Last year I saw Yann Lechelle’s post on Medium where he explained his experiment of “crowdsourcing” his next move. It has had a very positive outcome for him: he joined Snips, one of the most promising French start-up, as COO a few months ago. It resonated with a notion a former colleague of mine, who specialized in cognitive science, introduced me to, years ago: the “unknown unknowns”. There are ‘known knowns’; things we know we know. There are ‘known unknowns’; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — things we don’t know we don’t know. I am sure you can help me discover my own ‘unknown unknows’!
It is now my turn to look for new challenges — after spending more than two years in Canada helping Yellow Pages to get back on track, I decided to move to NYC. I always said to myself that I would spend part of my life in this amazing city. I currently have a number of eligible leads: projects, requests, offers… but I don’t want to limit my job search to people I already know and positions already available. Instead I’ve decided to replicate the “crowdsourcing” process. In a nutshell, it involves you who know me best — friends and business partners — talking to your own network and thus expanding my scope of options!
What you can do to help me
I am looking for a new business development role which involves designing innovative products and services as well as building strategic partnerships in the media or advertising industry, places where technology matters. I enjoy working with smart people on projects that change one’s daily behaviours and I want to contribute to writing the future of a dynamic industry.
A little about me… Strategic thinking is one of my great strengths. It allowed me to be a key asset in the successful growth acceleration program of Yellow Pages during the last two years. Strategic partnerships were crucial and I use my renowned networking skills to build a web of the best business partners of the ecosystem. Intuition drives me. I immediately believed in the potential of the very innovative project YouConnect while being part of Bouygues Telecom. I made it a priority for Bouygues to join forces with two of its competitors to build the “mobile operators Facebook Connect” before this type of service became a trending topic. Being part of something new is what gets me out of bed in the morning. I enjoyed being part of the team who launched the world’s first partnership with Google to reinvent TV. I am a technology enthusiast, proven to be comfortable in both corporate and start-up environments. By working closely with a start-up on the TV interface and doing the box design in-house, we were able to get the product out to our customers very quickly. The results were above expectation as the company added one million subscribers in 2015.
You can find a formal presentation of my background on my LinkedIn. My professional path tells you ‘what’ I have done, I want to explain to you ‘why’ I did it.
People, people, people!
Throughout my career, I’ve made my choices based on how well I clicked with a company’s management. My first job was at a small French consulting firm, not a big international name. I joined because of this ‘people fit’ I had with the talented managers that I met during the recruiting process. This company was Solucom, recently renamed Wavestone — after it acquired Kurt Salmon — a European leader in management consulting. This management team made me believe that a company will keep retain its leadership in innovation whatever happens, because of the culture and commitment of the people working there. In 2010, when working for Bouygues Telecom, a major French Telecom operator, it turned out to be true. Four years after a huge crisis in the French telecoms industry, Bouygues Telecom is still a stand-alone company that recruits more customers that any of its competitors.
Bouygues allowed me to pivote: I joined the innovation team and began using my creative skills much more than before. At the beginning of my career my work was largely analytical, first as a management consultant and later as an internal audit manager. However, I strongly believe that creative minds will rule the future. I developed my creative skills as part of a team of designers, anthropologists and sociologists. When I moved to Montréal in 2014, I met a very inspiring person and newly named CEO of Yellow Pages who made me believe in the ambitious plan he had for the company, which had to reinvent itself to survive and grow in a very competitive environment. I am proud to have been part of this amazing journey towards success.
Be part of it!
People is what drives me and is why, now being based in New York City, I am looking to meet the right ones.
You can help me reach out and maximize my ability to meet the right people at the right time by suggesting up to 3 leads. This could be entrepreneurs, recruiters and headhunters, companies to look into, job postings or articles mentioning an opportunity. Feel free to go wild, use your intuition to suggest any lead you think I should investigate in my search…
I am convinced I will find the right match thanks to you and your network.
Many thanks for the time you will take to help me and stay tuned for what happens next…
