First FinTech Talent Fair on HEC Paris Campus
The Fintech Talent Fair gathered together some of the most promising Fintech startups and HEC Paris students interested in finance, technology and entrepreneurship.
FinTech is undoubtedly a booming industry. According to the Economist, in the last 12 months alone, some $12 billion were invested in the FinTech sector. Several HEC Paris alumni are prominent figure of the FinTech “revolution” including Renaud Laplanche (CEO Lending Club) in the United States and Céline Lazorthe (founder of Leetchi) in France.
By organizing an event focused on careers in Fintech, HEC Paris was able to give its finance and tech-minded students the opportunity to find out more about trends in FinTech and network with a varied range of fast-growing companies in the sector, spanning mobile payments, savings, P2P lending, social finance and business analytics.
This event, which was sponsored by PayPal, started with a panel discussion with Fintech experts who discussed the future of Fintech and involved senior executives at PayPal, French Fintech, Partech, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Prêt d'Union. Students from all programs (Masters, MBA, PhD) were then invited to interact with companies through presentations and speed networking workshops with 16 (sixteen) FinTech companies.
Many Master’s students participated in the event, such as Andrzej Surzyn who felt that the fair highlighted the importance of “keeping in touch with all the trends and developments happening right now”. He asserted that “FinTech is something that will define the trends in the next few years in finance”.
The Fintech Talent Fair proved equally exciting for companies operating in the industry. Both experienced businesses and innovative start-ups were eager to promote the thriving FinTech industry whilst also presenting their various graduate employment and internship opportunities. Founded in 2002, PayPal is widely recognized as a pioneer of FinTech, being one of the first companies disrupting payments. Pierre-Yves Festoc graduated from HEC in 2014 and has been working for PayPal ever since explains that “FinTech is all about solving problems and moving forwards and, at PayPal, this is what we do.”
Click on the links below for Soundcloud recordings and a video of the Fintech Talent Fair: