Did you do any business-related or other studies before you “jumped in”?
The interesting thing is I didn’t study business at an undergraduate level. Yet, at that time, I did a lot of entrepreneurship related activities. I started my own student society, did internships and worked with companies that attracted entrepreneurs in the UK. I always had a drive to be around entrepreneurs.
Later, my Master in Management helped me to get the tools to get further, to get a foundation in accounting, finance, marketing, operation management etc…
I believe that the drive and the excitement get you somewhere but then studying business give you the tools to go further.
Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
Implicitly I was an entrepreneur. I can remember when I was 7 in my primary school I started a school magazine about video games. That’s an entrepreneurial venture . You are 7 and go to see your head mistress and say “I want to start a magazine about video games”. Then she looks at you and says “Okay. But you know it is difficult ?” And I am like “ Yes, I know. And I can do it.” That was intuitive.
Only when I got older, that I got the tools, I started looking at it not just as I want to have initiative but as I want to start a business, with a mindset and a vision.
What it so special about the Bachelor in Management ?
What I like about this Bachelor in particular is that it is arguably one of the best programs that you can do to be an entrepreneur. First because you have the tools in accounting finance etc, then you have the mindset, a bigger understanding of the world with courses like international relations and cultural skills. You also have collective projects and the international dimension. Therefore you are facing what an entrepreneur is facing everyday : difficulty and challenges but then reward. It is a journey. Just like entrepreneurship.
What inspired you ? Your personal and/or your professional background to come up with this program ?
I could give famous people like Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. But what matters to me is people that had a vision and carried it through throughout all the difficulties.
When we started the bachelor program at ESCP Europe, people were telling me that I should wait a bit, asked me if I was sure…
We know we wanted to do something unique, something different, we know it is going to be very hard, we know that even if ESCP Europe is famous, people don’t think about it as a place for undergrads and it will take time. But eventually we got really rewarded.
So when I look at inspiration, I look as much to famous entrepreneurs than I look at people with individual stories.
What would you say, were the hardest challenges you faced? : what kind of drawbacks did you encounter ? ( in terms of relations, time management...) Could you give an example ?
For me, most of the challenges that I have are down to when knowing when to give up, stop fighting. I had critical times when I paused and talked to people and ask : what would you do if you were in my shoes ?
Emotionally it has been fine. Part of my training is learning to be rejected and failed a lot. You take it for yourself and revise it.
For instance when I launched a tv channel in my undergrad, it was a difficult time because we were just a few years ahead of groundbreaking technology. Smartphones were not good enough to do full movies but these days you can do all of it from a single device. Back then this tech was there as potential but not quite as efficient. So we had technical difficulty and the frustration was we had a big vision but the reality was much more lowkey. We had to pause the project.
How do you think current political events might influence your program (eg Brexit)?
People are curious of international differences and surprisingly we have seen a surge of applications from Northern America since the election of Trump. Some people applied to ESCP Europe because they want to experience diversity! Even London is our most popular campus.
It might not work forever but for now it is.
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Name 2 tips you’d give to a university student interested by the world of entrepreneurship?
One is you need to believe in it yourself. Don’t wait for others to tell you that what you are doing is great. If you are not convinced or if you say I am going to do that for 2 years and that’s it, that means for me you don’t have the drive.
Second don’t give up. When Jeff Bezos was asked if he ever thought he would become the wealthiest man. He said: No. I remember the first year in Amazon I was hoping that one day I will make enough money to be able to delegate a lot of the stupid tasks I was doing myself and be able to afford a truck to make my deliveries more efficient.
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Do you feel confident for the future? What are the two main provisions for the future?
I am confident but that is in my nature. I am optimistic.
My first provision is that, as we are seeing a shift of power from the West to the East, we are going to witness something that potentially is, one in a lifetime, a shift in how the world is running.
My second provision is that it is all gonna be alright. Humans are smart and paradoxically speaking we have this fear that things are going to get worse and that humanity will decline. But I don’t believe in that.