Describe your current position
“I am the founder and the chairman of a brokerage firm named “ACE Finance et Conseil”. Since 2002, I have developed a strong network to whom my company sells financial products, savings products or life insurances. Besides, I have created several advisory firms to help entrepreneurs and individual investors to manage properly their financial and real estate assets.
Before that, I began as a financial analyst and portfolio manager at an insurance company. Only five years later, I was appointed as the investment and treasury director and supervised the financial assets of the conglomerate, included those of Vie and IARD companies.
I achieved it mainly because I have always been highly interested in financial innovations. For instance, I was the first in 1990’s to use put options on OAT through the Over-The-Counter market with the Paribas bank – now BNP Paribas.”
What attracted you to finance?
Finance is a thriving world in which you can achieve a lot by simply using your brain. Opportunities are everywhere, even for the youngest if you are smart enough. With new technological tools, you can compete with the giants of this industry such as Goldman only by using your computer in smart ways. Besides, you cannot be bored in finance thanks to the diversity of products and industries that you discover through it.
In this sector, you work with high-skilled people and need to be creative to solve highly complex issues. This challenging environment is a pleasure for someone as curious as I am. Curiosity is highly relevant for someone who would like to work in this sector. Indeed, understanding finance is not enough to succeed here, people need to catch the greater picture! For instance, geopolitics issues have currently a huge impact on the markets, so you need to understand them to better serve your clients. Finance is fascinating because you need knowledge in history, philosophy, mathematics and even physics (research on particles’ movements has applications in the Capital Asset Pricing Model framework.
But in France, there is still a need for pedagogy. Indeed, finance has a poor reputation here because people don’t understand the role of finance. How could we have hospitals, infrastructures and competitive companies without finance? Don’t forget that finance is only a tool. So, there are good or bad ways to use it. I chose finance because I knew I could have a positive impact on society.
Some advice for our students?
You cannot go wrong by choosing finance because there are a lot of different opportunities there. You need to be prepared to be quickly challenged by your peers even in a junior position. And if you are smart enough, finance offers you the opportunity to climb the hierarchy immediately after school!
You should be curious because as I said, finance is related to diverse subjects from history to physics and you will work with diverse people with different interests. This diversity explains why many “old” financial experts are still working after the retirement age! By working in this sector, each of your days will be different!
Don’t forget that despite technological progress, the markets are still inefficient. Two consequences, first you still have many opportunities to build an ambitious career in this sector while it could be more difficult in other sectors because in finance there is still so much progress to do. Secondly, you shouldn’t forget to respect deontological rules when you’ll be working. There are good and bad people in this sector, don’t lose your time with the bad ones!
To know more about ACE Finance et Conseil SAS: visit eschbach.fr
Portrait produced in January 2020 by Maude Culis-Féry, ESSEC Student and M&A Intern at BNP Paribas.
Next portrait
Stay tuned because another portrait will be published in January … Raphaëlle Paret who is the President of ESSEC Transaction…