How a former athlete ended up managing the Romanian business of an international chain of stores

100 Most Admired CEOs in Romania – 099. Mathieu Bauduin, CEO, Leroy Merlin Romania

A former professional athlete, the executive began his career in retail with an internship program during an international trade master held at Auchan Le Havre, France, retailer part of the ADEO group, alongside Leroy Merlin. In 2014, he was co-opted into the Leroy Merlin France team, where he started as a store sector manager, evolving from store manager in 2018 to regional manager in 2021, to come to Romania last year in the role of regional manager North-East, being responsible for the development and coordination of stores in Iasi, Suceava, Bacău, Ploiesti, Târgovişte and Constanţa.

He took over his current role in June 2023 and, although he has lived in Romania for only a year and a few months, he already speaks Romanian. The executive is married and has a six-year-old daughter. As a parallel between the world of sports and that of business, he says that from the first he learned the accelerated pace of learning and adaptation, together with the dynamism and orientation towards performance, which he now applies in business.