bounine-cabalé was born on 1 september 1923 in djidjelli, algeria. son of a director of public school, jean bounine-cabalé attended the ecole polytechnique, where he graduated in 1948. he was successively an engineer at the japy frères (1948–50), strafor-maroc (1950–56), an independent consulting engineer (since 1957), advisor to the chairman of l'oreal (1960–90), founder (1971) and chairman of the supervisory board of novaction, managing director (1982) and chairman (1992) of jb consult and advisor to the chairman of solving international.