Financial France 2016

Sujiro Seam is the Consul General of France in Houston. He joined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998. He started his diplomatic career as a member of the legal directorate, representing the French government before the European court of justice and providing legal advice on European and international economic law. At the same time, he was appointed legal advisor of the French delegation to the Channel Tunnel Intergovernmental Commission. In 2001, he worked as a national expert in the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Unit of the Directorate General for Trade in the European Commission. In 2004, he joined the Permanent Representation of France to the European Union as a counselor in charge of fisheries, regional policy, outermost regions, overseas countries and territories and maritime affairs. In this capacity, he chaired the working parties on these matters under the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2008. In 2009, he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, where he served as deputy assistant secretary for food security and economic development and chaired meetings on food security under the French Presidency of the G8 and G20 in 2011. He was promoted to principal deputy assistant secretary for Global Public Goods in 2011 and then for Development and Global Public Goods in 2013. In these roles, he was in charge of the preparation of the Ministerial Conference of the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille in 2012, and led the French delegation in the Development Working Group of the G20. He holds a diploma from the Paris Graduate School of Management, and also studied in the Paris Institute of Political Studies and in the National School of Administration. He served as a second lieutenant in the administrative corps of the army during his military service, ranking first in his class in 1995.

Actuellement, Maurice Bonaz est co-gérant d’un cabinet d’expertise comptable et de commissariat aux comptes en France d’une part, et actionnaire majoritaire d’une société fiduciaire en suisse d’autre part. Son activité est centré sur l’évolution des groupes (fusion, acquisition). Il a alterné l’activité directement opérationnelle et le conseil. Il a notamment réalisé la conception des systèmes de comptabilité, gestion et finances des Jeux olympiques d’Hiver d’Albertville 1992.

Par ailleurs, il a développé une activité dans le secteur associatif et les fondations, en ayant par exemple exercé les fonctions de Gouverneur dans le cadre du Rotary International.

François-Xavier Albouy is President of PlaNet Guarantee a microfinance operator in inclusive social protection and crop index insurance. PlaNet Guarantee is active in Western Africa, Latin America and south-east Asia. Throughout his professional career François-Xavier built a strong experience both in insurance and economic development. He also held Direction of Development in several insurance companies. François-Xavier founded the “Risques” Revue, as well as a Master Degree of Insurance at the University of Paris-Dauphine and holds a PhD in economics.

Florencio Lopez de Silanes’ is Professor of Finance and Law, and Director of the Family Business Research Center at EDHEC Business School in France. He has also been a professor at Harvard University, Yale Univesity, the Universtity of Amsterdam, and the Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris. According to Essential Science Indicators, he is the most frequently cited researcher in economics and business in Europe and one of the top three in the world in the last ten years. His lifetime academic citations also place him among five most widely cited economists in the world according to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science indicators. His research interests and main publications are in corporate governance, law and finance, comparative institutions, regulation, and legal reform.

He has received Harvard’s Wells Prize for the Best Dissertation in Economics (1995), the Brattle Prize for distinguished paper in the Journal of Finance of the American Finance Association (1999), the Jensen Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics in the areas of corporate finance and organizations (2000), and the All Star Paper prize from the Journal of Financial Economics for achieving a high number of citations (2007). His academic work has also been recognized by the World Economic Forum, which named him one of the “100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow” in 2003, and his recent membership of Academia Europaea in 2010. In 2009, he received the highest distinction by the government of France when he was made “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur” by the President of France for his academic contribution.

His academic and applied work has dealt broadly with the analysis of what governance structures are appropriate for what economies and firms, what makes for good laws and regulations, and the socio-economic institutions that are key elements of a smoothly functioning market economy. Professor Lopez de Silanes’ research has influenced discussions and reforms in a number of firms and countries, in the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area, as well as in international financial institutions. He has been directly involved in reform in the areas of financial sector restructuring, foreign investment, securities law, corporate law and bankruptcy law reform in several nations including: Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Spain, the United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Yemen.

His work has also been influential in such organizations as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Economic Forum. He has likewise worked closely with several business organizations such as the Asian Business Council, the Lex-Mundi Law Firm Association, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the Latin American Corporate Governance Network. Finally, he has also worked as expert witness in corporate governance, and advised corporations trying to improve their governance mechanisms as well as investors trying to protect their shareholder rights and push firms to improve investor protection standards.

Michel Salomon has over 40 years of experience in the electronic transactions industry. He brings to the team his vast expertise in business development through investment and valuation leverage, sales management based on targeted market approach experience and licensing deployment combining IP protection know-how as well as financial and marketing strategy.

He has created a number of companies among which TK Systems which finds its origin in 1983 in the fields of building hospitals, medical data digitalization, smart-cards and data security. During his career, he has created a portfolio of about 1,500 softwares in access / authorization/authentification/security, data base architecture, intelligence (450 algorithms +), data exchange platform (One-to-One platform), and more.

In 2006, Michel launched SM2D Inc. in order to address an increasing demand of entrepreneurs, corporations and investors to benefit from his know-how to license innovating technologies in 4 fields: medical, water treatment, new energies and security in electronic transactions.

Christian KAMAYOU a lancé en 2014 MyAfricanStartUp.com un mécanisme inédit d’appui et de promotion des start ups africaines qui leur apporte de la visibilité auprès des médias et des investisseurs potentiels. En mettant à leur disposition des outils internet et des évènements pour apporter à ces jeunes pousses la notoriété nécessaire à l’accélération de leur activité. La mission de MyAfricanStartUP est donc de faciliter le développement du secteur privé en Afrique en accélérant la création de startups et en apportant un cadre favorable à leur croissance. La première rencontre annuelle des start ups africaines a eu lieu le 26 et 27 Mai 2015 au sein des Assemblées annuelles de la Banque Africaine de Développement.

En marge de son activité professionnelle Christian KAMAYOU anime le réseau Afrique de l’Association des diplômés HEC, son ancienne Ecole. A ce titre il  organise régulièrement des évènements pour l’association HEC Alumni, dont des voyages économico-touristique pour faire découvrir l’Afrique, ses entreprises,  ses innovations entrepreneuriales locale à la communauté HEC.

Entrepreneur,  en  2012, Christian crée à Paris, Financetesetudes.com, premier courtier Internet spécialiste des prêts bancaires aux étudiants. Outil gratuit de recherche de financement pour étudiant et canal de conquête client pour les banques, le service a pour mission de supprimer la contrainte financière des étudiants dans un contexte d’inflation du coût des Etudes. Cette activité a reçu les encouragements et le soutien  financiers de plusieurs investisseurs emblématiques du web en France (Xavier Niel/ Marc Simoncini/ Jacques Antoine Granjon), de plusieurs établissements d’enseignement et des Mercures HEC, concours vitrine de l’excellence de l’entrepreneuriat à HEC.

Stéphane Laurière is an entrepreneur specializing in helping organizations set up efficient strategies in managing their collective knowledge for increased innovation and productivity, especially with the use of semantic wikis. Stéphane founded two companies:Djinko, providing an open-source software for taking personal notes and for interweaving them in a structured way,

• Djinko, providing an open-source software for taking personal notes and for interweaving them in a structured way,
• Ubimix, developing web maps for promoting cities or regions, especially from the economic and touristic standpoints.

Stéphane is also the CTO of OW2, a European nonprofit organization promoting open-source infrastructure software, digital accessibility, security and Web standards. The issues relating to digital inclusion and Web accessibility remain prominent today. Billions of people are concerned. The situation is improving progressively thanks to innovators and social actors. A parallel can be drawn with the key theme of the conference – how technological innovations and new social interactions can help increase financial inclusion.