Bilingual Director of Innovation and Engineering for a Quebec Manufacturer

This Quebec-based manufacturer continues to be a leader in its engineering function, and the structure of that function is a tribute to its sheer ambition: a specialized team covering mechanical, electrical, automation, and software disciplines, based in Terrebonne with operations extending into Plattsburgh, New York. The workplace is bilingual in French and English, and this is not a courtesy. This is the day-to-day reality of leadership in this organization. Anyone who steps into a senior position here has to build authority and rapport in both languages with a team of specialists who assess their leaders on substance first and foremost.

The mandate was specific and demanding. The incoming Director would require real engineering depth across a range of disciplines, and the management experience to lead a team of over nine specialists, from mechanical design through to software development. French-English fluency was not negotiable, nor the instinct to operate credibly in a close-knit workforce of industry professionals who hold peer-level expertise in high regard.

What made this search different from a typical engineering hire was the importance placed on how the person led. The business needed someone who could command the respect of a demanding team, and hold that respect as the function advanced, not just when they arrived. Finding that in a candidate required looking beyond the resume, so the process was designed to bring out character and instinct along with qualifications.

Quebec’s pool of bilingual engineering talent is deep but competitive, and the shortlisting process required diligence and attention to detail. Profiles were selected from across the province’s manufacturing sector and evaluated against both the domain-specific skills and leadership traits the role required. The candidates with the greatest potential then went through a rigorous screening process that involved direct dialogue with senior decision-makers at the company as well as a customized assessment component that was designed to see how each person handled challenging situations and held themselves accountable.

The appointment came together cleanly. A Director of Innovation and Engineering with more than 20 years of cross-discipline experience was confirmed for a December 2024 start, bringing a strong track record of managing large specialist engineering teams and the full French-English fluency the environment required. The leadership presence that the process was designed to bring out could also be seen in person. Background checks and references were cleared in time for the scheduled start date.