Experience


Experience
I have always thought that a resume could never tell the whole story. Hence this site. So here is my story to date... Banker When I came back from school, and after I did my military service, I sent out resumes to all the institutions I felt I should apply to. I was surprised to get a call from the HR chief at Banque Indosuez (now part of Crédit Agricole), at the time a leading investment bank in France. A few weeks later, in early July 1989, I became the junior assistant to the head of the brokerage department.
I learned a lot during my year at Indosuez. About banking, brokerage, the French stock exchange (which was undergoing its "big bang") as well as about all you're not taught at school, like office politics and power struggles. After a year, I decided I wanted to become a trader. However, my boss who was about to launch a new department within the bank (private banking) wanted me to stay on in a staff role. Another director was trying to get me join in a dealing room. Things were going nowhere. I accepted an offer from Bankers Trust to become an options market maker. In 1990, they were one the leading risk management institutions worldwide. They wanted to capitalise on their experience on the LSE (London Stock Exchange) to launch an index options market making team on the MONEP in Paris. They were looking to hire a French professional with no options training, but capable of learning quickly and of doing it in English, who would team up with an experienced Bristish trader -- who did not speak a word of French... I started work on August 1, 1990 - the day before the invasion of Koweit. Nice context for a volatility trader... Entrepreneur I decided when I was 15 that I would be an entrepreneur. So, I jumped at the first opportunity. Which came after I told Bankers Trust why (in my humble opinion) their efforts in the Paris options market weren't worth their while, and I was told (nicely) to leave -- with a (reasonably) fat cheque. Not knowing exactly what I should get into, I started to import promotional items from Florida. That got me (long story...) to become a sports marketing consultant for a while, mainly involved with the French volleyball federation. My main achievement was to co-organise the first independent beach volley tournament on the French beaches during the summer of 1995. Just after I failed to get the contract for managing the commercial interests of the federation, I was approached by a headhunter, who sent me off to London where I was to prepare the launch of the non-English speaking operations of a Technosystems (from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) which was, among other things, involved in selling export marketing services to small and medium sized UK firms into the US market. In London, I learned to sell their services to SMB owner-managers looking to access the US market. I have to say the most difficult part was to grasp the numerous accents of Her Majesty's subjects ! When it became clear that (for a number of reasons) it would be difficult to proceed as planned, the manager of Technosystems' London office indicated that the firm's founder would be willing to sell. So we organised a buy-out with Schroder's backing. When the deal didn't go through (for no small part because the firm's founder had purchased a good part of downtown Pittsburgh's real estate and stuck it onto his balance sheet), our backers indicated that they liked the idea and would be interested in funding it -- under a different format. We were in 1998, the start of the internet free-for-all. I teamed up with the head of Technosystems' Irish office and moved to Dublin, where we raised some money and launch access2, our very own start-up. The rest is history (see details opposite) ... Consultant By the end of the summer of 2000, it became clear we wouldn't be able to raise the additional funding to continue our adventure. I moved to Chester in England, where Cameron Beard, my former access2 colleague and friend, offered me a place to stay and worked with me on a few British Telecom-related consultancy assignments, and a new consulting venture. In March of 2001 I decided it would be better for me to quit being my own boss for a while, so I moved back to Paris and joined Smallworlds' founder. Back to France (at least for a while) and onto new, exciting territories... top >