One guiding principle : transformation. And to be transformed herself!

What is it that drives a young woman, a specialist in Applied Mathematics in Mechanics, to work and develop for more than 20 years in a company that is, on the face of it, far removed from... the dynamic counting of radial face seals? The opportunity to feed an extreme and renewed curiosity. And a number of other welcome opportunities to travel, learn and be proud. Thanks to Teleperformance, Karine has visited many countries - where she was sent on mission - discovered and fine-tuned COPC*. Above all, she has felt the pride of working for a company that is changing for the better. Like a material that mutates but retains its original extraordinary physical properties.

‘I've always been a mathematician: by December of each year at school, I'd usually finished the workbook containing the year's syllabus’. After a Bac C, the young woman, who had already moved around a lot because of her father's profession as a career military officer, found it natural to start a Deug Maths, and then go on to a DEA that included robotics, modelling and all the poetic things that turbines and seal wear tests can produce. ‘My dissertation had me working on the time it would take for seals to wear out after a large number of rotations. I saw myself becoming a researcher, but I did a brief stint as a teacher-researcher, just long enough to discover that spending my days in a grey basement really wasn't for me! And there you have it, the coffin at the bottom of which the brief career as a researcher has been consigned is quickly nailed shut. 

Curiosity, however, remained and drove Karine to the misty shores of Ireland, where, like many other Europeans in the late 90s, she landed with the desire to improve her English. “American companies had been attracted here by the tax exemptions, and Dell, Gateway and IBM set up the first major telephone support centers. I found myself working for Compaq, the major computer manufacturer of the time, taking calls, first as a simple agent, then as a supervisor, and very quickly working on improving processes and quality”.

The return to France - because one has to go back sometime - will take place in Orléans. In 2002, Karine joined Teleperformance, almost without knowing it, since on her pay slip her official employer was then called Techcity. This technical support specialist was created by Georges-Eric Lagrange, a professional who left his mark on many of those who worked with him. “I was involved in quality, processes and improvement, and this was in fact the common thread running through almost everything I did afterwards for many years, as the group had long since aligned some of its processes with the COPC standard. I then moved to various countries where I was offered assignments as the Group considerably expanded its activities in Europe”. From Hungary to Russia to France, the eighteen years she has spent with TP would suggest that the brunette Karine is a spy, a double agent who has chosen a serious cover to mask less respectable activities. “What has fascinated me, I think, in all the positions I've held so far, is the company's obsession with delivering good service to its customers, monitoring employee satisfaction while steering its margins and profitability on a daily basis. I actually joined and worked on what had fascinated me in my studies: the resistance of organizations, structures, turbines, what needs to be done to achieve the triple performance expected of us. This vision has been imposed throughout the Group since I joined, and all we've done is model and adapt to achieve it. The second aspect that has fascinated and enriched me is the diversity of cultures that permeates the Group, due to its global footprint, and which enables you to work with people who practice the same profession as you, but don't use the same resources. I've discovered that in some countries, the culture for achieving performance is supportive, by which I mean that people will help each other to reach the goal, whereas in other cultures, there may be a tendency towards more individualism. There's no one best or absolute way, but I've been enriched by it, just as I've continued to grow in contact with the people I've had the opportunity to work with: Georges-Eric Lagrange, Brigitte Daubry, Alan Winter and, for a few months now, Joao Cardoso. And I can't omit Daniel Julien, because, having seen him lead meetings, at which he is often present, I think it's an opportunity to work in a group that is still headed by its founder. In the case of Teleperformance, although the company has changed a great deal, its founder is the bearer of convictions and a vision that permeates the entire company and remains very much present. For Daniel, TP is not just a company: it's his baby, a family, almost the creation of his life, if I dare say so.

En-Contact: Why did you agree to be profiled, with the theme of apprenticeship?
Karine Jan: Because I'm proud to show that you can start out in the company and in this profession as a simple agent and make a real career of it, reaching management or executive roles fairly quickly. That you can do it as a woman. It was possible when I joined and it still is. Because the company has mutated, changed a lot, but I think it's done well, it's evolved, almost like a fine wine; but unlike wine, it's rejuvenated! There are many new tech profiles, engineers versed in new technologies. Another thing seems to me to characterize it: there's a highly developed cult of exacting standards and results, everything is measured here - it's even a religion - but there's also an ability to exchange ideas and share great moments with colleagues. In fact, I've never felt this so strongly as I did at the time of the pandemic crisis. When the pandemic arrived, everyone supported their colleague; meetings were initiated by Daniel Julien, every week, notably with a group of all those dedicated to global transformation. Their purpose was to imagine and share everything that could and should be put in place to unfold everything that needed to be changed. He always ended them with a story or a musical extract designed to create an emotion, an energy that he felt was necessary. It was very powerful.

What phrases or mottos have you heard most in your eighteen-year career?
We only know what we can quantify. Nothing can be demonstrated or decided that isn't based on figures and data.

What have you learned within the company that you apply systematically?
To analyze data in order to make decisions, and then to implement them without delay. Speed of execution is a religion at TP. 

Paraphrasing Paul Nizan's famous phrase, you'd say: I was 32, I won't let anyone say that...
Ah, it's complicated. I won't let anyone say that the success and enriching career path of a woman, starting from the bottom up, isn't possible or desirable within Teleperformance. Of course, it's up to you to seek out opportunities, to take new routes, but everything is possible, still possible.

Listening to Karine, we were inspired to ask two final questions to this curious and cheerful woman, far removed from the image often associated with mathematicians: 

You've transformed, modeled and improved quality and processes over the past 18 years, so there shouldn't be much left to change now?
Not at all! I've spent years reviewing processes and how we deal with employees, in particular with Alan Winter, our Chief People Officer, but no sooner had I finished than it was time to tackle the main course, which Covid 19 brought up: Work at Home processes. And it's not just about processes, either, because the mutation we're undergoing and are obliged to undergo takes us back to the High Tech, High Touch that has long been the company's claim to fame. Techno, robots and AI are going to take the pressure off industrial, automatable interactions, and so the ability to listen and empathize will once again become the driving force. 

As for the last (question), it was inevitable:

How does one manage, between Ireland, Orleans, Moscow and Hungary and with the level of demands that are known in the company, to lead another life at the same time, that of a woman and perhaps a wife and mother?
I believe that organization and discipline are essential and enable you to try and reconcile everything. When you devote time to your loved ones, it has to be quality time.

In less than seven days, from our first e-mail to this meeting on the shores of Lake Annecy, everything had been completed, from the interview proposal...to the actual interview. It's so rare for things to go quickly and smoothly when you're dealing with the communications of a major corporation... So I wasn't surprised by the final response. 

By Manuel Jacquinet

*COPC: the COPC standard, created by the namesake consultancy (COPC Inc.), is a performance management and monitoring system for contact centers and customer experience services. It has been in existence since 1996, and is awarded to organizations that have been audited for this purpose.

Find the other episodes of J'ai tant appris rue Firmin-Gillot, here.

I LEARNED SO MUCH ON RUE FIRMIN-GILLOT
Portraits and confidences of Teleperformance alumni

“In this building, all departments were mixed together: production platforms, French management, the Corp. From the street, you could sometimes hear telephone sales interviews for the Nouvel Obs or the Chasseur Français, and the sound of balloons exploding when a sale was closed. There were some funny stories, such as when we started soliciting former Express subscribers to re-subscribe... to the Nouvel Observateur! Probably a mistake in the files,” recounts Fodoa Fache-Adkins. Sixteen executives (ten women, six men), some of whom began their careers there, share a few professional memories of their time with a company that, they all say, left a lasting impression on them: Teleperformance, the world leader in outsourced customer experience. 

J'ai tant appris rue Firmin-Gillot takes you inside one of France's most secretive and little-known companies, just like the professions it helped to create. The interviews were conducted on behalf of En-Contact magazine and written by its editor, Manuel Jacquinet.