French Tech Leaders: The new series bridging the gap between business and tech profiles

The HEC Paris MBA Entrepreneurship Club is proud to introduce its brand new initiative: the French Tech Leaders Series. Powered by MBA student Alexandre Mithouard, these events aimed at bridging the gap between business and technology profiles in the startup ecosystem. This series of events, organized in collaboration with Hook, an accelerator for alumni of the coding school 42, will bring together some of France's most prominent tech leaders to share their experiences and insights with HEC Paris students, alumni and students from tech schools.

French Tech Leaders Series: The new event for tech and business profiles  

At HEC Paris Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute, we have always supported HEC Paris students’ initiatives, and the French Tech Leaders Series is no exception. Its objective is noble: fostering connections and potential synergies between business-oriented and technically-skilled individuals. How will this be achieved? By bringing together a diverse audience of HEC students from various programs, students from École 42, and other top tech schools to engage with inspiring entrepreneurs and experts.

Each event in the French Tech Leaders Series will follow a similar format:

• 30 minutes of discussion about the speaker's life, challenges as a French tech leader, and how they scaled their business
• 30 minutes of Q&A
• 1 hour of networking

Initiated in September, the French Tech Leaders Series is the brainchild of Alexandre Mithouard, a French entrepreneur and current MBA student at HEC Paris, and Maxime Arnulf, Managing Director at Hook VC and HEC Paris MBA alumni. Alexandre, who made quite an impression at the last Vivatch event by asking Elon Musk for a ride on the new roadster keeps daring. As the President of both the MBA Entrepreneurship Club and the HEC Startup Circle, he likes to go the extra mile. He brings to the series his extensive startup experience, including a successful exit from a food delivery app and valuable lessons from a failed venture at Station F. 

Thiago Penteado, Laurent Didier, Benjamin Chemla, Maxime Arnulf and Alexandre Mithouard

Behind the initiative, one statement: “Every Startup Needs a Tech Expert”

Alexandre recalls that “while being in residence at Station F, I soon enough noticed that not having a tech guy and trying to develop the app ourselves was a big mistake.” Indeed, according to him HEC Paris students do have the vision and industry insights, but they have trouble in producing a tech solution. To maximize his chances as an entrepreneur, Alexandre decided to go back to school and joined the HEC Paris MBA. “I wanted to develop my hard skills and make sure I was on top of the game on the business side for my next ventures.”

While he realized that successful startups often require a combination of strong technical and business expertise, Alexandre decided to go further and to bring together HEC's business talent with the technical skills of schools like École 42. This is how the series were born, aimed at forming well-rounded founding teams.

Spotlight on the first French Tech Leaders event starring Benjamin Chemla

Kicking off the French Tech Leaders Series was a breeze, thanks to its first guest: Benjamin Chemla, the founder of Stuart in 2015 and Shares in 2021. The event took place on September 9th at the HEC Alumni House and brought together more than a hundred students! Why did so many students attend? Because Benjamin Chemla is a prominent figure in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. He is a serial entrepreneur whose latest venture, Shares, an investment platform aiming to be accessible to everyone, raised a €90 million Series A round. As one of the main speakers at Vivatech this year, Benjamin has also built a partnership with Venus and Serena Williams, who are now ambassadors of Shares. 

His success didn't come easily. “As an entrepreneur, I have been facing many challenges: finding the right co-founders, hiring the right talents, scaling across countries…” No wonder Benjamin had a lot to share about his entrepreneurial journey, whose advice can inspire more than one person.

Benjamin's talk key takeaways

• Benjamin dropped his law career right after passing the bar at 22 to launch Citycake, a startup that ensures the delivery of pastries, which he sold by age 24.
• By 26, he had raised €20M with just a 10-slide pitch deck for Stuart, scaled it, and sold it to La Poste by 28.
• Benjamin raised €14M for Fithouse and struck a deal with Adam Neumann's brother-in-law to become WeWork's wellness provider.
• COVID hit and Fithouse closed, Benjamin promised his Fithouse investors free equity in his next venture.
• Alexandre brought Peter Thiel into his cap table and enlisted the Williams Sisters, Serena and Venus,  for his latest venture, Shares, a fintech startup he co-founded with Harjas Singh, former Revolut executive. The company, launched in 2021, has raised a total of €90 million.

Pretty impressive, right? The attendance could not wait for his advice. Here there are:

• Complementarity: Surround yourself with people who possess knowledge and skills that you do not.
• Self-awareness: Knowing when to quit is just as important as knowing when to keep pushing.
• Proactiveness: Everyone is just a few introductions away, so do not hesitate to reach out.
• Diversity: When co-founding a company, prioritize complementary skills, aligned values, and similar work ethics over simply liking the people.
• Karma: Perform good deeds and help others; it will come back to you in some way.
• Balance: Maintain balance through regular participation in sports and spending time with his family.

Next in the French Tech Leaders Series 

While the French Tech Leaders Series is just the beginning, Alexandre Mithouard and his associates are already considering more ambitious plans to connect tech and non-tech profiles on a larger scale. These future initiatives may include investment opportunities and a more formalized platform for collaboration.

With over 200 applications received for the first event and space constraints limiting attendance to around 100-150 people, the Tech Leaders Series is already generating a large interest within the HEC Paris community and beyond. For the next series, a couple of entrepreneurs have already agreed on sharing their experience:

• Thibaud Renouf, CO-CEO of Partoo and founder of Tribe, is scheduled for September 19th. Partoo is known for its impressive annual recurring revenue (ARR) in the hundreds of millions.
• Jonathan Anguelov, co-founder of Aircall, a well-known unicorn in the French tech scene on Wednesday, October 23rd at the HEC Alumni House.  

Stay tuned and follow the French Tech Leaders LinkedIn page to keep track of the next events.