INSEAD 2003J Podcast

We talk about going from banking in Sydney, to McKinsey in London and back to banking in Sydney (albeit as an AI expert). 

We talk about going from being a lawyer, to actress, to finance and ending up a big fish in a small pond. 

We talk about a Brazilian's tour from NY, to London, back to Brazil and ending up in Portugal (while working in Investment banking, real estate and insurance). 

We talk about building airplanes in Brazil, working for McKinsey in Portugal and building satellites for the Brazilian government. 

We talk about a proper tour around silicon valley; Yahoo, Walmart Labs, to starting her own company, OpenWardrobe.

We talk about going from investment banking, to consulting to government work back to investment banking and now being a university professor.

We talk about doing a tour of duty around London in the energy space and then making an attempt to 'decarbonize'.

We talk about studying economics in Moscow during the fall of the soviet union, working in tax for PWC and Shell and not being allowed to enter the US (due to a trip to Iraq). Great conversation.

We talk about going from wanting to be a 'media person' to being an actual design consultant and ultimately ending up working for an old school satellite company. 

We talk about going from engineering, to telecom to a PR agency (as well as David's peace initiative - link below)https://www.change.org/p/call-for-a-universal-declaration-of-peace-a-global-commitment-to-nonviolence-dialogue

We talk about going from software sales to venture capital to being a fractional executive and seeing over 40k business plans. 

We talk about going from being a researcher in Norway, to a BD guy in New Jersey to a PE/VC in China. 

We talk about going from haute finance, to farm work to sustainable asset management.

We talk about working in retail banking before INSEAD and working in retail banking after INSEAD. We also talk about the matchmaking skills of one of our batch mates. 

We talk about going from United Airlines to McKinsey to American Express to Capital One. And Daniel has a question about college aged children.

We talk about going from being a structural engineer, to working for the UN in Africa to a 16 year tour of duty at Mastercard to being hired as the CEO of Bancomat.

We talk about going from Canada, to the Israel tech scene; starting in consumer apps and moving to enterprise.

We talk about staying in one place for your whole life and working for the same (chemical) company for the past 21 years.

We talk about going from tech companies in the US/England to the family cement business in India to creating a generative AI agency. 

We talk about working at SAP in Ukraine to playing drums in Fonty to startups and technology companies in France.

We talk about a tour of duty from being an engineer to business development to M&A at a number of large technology companies. 

We talk about going from an agency in India, to distributing international TV content in the US to starting up a fashion brand in India. And, he offered to help get tickets to the 2026 world cup. 

We talk about going from McKinsey to private equity to a clean energy fund to being the CFO of a healthtech company in Cambridge.

We talk about building infrastructure all over the world. 

We talk about Chetan's journey around the world as an investment banker. 

We talk about how one adjusts from living in California to returning to France and going from working at big companies to hiking his own path at various PE acquisitions. 

We talk about going from investment banking to two sided internet marketplaces to becoming a professional board member.

We talk about riding the dot com boom/bust to taking a job at big Pharma to becoming a headhunter to working for the Gates foundation to becoming a film maker to running an incubator.

Pilar takes one for the team and allows me to bore everybody with stories about my mediocre attempts at tech companies and start ups.

We have a surprisingly modest (for a Dutch person) discussion ranging from barely graduating high school to working haute finance in New York and London to how to think about retirement.

We talk about going from investment banking in NY and London to running the world's 4th largest lithium mine.

We talk about going from private equity to INSEAD, back to finance and then returning to Greece to become a MP and cabinet minister.

We talk about going from France to Australia (via Florida), helping France get a contract to sell submarines to Australia (which was stolen by the Americans) and setting up a fund and advisory service.

We talk about going from being a hot shot M&A lawyer in Spain to being a hot shot M&A lawyer in Spain to starting his own M&A advisory firm in Spain and an amazing foundation that is saving baby's lives. 

We talk about going from a small village outside of Calcutta to working at McKinsey to becoming a broadband fiber expert.

We talk about starting a women's portal in Vietnam, moving to Singapore to work for Samsung and moving to Vancouver to start a metabolic health platform.

We talk about setting up a web agency in China, sleeping on Greg Mittman's couch, starting up digital marketing in China for Nike and philosophical questions around retirement.

We talk about raising Alpacas, sneaking pregnant wives onto transatlantic flights, working for a little company named IBM and starting a deep tech VC fund.

We talk about going from consulting, to pumpers, to failing to become a C-grade celebrity in Italy.

We talk about going from being a journalist in Russia, to having to leave Russia for the same reason, to using generative AI to create news in Germany.

We talk about building brands for skincare, fragrances, herbal tea and militant chocolate.Note from Laura - Looking forward to telling you what drove me from L’oreal & Hermes via Insead to building 2 fine french food businesses (one in herbal teas and one in organic chocolate) to my  ultimate goal which is under way: taking over the 40 hectar family farm based in Brittany, France to at last start marketing REALLY useful products:   carrots, sunflowers, wheat, buckwheat, cider apples, etc🌻🐝💃

We talk about starting in the dot com boom/bust, to taking a job at McKinsey to ending up at a salmon food company in Norway. 

We talk about going from an Accenture consultant to being the CEO of the biggest bank in Northern Ireland. 

We talk about going from selling websites to selling derivatives to doing whatever it is that a hedge fund does. We also have a mini therapy session.

We talk about bootstrapping a chocolate and coffee company in the Yucatán. Orale. 

We talk about going from being a cold hearted investment banker in Mexico to being a socially conscious private equity person in Mexico (via New York and Paris).

We talk about going from managing a small factory in rural France to becoming a ‘big deal’ in the European green energy space.

We talk about going from spending a decade in the US army to starting and running a winery in Texas.

We talk about starting off as a rearview mirror engineer to founding and running a nuclear medicine company. 

We talk about how a Spanish boy worked all the way through Europe to eventually become a Scandinavian.