Direction de mission

County Dublin, Ireland and France

• At Fortrino we help research, develop, test and validate new technologies up to commercialisation and monetisation stage. We are the conduit between research and industry, involved in catalysing technology IP for commercial success, by promoting technology transfer services to SME's in the European Union.
• Fortrino works across a diverse range of technologies and sectors giving clients a broad perspective on what's achievable in their market space. We specialise in technology research and development, intellectual property validation and provide commercial expertise to assist our clients accelerate their innovation activities, solving technology challenges and getting product innovations launched faster

• In charge of advising multiple innovative start-up businesses in their launching phase (more than 20 in total) http://evolutionenergie.com/
• https://testamento.fr/fr/
• http://www.ubicast.eu/
• http://www.normation.com/
• http://www.visibrain.com/en/
• This incubator offers support for start-ups and is supported by investment from the telecommunications industry and the French Ministry of Education.
• It provides a starting point for 20-30 firms a year, and I personally coach and mentor five of them.

Selected Achievements

• Taking Ubicast.eu from start-up to a revenue of €5m a year.
• Saving the troubled launch of Evolution Energy and Visibrain providing structure and discipline, coaching the owners through a reorganisation and focussing them on an ambitious forward looking, strategy

France

In this role, I successfully developed business for the Nomad Digital Group, the world's leading provider of passenger and fleet connectivity solutions to the railway industry.

Selected Achievements

• Winning €40m in business after developing Board level relationships with the French multinational Alstom, leading to profitable sales in the USA, the Netherlands and Australia.
• Opening a relationship with the French national rail system SNCF, opening a potential route to market supplying on-board Wi-Fi to the rapid transit TGV trains.
• Designing and delivering a bid for a €20m deal with a consortium formed by Thales and SNCF, one of the more than 45 RFI, RFQ, RFP and tender offers, project managed and submitted at Nomad.
• Establishing relationships with Grand Paris, RATP, Eurotunnel and other leading transport providers.

Area, France

ENSIIE is one of the top French public Grandes Écoles in Computer Science. Since its formation in 1968 it has graduated more than 3000 software engineers, and is one of the oldest institutions of its type in France. I led the Economy and Management subject stream for the university, which developed an excellent talent pool of engineers for future start-ups.

Selected Achievements

• Injecting a new commercial focus into ENSIIE’s educational offering, redesigning all its courses and the timetable to provide a new perspective for software engineers.
• Creating an international visiting lecturer programme enriching the students’ studies.
• Introducing a one-week start-up challenge as a part of ENSIIE’s curriculum, taking students from strategy to business launch in an accelerated timescale and working with a network of partner organisations I created.

Area, France

I established OBC to be the facilitator, enabler and project manager of technology led business development activity at both a strategic and operational level.

Selected Achievements:

- Growing OBC's revenue from €50k to €2m in less than three years, through a combination of relationship marketing with decision makers up to CAC 40 level and a solid reputation for delivery.

- For a major Road Operation, Mobility Services Group:

• Scoped and delivered a project to protect Egis revenue over the next ten years despite the challenge posed by bulk purchasing on the internet.
• Built and led a team with diverse skills to deliver this analysis.
• Presented numerous innovative solutions including Egis moving into insurance, fleet management and partnerships with petrol companies and other logical commercial relationships.
• Delivered this project (whose recommendations were implemented) in six months.
• Scoped and delivered a global strategic report on GPS smartphone services and the disruptive services which could be on-sold, sold to more than 500 leading transport companies.
• Rescued the owners of a VOIP start-up (Andrexen), taking over the management of the company, developing the product, opening new markets outside France and negotiating a profitable disposal.
• Delivered, in six months, a new division for a French company seeking an automotive database business, identifying the right assets.

• Strategic Consulting, including business & sales strategy development.
• Advising new businesses on formation of corporations and business structures, structuring commercial transactions.
• In the mobile and Wireless environment (Wifi, software, smart cards)

Objectives :

• Developed international presence (search of new markets) to attract new financial partners and to propose new growth strategy for the company:
• Consolidation of business plan, internal audit (process, products, market, and structure).
• Defining geographical development, Products.
• Market study (Europe and South America) Results:
• Positioning of company in its environment: recommendation on consolidation
• Recasting the marketing policy, defining the product policy (internal productivity and profitability increased by 30% with the standardization of products: 2 ranges instead of 30, creation of a development center (one instead of three)
• Research and negotiation with strategic partners (due diligence/road show : APAX Partners)

Member of board of directors

Budget: 7.5 MM, director of a team of 30

Objectives :

• Developing client base and profitability through a differentiation strategy.

Results:

• Elaboration and establishment of « Business Plan » upon approved by the board.
• Achievement of a single player status for the company in Netherlands (3 leg operator)
• Research, conceptualization and negotiation of Mobile Virtual Network Operator model
• Introduced and estalished €business unit€: fix telephony and Internet.
• Creation and introduction of a project management methodology: Siebel,AMDOCS: convergent billing system
• Establishment of strategy eBusiness/CRM : 50% churn reduction in a sample group of 180.000 customers
• Increased cross sales (bundling) for mobile and fix and Internet products, resulting in an improvement of financial results and turnover. (15 M €€ worth of losses in 1998; financial balance restored in 2000)

1993-96 Objectives :

• Developing and defining commercial policy in a technologically competitive environment.
• Head of sales team (4 people) Coordination between sister concerns.

Results:

• Profit 2.2 MM (+13% > objective), Increased sales by 50% in two years (4 MM to 8 MM).
• Multi-partner contracts in Russia and Romania (5.000 engines/year).
• Establishment of distribution network and a single objective based policy by all distributors.

1990-93 Head of Sales Export Germany# Asia

Objectives :

• Defining and establishing of commercial strategy: to identify targets to establish a plan of action and to develop sales.
• Coordination and support of German subsidiary.

Results :

• Financial equilibrium of the subsidiary obtained in the first year and signed three contracts for engines of which one for 100.000 units in four year representing doubled turnover.
• New start of activities in Asia from zero to attain 20% of total T.O of 1991 and a profit of 1.8 MM.

World Leader in automobive equipment

Objectives :

• Risk management, specific markets such as Maghreb,
• Supervision of subsidiaries: Netherlands, United kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain; analytical market study by product line, by country.

Résults :

• Creation and establishment of a methodology for follow up of all sales activities.
• Established new procedures of payment that reduced credit risk by 50%.