Essay Category:


Essay Question:

What matters most to you, and why? 


What matters most to me is making tomorrow a better day, not only for myself,
but also for the world around me. What I learned with my family, in my
community,
and throughout my career, taught me how I can make the best out of my life and
accomplish this ambitious plan.

Being the eldest of five children shaped my personality, making me realize, very
young, the importance of others. Our home was joyfully disorganized. My father
was very busy launching his own law firm and starting a career in local
politics.
My mother was snowed under with kids, as she gave birth to all five of us in
just
six years. As the eldest child, I was the most qualified to assist her. I took
my
role seriously, attentively looking after my brothers and sisters when in the
house. My mother appreciated having an additional pair of eyes to count with. To
me, my brother and sisters were the most precious things in the world. In return
for my attention, they gave me their trust and, I like to think, grew up in
better conditions. Watching over them, I learned that being attentive to others
is one humble yet powerful way to make a positive contribution to their lives. 

In addition to benefitting from my attention, I observed that my brother and
sisters were also influenced by my personal behaviour. For instance, they would
spontaneously help our mother, after observing me doing so. This observation
taught me that privileges generally come together with duties. While my parents'
trust allowed me to do grown-up things and to enjoy more freedom than most of my
friends, it also gave me the responsibility to consider my actions. The impact I
had on my siblings taught me to be mindful of my behaviour and, at the same
time,
rigorous with myself. I learned from this experience that leaders influence
their
environments not only through their achievements, but also through their
behaviour.

To positively influence my brothers' and sisters' education, I realized I had
to
do more than be attentive to them and watch my own actions. I also had to let
them know when they were doing right or wrong, which was sometime unpleasant. I
learned that, for their own sake, I sometimes had to be demanding with them.
This family experience taught me something about the complexity of being a good
leader. In my view, positively influencing the lives of others not only requires
being 'nice to everyone', as one of my primary school teachers wrote about me in
my academic record, but also requires rigor and decisiveness.

I was faced with this same type of challenge in another context: my community.
In my senior year as a computer engineering student at ESEI, I was elected by
250
fellow students to become the President of REIP, the school's leading non-profit
organization.  REIP helped students finance their tuition with tax-exempted IT
consulting jobs. Seven other volunteers helped me run the organization, which
had
annual sales of $800,000. My ambition was to make a difference in my community
by
strengthening REIP however, upon starting my term, I discovered that we would
soon be confronted with particularly difficult decisions.
My first shock was discovering that several alumni were fraudulently using REIP
to benefit from tax exemptions. As those exemptions were legally reserved to
students, a single control of the URSSAF, the French equivalent of the IRS,
would
have threatened the organization. However, stopping these contracts was a
difficult decision to make, as they were providing 30% of REIP's income. In
addition, they had been tolerated by previous managing teams, and it would have
been easy for us not to question this situation. Nevertheless, I did not allow
myself to choose this easy path. 

After careful deliberation, I understood that
putting an end to the fraudulent contracts was the best option for the
organization. To compensate for the loss of revenue, I repositioned the
organization's offer towards Internet solutions, which was eventually
successful.
I also made REIP join France's official Association of Student Organizations. As
part of this Association, REIP established rigid management procedures and
accepted yearly audits, thus preventing further legal problems from occurring. 
 
Secondly, I realized that REIP's recently recruited administrative assistant was
making numerous errors in her accounting tasks. It was a very important issue,
as
she was the only permanent employee and occupied a key position in the
organization. I tried to understand what was going wrong, and to give her the
possibility to solve this problem. I did not rush, giving time for the situation
to improve, and for myself to find a solution. As I was leading an organization
dedicated to positively contributing to the lives of others, I questioned
whether
or not it was right to terminate the contract of an employee who needed her job.
However, I reached the conclusion that keeping her on board would eventually
damage the organization, causing more harm than good. After initiating debate
among the team, and reaching a unanimous consensus, my responsibility was to
announce our decision to our employee. I tried to manage the situation with tact
and respect, notifying her well ahead of time, and then supporting her job
search. This decision was difficult, yet necessary, and I still believe it was
the right thing to do to maximize the outcome of our non-profit organization. 
With these two important, yet difficult, changes to the organization, I am
convinced that, with my team, I made a positive contribution to our community.
My
actions resulted in giving REIP a much more solid grounding to serve future
generations of students. It is now one of the most pre-eminent members of
France's official Association of Student Organizations, and one of ESEI's
flagship organizations. Once again, knowing how to find the right balance among
being decisive, compassionate, and rigorous, allowed me to resolve the
challenges, and to succeed as REIPs President. 

My community stayed equally important to me once I completed my term leading
REIP. Today, I am the youngest member sitting on ESEIs Board of Directors, and
also a member of the Admissions Committee at ESCP-EAP. These two roles allow me
to give back to the institutions that shaped me, and to help them deliver a
better education.

Within a different context, the professional one, I learned that two others
ingredients are essential in accomplishing great plans: optimism and
perseverance. 
    
Optimism and perseverance helped my father face up to a very hard time, when
the
firm he founded collapsed. With five children attending high school or
university
at the time, my father had no choice but to respond to the situation and focus
on
what he could do to keep building our future. He pulled himself up by his own
bootstraps, heading for a totally different career after twenty years as a
lawyer. I believe that his optimism allowed him to stand up, and that his
perseverance made him do everything possible to earn back what he had lost. My
father is therefore a role model for me when I think of the ups and downs that
can occur in one's professional life. 
In the same way that optimism and perseverance helped my family, these
ingredients were instrumental in allowing me to impact my professional
environment, at each step of my career. 
In my last year with ESEI, my optimism made me confident with my ability to
succeed as a student-entrepreneur and establish a 35-person company: Kakabo.
While finishing my term as President of REIP, I convinced a prospective Internet
entrepreneur to get me on board as co-founder of his company. We had to build an
e-commerce system to convince our first investors, Stanford MBA alumni Alberic
Braas, Jean-Frangois Moyersoen, and Hervi Lasseigne. Taking on this challenge
with aplomb, I recruited a team of four engineers, who accepted to work for free
until funds would be raised. My enthusiasm and perseverance helped motivate the
team to work days and nights for seven weeks before we unveiled Kakabo.com. This
early launch allowed us to raise $2.5M and our concept provoked enthusiastic
press coverage. We were selling various consumer products online at discount
prices. 

We hired an experienced CEO, who focused on preparing a merger of the
company. I got promoted to Director of Operations to supervise the execution of
our strategy. I recruited and managed a cross-functional team of 17
professionals, who represented half the company's headcount. I launched new
projects and structured the company. Nine months after the initial call at my
office, we sold Kakabo to Lycos Europe for $5M worth of stocks.

In 2001, what I accomplished on the field convinced the management of Briancone,
a Silicon-Valley based software vendor, to go international. When I proposed
Briancone's CEO to join him, the company was young and had no plans to go abroad
for a couple more years. He seized this opportunity to have someone give him
early insight into the company's international potential. At first, I focused on
collecting information and establishing a network in the European industry. From
this work, I identified several other opportunities. I took the initiative to
establish business relationships with local players. As I was alone in Europe, I
could only count on my own actions to succeed. Working hard, I managed to start
a
strategic partnership with Cap Gemini, the most important company in our field,
and to bring some significant sales leads with prospects such as Schneider
Electrics. With those results, I convinced Briancone's management, which
included
co-founder Josh Sinh, another Stanford MBA alumnus, to invest several million
dollars in Europe and start a local sales office. Through my perseverance, I
made
Briancone go international much sooner than initially planed.

Last but not least, in 2003, the very same ingredients allowed me to have a
strong impact on the situation of my current employer, Sofixi. I convinced a
financial group to make the second biggest investment in Sofixi's history.
Sofixi
had just lost its principal source of new funds, an event that strongly
challenged its development. On my own initiative, I suggested approaching
several
potential investors that could compensate the loss, including Avava, one of the
biggest French life-insurer. Our CEO was convinced that Avava was out of our
reach, but I refused to give up without trying. I persuaded him to let me
approach this company on my own. With my hope of a positive outcome, I
identified
a senior contact, established a relationship with him, and met him several times
to discuss his investment criteria. Following this, I performed an analysis of
our competitors, and identified where we could beat them. I prepared a detailed
proposal, had it approved within Sofixi, and submitted it to Avava. As a result,
we were selected as finalists out of ten competitors. I organized and
participated with the senior management in representing our offer. Eventually, a
year after I started the negotiations, we won this $50M investment. This victory
provided Sofixi with $5M of cumulated management fees and allowed the company to
increase funds under its management by 30 %, at a very challenging time. 
I am convinced I could not have made such contributions to my professional
environments, with Kakabo, Briancone, and Sofixi, if I had not displayed
indestructible optimism together with inexhaustible perseverance.

Altogether, what I experienced throughout my career, as well as with my familly
and in my community, convinced me that I have the ability to make a difference
in
the world around me. In my view, it is by being attentive to others, by
displaying exemplary behavior, as well as by being decisive, that I can make a
positive contribution to my environment. I also believe that, like every
individual, I have some talents and, if developed and used to their best, those
talents can allow me to achieve and accomplish my aspirations. Through optimism
and perseverance, I intend to turn my talents into actions, and my actions into
useful achievements.

The way I want to accomplish my aspirations is through building a family and a
company. For this reason, my grandfather, who succeeded doing so, is another
role
model to me. On a professional level, he became CEO of the food-processing
family
business at age 24 after studying business. He developed it and successfully
sold
it to Geant Vert, which is still the French market leader today. He became the
official advocate of this industry when trade agreements were discussed with
other countries, and was decorated for his contributions. On a personal level,
he
was also a wonderful family man. He gave his four daughters the grounding and
the
values that allowed them to succeed in their own fields and to build their own
families. To me, my grandfather's impact is an inspiring example of success. 

At this stage of my life, I am convinced that studying an MBA at Stanford is the
best way for me to get prepared to accomplish my aspirations. In the past, I
learned that putting myself in diverse, collaborative, yet challenging, contexts
can provide lifelong benefits. Today, I see Stanford GSB's intimate community as
an unmatched environment to nurture and challenge my thinking. Spending several
weeks on campus, meeting some students of the University, and collaborating with
MBA alumni all along my career, I have observed individuals displaying not only
professional promise, but also, as Leland and Jane Stanford's wished, the will
to
be 'useful citizens' who make a difference in our society. In my view, no other
school than Stanford GSB would add this dimension to my business education, and
could better develop my ability to make my hope of a better tomorrow a reality.
In return, I hope to contribute to Stanford's community by bringing my unique
path of experience and my desire and will to make a difference.