He graduated from HEC Business School in 1962, became a Navy Officer in 1964, and brand manager at Procter and Gamble in 1965, managing director of Young and Rubicam[1] in France in 1970, he created with Bernard Roux, Jacques Seguela and Alain Cayzac the advertising agency RSCG (Roux Seguele Cayzac Goudard) which grew into an international network agency.
[3] Together with Bernard Brochand, he made the winning campaign of Jacques Chirac and his Gaullist party RPR "Oui à la France qui gagne" in 1978.
In 1988, Jacques Chirac, then Prime Minister, asked him to manage his presidential campaign against François Mitterrand.
He retired in April 2006 to run the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy, and became so close to the President that he even attended the G7 summit.
In 2016 Jean-Michel Goudard was indicted in the affair of the polls of the Elysée for his work with Nicolas Sarkozy.