Antoine Derville quickly moved on to his studies — management school at La Sorbonne and ISG as a business school — to quickly come to his first real significant experience: his military service. The Parisian by birth flew to Abidjan, crossed the Giscard-d'Estaing Boulevard and settled in the offices of the Leroy-Somer company as administrative and financial director. at 24, he already had a hundred employees under his command. The adventure lasted two years, but Antoine Derville did not see himself staying in Africa alongside the French expatriates he met. Leroy-Somer tries to hold him back on his return to France, but neither the electric motor sector, nor the prospect of working in Angoulême, the company's headquarters, are enough to convince the young man who arrives on the job market.
