Ernest Goüin

French engineer and businessman (1815–1885)

In the history of enterprise, Ernest Goüin is one of the names that keeps returning.

The record lists Ernest Goüin as French engineer and businessman (1815–1885).

Ernest Goüin was born at Tours in 1815. His recorded nationality is France. He was educated at École polytechnique and École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.

Industrialisation changed the scale of everything: factories, railways, joint-stock capital and the first modern corporations.

He worked as engineer, industrialist and philanthropist.

His recorded holdings include hôtel particulier, 2 Berge de la Prairie.

Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.

Recognition followed: Commander of the Legion of Honour (1874), Order of Saint Anna, 3rd class, Knight Grand Officer of the Order of Franz Josef I and Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.

That the business was built from France shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.

Ernest Goüin died in 1885, aged 70. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.

Achievements

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