“You have to be proud of the journey you have made!”
“I have always been concerned about sustainable development and anything that can reduce CO2 emissions on our planet”, confides Adil Gaoui. Since September 2017, this 41-year-old Casablanca native has headed the Moroccan subsidiary of Aaqius, an innovative company specialising in the deployment of green solutions for zero-carbon mobility. The son of a nurse mother and a teacher father who “gave everything for their children’s education”, Adil Gaoui has built a brilliant career marked by experience in the transport sector. In 2001, freshly graduated in civil engineering from the Ecole Hassania des Travaux Publics in Casablanca, he chose to specialise in Logistics Systems Management in Paris, at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées.
The entrepreneurship bug
From 2001 to 2009, Adil Gaoui proved himself at the car giant Renault. A true all-rounder, he held various positions before becoming Logistics Project Manager. “This experience introduced me to a mix of technical expertise from different backgrounds and continents”, he stresses. His destiny as an entrepreneur took root when Carlos Ghosn, then CEO of Renault, entrusted him with a major assignment: leading a cross-functional team tasked with optimising costs within the renowned car group. “I learned a great deal from Carlos Goshn; he has the instincts of a great entrepreneur, but also a keen eye, a lot of empathy and an incredible memory”, says Adil Gaoui.
From a passion for training to a concern for sustainable mobility
After the Renault experience, Adil Gaoui returned to Morocco to put his know-how at the service of his country and worked within private organisations dedicated to developing vocational training in the transport sector. Africa Delegate for the Moroccan subsidiary of the European group AFTRAL, then for the International Road Transport Union (IRU), in 2013 he became Managing Director of the company Pomotrans. “This company trained the first groups of professionals in the trade of road haulage driver in Morocco”, he points out. In 2016, at COP22 in Marrakech, he met representatives of the Swiss company Aaquis, who brought him on board a new adventure: the deployment of the zero-carbon technology “STOR-H” in Morocco. “The “Stor-H” technology is a solution developed by Aaqius that replaces fuel with a hydrogen cell, enabling vehicles to travel without pollution”, explains Adil Gaoui.
The challenge of sustainable development in his blood
For the CEO of Aaqius Maroc, working for sustainable development and for viable, environmentally friendly mobility is now “vital and urgent”. In 2018, he founded the Moroccan Association for Hydrogen and Sustainable Development. Its objective? “To create a body capable of engaging with the authorities to develop the hydrogen sector towards non-polluting mobility in Morocco”. And for this 41-year-old Casablanca native, who describes himself as a film buff but also as an unconditional supporter of the Raja de Casablanca football team and PSG, one thing is certain: work is above all a matter of passion. His philosophy: “Learn to love what you achieve, create every day, and from that day on, you will never work again!”.