Kevin Colas Deal & Career Portfolio 2001-2017

DEAL & CAREER PORTFOLIO Kevin Colas 2001-2017
1 Thursday, October 26, 2017
COMPLETED M&A TRANSACTIONS
 Advised Nexity on the sale of Gymnase Club to Club Méditerranée ($53 million, leisure, 2001): scheduling and
administration of competitive data room with bidders under non-disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management,
comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short no-shop binding agreement prepared by the legal
department for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room, preferred bidder Q&A
management, study and comments on transition plan proposal (including post divesture executive management,
ownership structure, incentives plan, exit strategies, equity holding periods, strategy review, market presence,
training, make up of sales force, administration and accounting), review of covenants prepared by the legal
department, review and corrections of final closing contract drafted by the legal department.
 Advised Isis in its merger with Technip ($1.1 billion, energy equipment & service, 2001): valuations under
review of the business unit director of the extended portfolio of participations of Isis, investment arm of the French
Institute of Petroleum (Institut Français du Pétrole, IFP) including public comps (transaction and market) and DCF
for listed groups Technip (founded by the IFP), Coflexip (including recent acquisition of Aker Maritime ASA) and
Compagnie Générale de Géophysique (CGG), and unaudited pro forma DCF, discounted comps and adjusted NAV
for private groups GeoNet, Eurecat, Prosernat, Geoservices, Procatalyse, Dietsmann, Ipedex and Axens (non-
included), accretion / dilution model running on the basis of price recommendations by Clinvest’s management.
Design of detailed company profiles to be included in French AMF (Autorité des Marches Financiers), DGCCRF
(Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Repression des Fraudes: General Directorate
for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control), EU and US filings.
 Advised the French Government in the privatization of Banque Hervet and its sale to CCF HSBC ($105
million, banking, 2001): design of both banks overview and history for management, unions’ representatives and
prospectus filings (AMF, DGCCRF, Public Treasury, Department of Economy, Finance & Industry).
 Advised Renault Véhicules Industriels (Renault V.I.) / Mack in its merger with Volvo A.B. ($1.59 billion,
automobile, 2001): review of last annual report and synthetic presentation of Renault V.I., competitive industry
analysis (including SWOT, concentration ratios, and competitor array analysis) and creation-validation of transaction
multiples analysis peer group, review of potential pure listed peers for market comps, potential investors screening
and summarized profiling. Profiling of short listed potential buyers included in management presentations including:
background (offices, plants, online presence, history, key personalities, trends, ownership, corporate governance,
organization structure), financials (multiples, dividend policy, shareholder equity split, future dilution, ratio analysis,
growth analysis), products (current, in development, current and announced R&D expenses analysis, brand portfolio,
loyalty and awareness analysis, patents and licenses, quality control performance, engineering team), marketing
(segmentation, market sizing, market sharing, customer base, review of contracts announcements, promotional mix,
advertising mix, sales force efficiency analysis, distribution channels analysis, existence of exclusivity agreements,
review of alliances, joint ventures and participations, geographical coverage, pricing and discounting policy
overview), facilities (plants location, age, product mix and efficiency, capacity utilization rate, review of historic and
forecasted capex, shipping logistics), personnel (staff review, key employees profiles, management style, company
culture, compensation system, turnover rate and employee overview), corporate and marketing strategies (objectives,
mission statement, growth plans, market strategy approach, acquisitions and divestures history). Data and documents
gathering for data room building in collaboration with Renault V.I. management and heads of divisions. Discounted
transactions and market multiples, pro forma DCF and adjusted NAV valuations of Renault V.I. on unaudited
statements, valuation of merger synergies (strategic, operational and financial impact), filling of accretion / dilution
model and drafting transaction rationale and risks. On site client visits, drafting of memorandum of information and
valuation book sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential buyers, review of letters of expression of interest,
drafting of anti-leak press release for review by the communication department of Clinvest’s parent bank, Credit
Lyonnais. Scheduling and administration of competitive data room with bidders under non-disclosure agreement,
investors Q&A management, comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short no-shop binding agreement
prepared by the legal department for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room,
preferred bidder Q&A management, modeling of financing by exchange of Volvo A.B. shares, review of brand and
IP licensing involved with the legal department, study and comments on transition plan proposal (see Nexity /
Gymnase Club), review of summary and recommendations drafted by Clinvest’s lead Managing Director, drafting of
portions of unions representatives presentations, French AMF and DGCCRF, US SEC and EU filings (context
portion). Review of covenants prepared by the legal department, review and corrections with the lead Managing
Director of final closing contract.

 Advised Skalli Group on its divesture of Lustucru Fresh Pasta & Rice Divisions to PAI (Paribas Affaires
Industrielles) / Panzani ($200 million, food & beverage, 2002): review of last annual report and synthetic
presentation of Skalli Group and Lustucru, competitive industry analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.) and review
of transaction history to define a peer group for transaction multiples analysis, potential acquirers screening and
profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Drafting of industry overview and short potential buyers’ profiles included
in pitching book and management presentations. Data and documents gathering for data room building in
collaboration with Skalli Group / Lustucru management and key executives. LBO, DCF, discounted comps and
adjusted NAV stand alone and sum of the parts pro forma valuations of Lustucru Fresh Paste & Rice Divisions,
valuation of merger synergies. Write up of deal rationale and risks under supervision of the lead Managing Director.
On site client visits, drafting of memorandum of information sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential
buyers, copies and review of memorandum, review of letters of expression of interest, scheduling and administration
of competitive data room with bidders under non-disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management, comparative
study of letters of intent, review of the short no-shop agreement prepared by the legal department for the preferred
bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room, preferred bidder Q&A management, review financing
proposal prepared by PAI, study and comments on transition plan proposal (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.), review
of summary and recommendations drafted by Clinvest’s lead Managing Director, drafting of portions of unions
representatives presentations, drafting of portions of AMF, DGCCRF and EU filings (context portion), review of
covenants prepared by the legal department, review and corrections with the lead Managing Director of final closing
contract drafted by the legal department.
 Advised Vivendi Universal for the sale of Houghton Mifflin to Thomas H. Lee Partners / Bain Capital / The
Blackstone Group / HM Management ($1.7 billion, media, 2002): review of last annual report and synthetic
presentation of Vivendi Universal, competitive industry analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.) and review of
transaction history to define a peer group for transaction and market multiples analysis, potential buyers screening
and profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Drafting of industry overview and short potential buyers’ profiles
included in pitching book and management presentations. Data and documents gathering for data room building in
collaboration with Vivendi Universal / Houghton Mifflin management and key executives. Building of transaction /
market multiples, DCF, LBO and sum of the parts consolidated valuations of Houghton Mifflin, valuation of merger
synergies. Running of the accretion / dilution master model and drafting of deal rationale and risks. Drafting of
memorandum of information sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential buyers, copies and review of
memorandum, review of letters of interest, drafting of anti-leak press release for review by the bank’s
communication department, scheduling and administration of competitive data room with bidders under non-
disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management, comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short no-
shop agreement prepared by lawyers for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room,
preferred bidder Q&A management, review of financing proposal prepared by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain
Capital, study and comments on transition plan proposal (see Nexity / Gymnase Club), review of summary and
recommendations drafted by Clinvest’s lead Managing Director, drafting of portions of French AMF, EU and US
SEC filings (context portion), review of covenants prepared by the legal counsel, review and corrections with the
lead Managing Director of final closing contract.
 Advised the Moroccan Government in the partial privatization by private sale of 80% of Régie des Tabacs
Marocains (RTM, Morocco National Tobacco Company) to Altadis ($1.9 billion, tobacco, transportation &
logistics, 2003): data and documents gathering for study and data room building in collaboration with the Moroccan
Department of Finance and Privatization, the Public Treasury (Trésor Public), the CDG (Caisse de Dépôt et de
Gestion) and the Régie des Tabacs Marocains. Review of audited reports and statements of Régie des Tabacs
Marocains and competitive analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Review of tobacco industry pure players and
last industry transactions to define a peer group for transaction analysis and complementary market comps. Training
of one junior analyst and two interns on valuation and presentations write up. Potential buyers screening and
profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.), drafting of industry overview and short potential buyers’ profiles to be
included in management and official government presentations. Discounted transaction and market multiples, DCF
and sum of the parts consolidated valuations of the RTM, valuation of merger synergies and drafting of deal
rationale and risks. Drafting, copies and review of memorandum of information sent with non-disclosure agreements
to potential buyers. Review of letters of expression of interest, drafting of anti-leak press release for Credit
Lyonnais’ communication department, scheduling and administration of competitive data room with bidders under
non-disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management, comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short
no-shop agreement prepared by the legal department for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory
data room, preferred bidder Q&A management, review of use of proceeds planned by the Moroccan government,
study and comments on transition plan proposal (see Nexity / Gymnase Club), review of summary and
recommendations drafted by Clinvest’s lead Managing Director, drafting of portions of French AMF, Moroccan

CDVM (Conseil Déontologique des Valeurs Mobilières), Spanish Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores
(CNMV), EU and US filings (context portion), review of lawyers covenants, review and corrections with the lead
Managing Director of the final closing contract drafted by Credit Lyonnais’ legal department.
 Advised Générale de Santé in a sale of a 33% stake to Santé Holdings ($208 million, 2003): review of public
information of Générale de Santé and competitive analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Review of last industry
transactions to define a peer group for transaction analysis. Potential buyers screening and profiling (see Renault V.I.
/ Volvo A.B.), drafting of industry overview and short potential buyers’ profiles to be included in pitch books and
management presentations. Data and documents gathering for data room building in collaboration with Générale de
Santé / Santé Luxembourg Holding management and key executives. Supervised junior analyst and interns on
transaction multiples, DCF and sum of the parts pro forma unaudited valuations of Générale de Santé. Training of
the junior and interns team of the transportation and logistics business unit on valuation of merger synergies and
drafting of deal rationale and risks. Drafting of context and major assets description in memorandum of information
sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential buyers, copies and review of memorandum, review of letters of
interest, scheduling and administration of competitive data room with bidders under non-disclosure agreement,
investors Q&A management, comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short no-shop agreement prepared
by the legal department for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room, preferred bidder
Q&A management, review of financing proposal prepared by Efibanca on behalf of Santé Holding, study and
comments on transition plan proposal (see Nexity / Gymnase Club), review of summary and recommendations
drafted by Clinvest’s lead Managing Director, drafting of portions of French AMF and DGCCRF, Italian
Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), EU and US filings (context portion), review of
covenants prepared by the legal department, review and corrections with lead Managing Director of final closing
contract drafted by the legal department.
 Advised Crédit Lyonnais / Groupe d’Actionnaires Partenaires du Crédit Lyonnais (GAP) / SACAM
Développement in its merger with Crédit Agricole S.A. ($21.4 billion, banking, 2003) data and documents
gathering for study and data room building in collaboration with Credit Lyonnais management and head of divisions,
French Department of Economy, Finance and Industry and Public Treasury (Trésor Public). Review of audited
official reports and statements of Credit Lyonnais and competitive analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Review
of French and European listed banks and last industry transactions to define a peer group for transaction and market
comps. Potential buyers screening and profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.), drafting of industry overview and
short potential buyers’ profiles to be included in management and official government presentations. Transaction and
market multiples, DCF and sum of the parts consolidated valuations of Clinvest in close supervision with Clinvest
management and Credit Lyonnais Direction des Marchés Actions (DMA, Head of Capital Markets). Valuation of
merger complementarities and synergies, accretion / dilution modeling under supervision of a leading Managing
Director, drafting of deal rationale and risks. Drafting, copies and review of portions of memorandum of information
sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential buyers (context, deal structuring table, merger premium, price
historic and perimeter tables, synergies and financial impact tables). Review of letters of expression of interest,
review of anti-leak press release drafted by Credit Lyonnais’ communication department, scheduling and
administration of competitive data room with bidders under non-disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management,
comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short no-shop agreement prepared by the legal department for
the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room, preferred bidder Q&A management, review
of cash and shares exchange financing options, review use of proceeds planned by French government, study and
comments on transition plan proposal (see Nexity / Gymnase Club), review of summary and recommendations
drafted by Clinvest and Credit Lyonnais management team, drafting of portions of French unions representatives,
AMF, DGCCRF, Comité des Etablissements de Crédit et des Entreprises d'Investissement (CECEI, Committee of
Credit and Investment Institutions) EU and US SEC filings (companies presentations and history, context and
timetable).
COMPLETED IPO LINKED TRANSACTIONS
 Advised the French government to prepare the privatization by IPO of EDF ($8.5 billion, utilities, 2001, IPO
realized ultimately in 2005): review of statements and French Treasury reports to start to define a peer group for
EDF and review of public government reports to gain understanding of EDF’s retirement system to be paced in a
separate legal structure before the IPO and transferred to the public system. Market valuation update of EDF pension
scheme investments to be transferred to the national public system managed by the Caisse Nationale d’Assurance
Vieillesse (CNAV).

 Advised the French Government on the part-privatization by IPO of 44% of ASF (Autoroutes Sud de la
France, $3.9 billion, Infrastructures, 2002): review of public information of ASF and competitive industry
analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Review of last industry transactions to define a peer group for transaction
analysis and review of European motorway infrastructure pure players for discounted market comps. Potential
buyers screening and profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.), drafting of industry overview and short potential
buyers’ profiles for pitch books and management presentations. Data and documents gathering for data room
building in collaboration with from the Department of Economy, Finance and Industry, and the Public Treasury.
Review of letter of engagement and timeline proposal. Building of business plan projections in collaboration with
ASF finance & accounting and sales & marketing divisions, transaction and discounted market multiples, DCF and
NAV valuations of ASF on audited public accounts and unaudited interim statements. Scenarios and sensitivity
analysis of IPO price range by shares classes (institutional 56%, retail 40% and employee reserved 4%) including
green shoe option (8.67%), use of proceeds and risks write up. Write up, corrections, copies and review of valuation
book, summary and recommendations under supervision of Clinvest’s lead Managing Director, drafting of portions
of French AMF and EU filings (context portion). Drafting of announcement press release for review by the bank’s
communication department. Analysis trading results post introduction.
ATTEMPTED M&A BIDS
 Pitched GAP sales network in France to Camaieu (non-disclosed, specialized distribution, 2001): review of
competition and French clothing distribution market, profiling of closest competitors to be inserted in pitch book.
 Pitched Yoplait brand of Groupe Sodiaal to Danone (non-disclosed, food & beverage, 2001): review of
competition and European dairy market, profiling of closest competitors to be inserted in pitch book, presentation
write up on Sodiaal Group and Yoplait brand. Potential buyers screening and short profiling (marketing mix, asset
mix, operational and financial results, strengths and weaknesses), drafting of industry overview and short potential
buyers’ profiles for pitch books and management presentations.
 Advised FM Logistic attempted bid to Exel Logistics ($270 million, transportation & logistics, 2001): review of
public information of Faure et Machet Logistic and competitive industry analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.).
Review of last industry transactions to define a peer group for transaction analysis and isolation of pure players of
profile close to FML for complementary market comps. Potential buyers screening and profiling (see Renault V.I. /
Volvo A.B.), drafting of industry overview and short potential buyers’ profiles to be included in pitch books and
management presentations. Review of engagement letter and private pro forma statements. Data and documents
gathering for data room building in collaboration with FM Logistic’s management and key executives. Transaction
multiples, DCF and discounted market multiples valuations of FM Logitic on unaudited pro forma, valuation of
merger synergies and drafting of deal rationale and risks. On site visits, drafting of valuation book and portions
(context, of the memorandum of information sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential buyers, copies and
review of memorandum, review of letters of interest, scheduling and administration of competitive data room with
bidders under non-disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management, comparative study of letters of intent, review
of the short no-shop agreement prepared by the legal department for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive
confirmatory data room, preferred bidder Q&A management, financing proposal scenarios write up in collaboration
with parent Credit Lyonnais Direction des Marches (DMA, Capital Markets Division), study and comments on
transition plan proposal (see Nexity / Gymnase Club), review of summary and recommendations drafted by
Clinvest’s lead Managing Director.
 Advised Entreprise Minière et Chimique (EMC) in its disposal of 44% of Tessenderlo Group to Advent
Private Equity ($40 million, chemicals, 2002): review of public information of EMC and competitive industry
analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Drafting of business and industry overview of EMC to be included in pitch
book and kept for memorandum and filings. Review of last industry transactions to define a peer group for
transaction analysis and isolation of pure players of profile close to EMC for complementary market comps.
Potential buyers screening and profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.), drafting of industry overview and short
potential buyers’ profiles to be included in pitch books and management presentations. Data and documents
gathering for data room building in collaboration with EMC management and key executives. Building of
transaction / market multiples, DCF, LBO and sum of the parts consolidated valuations of EMC, valuation of merger
synergies. Running of the accretion / dilution master model and drafting of deal rationale and risks. Drafting of
memorandum of information sent with non-disclosure agreements to potential buyers, copies and review of
memorandum, review of letters of interest, drafting of anti-leak press release for review by the bank’s
communication department, scheduling and administration of competitive data room with bidders under non-
disclosure agreement, investors Q&A management, comparative study of letters of intent, review of the short no-

shop agreement prepared by lawyers for the preferred bidder, organization of exclusive confirmatory data room,
preferred bidder Q&A management, review of financing proposal prepared by Advent, study and comments on
transition plan proposal (see Nexity / Gymnase Club), review of summary and recommendations drafted by
Clinvest’s lead Managing Director.
 Sourcing and attempted bid of Excelsior to EMAP ($128 million, media, 2001): sourced the information in a
private conversation with an acquaintance of the owner, review of public information of Excelsior and competitive
industry analysis (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.). Built an internal team of analysts to prepare a pitch book and
present it in project selection committee after review by managing directors. Review of last industry transactions to
define a peer group for transaction analysis and isolation of pure players of profile close to Excelsior for
complementary market comps. Potential buyers screening and profiling (see Renault V.I. / Volvo A.B.), drafting of
industry overview and short potential buyers’ profiles to be included in pitch books and management presentations.
Transaction and discounted market multiples, DCF and NAV of Excelsior on unaudited pro forma, valuation of
merger synergies and drafting of deal rationale and risks. Drafting of pitch and valuation books and presentation to
Clinvest’s project selection committee, marketing support in connection with the lead Managing Director.
PRIVATE EQUITY LED DEALS
 Advised Gedefi Private Equity on the sale of a micro hotel & resort group in Switzerland ($10 million, hotels
& resorts, 2002): NAV valuation by occupancy rate scenarios of a single hotel, memorandum review and
comments, pitching of sale to small and mid cap specialized private equity firms.
 Advised Stonefund in a due diligence by the Colruyt family of Alt 100 / Sera al Olio, a vineyard in Italy ($8.7
million, food & beverage, 2003): review of pro forma statements, assets and private company presentation,
overview of global wine industry, review of last industry transactions to define a peer group for transaction analysis
and isolation of small cap pure players with profile close to Alt 100 for complementary market comps. Preliminary
valuation on DCF methods, on site visits due diligence with client, drafting of advisory memorandum and Q&A
management with Stonefund.
 Advised Domaine Monin Wines in an attempted bid to high net worth individual ($4 million, food &
beverage, 2004): review of pro forma statements, assets and private company presentation, overview of global wine
industry, review of last industry transactions to define a peer group for transaction analysis and isolation of small cap
pure players with profile close to Domaine Monin Wines for complementary market comps. Preliminary valuation
on DCF methods, on site visits due diligence with client, drafting of advisory memorandum. Pitching of sale to small
and mid cap specialized private equity and real estate firms.
ASSET MANAGEMENT
 Mutual funds investing: building, back testing, and managing 5 European and global equity and balanced /
diversified / multi-assets fund of funds portfolios (equity and ETF (styles: growth, GARP, pure value, stock picking,
value with catalyst, sector focus, income, special situations, index/ETF), fixed income, absolute return, commodities,
money market, balanced / asset allocation / multi-assets). Co-design of the allocation strategy on a top down
approach and co-management of the tactical allocation using ETFs and index funds to enhance funds performance.
Handling of periodic portfolios reviews, performances, risks and contributions analysis. Initiation of a computerized
fund screening modeling, design of automated portfolio performances and contributions monitoring tools based on
Morningstar / S&P Micropal workstation. Design and review of Request For Information (RFIs) and Request For
Proposal (RFPs). Due diligence on site and managers interviews of short listed funds to assess investment
opportunities and monitor invested funds. My recommendations improved investment management tools (positions
by manager, style, risk-return matrix, and visual decision tools) to ease the allocation process, and instigated formal
fund selection, due diligence and monitoring processes. These choices contributed significantly to rank the five
funds in the top of each category (Asset Allocation Global Defensive, Neutral, Flexible and Dynamic, and Equity
Europe) and increased the visibility of A2 Gestion on a national scale. Centaure’s five profiled funds of funds (20%
to 100% equity funds) achieved an excellent three year performance/volatility track record and gained recognition
from S&P/Morningstar (up to 4 stars) and Lipper Leaders (up to 3 awards).
 Fixed income investing: screening on online resources, review of issuing prospectus and broker interest rates,
industry and company specific research on online platforms.

 Stock investing: design of stock screening models based on a value investing approach focusing on a combination
of current and forward ratios (P/E, P/D, P/CF, D/E, PEG). Statements, annual reports and brokers research report
analysis. Forecasted annual and quarterly income statements, cash flow and balance sheets, comparative valuation
analysis, DCF analysis and technical analysis on short listed investment opportunities. Drafting of equities research
reports (company description, businesses and divisions overview, operation performance analysis, capital structure
and share buyback review, investment case, valuation, risks, catalysts) on a variety of international mid and large cap
stocks. Annual reports, financial statements / regulatory filings and corporate actions analysis for monitoring of
ongoing investments.
 Marketing, communication and development / deal sourcing:
- Marketing: performed competitive analysis (products, fees, investment processes, online presence,
marketing efforts), product positioning and study on new product launching, developed unique marketing
tools (RFPs/RFIs, brochures, presentations, periodic fact sheets and regulatory reports) to tap consultants,
insurance platforms, multi-managers, banks and independent financial advisors.
- Communication: responsible for media and rating agencies relations (Lipper, Morningstar, S&P, APT;
Fitzrovia, Cote Alpha, Bloomberg). Created and fed data flows with consultants, rating agencies,
journalists, prospects and clients to enter into recurring rankings and intensify relationships. Gave
interviews to websites, newspapers and magazines, created the press review, designed and budgeted the
corporate website (www.a2gestion.fr).
- Business development: institutional sales sourcing and negotiation of cross distribution partnerships with
insurance companies and investment management firms. Collected $9 million through new relationships
with independent financial advisors and institutional clients, and the initiation of distribution agreements
with BNP and Rothschild.
MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS CONSULTING
My experience in strategy includes roles in a pure advisory context and roles combining advisory and execution at
GoHealth (strategic process improvement), Vaxa Inc (strategy Consulting), A2 Gestion Asset Management (strategy
planning) or Clinvest Credit Lyonnais (business portfolio assessment, divestment and external growth).
 At Clinvest
As described above in the first pages, in Investment Banking, prior A2 Gestion I stayed three years as an analyst at
Clinvest Credit Lyonnais, the M&A boutique of the Credit Lyonnais (now part of Credit Agricole Group). There, I
built detailed financial models to assess the impact of M&A, LBO, debt, equity and equity linked financing
alternatives for the logistics & transportation, utilities, consumer goods, energy and media industries. I also prepared
GAAP & IFRS fairness materials, board presentations, pitch and valuation books including deal rationale, target or
company descriptions, industry backgrounds overviews, accretion/dilution, financial and accounting ratio analysis,
financial statement and synergies forecasts, public and transaction comps, DCF, SOP, LBO and pro-forma analysis. I
participated in all phases of deals from deal screening and pitching, teaser, valuation book and CIM (memorandum)
writing, Indication of Interest (IOI), management meetings, Letter of Intent (LOI), data-room due diligence
organization, post exclusive agreement Q&A, closing and post-closing adjustments or integration consulting.
 At A2 Gestion
At A2 Gestion, I was hired to revamp the investment process and improve mutual funds performances and brand
visibility. To quickly gain market knowledge, identify the challenges and opportunities of the market and benchmark
best in class investing, marketing and communication practices, I attended industry conferences and a training
program organized by the French association of investment management (AFG), talked to peers, rating agencies
leaders, potential partners and vendors, and read industry reports. I realized that our goals in priority order should be
streamline the investment process, create proper marketing and communication tools, develop partnerships and
institutional sales, and initiate systematic reporting and communication for clients, institutional and financial
advisors prospects, rating agencies, partners, regulators and journalists. And I had full authority and budget to
implement changes.

Then, I designed and extracted insights from a company-wide survey to define the values, missions, goals and
tracking metrics to fit this vision. From these preliminary phases, I created the 3-5 years strategic plan including
milestones, deadlines, responsibilities and budgets. I communicated the results in an internal presentation to the
entire team from management to sales and set up regular company-wide meetings to update them on the process and
get feedbacks.
The angular stone was the investment process. Prior modifying it, I redefined our index benchmarks with rating and
regulatory agencies to get appropriate track records publicized. Then I created and implemented an investment
process based best industry practices and 4 steps. First, define a strategic asset allocation based on a defined set of
macro and micro economic data, market prices and graphic analysis. Second, select a fund analytical platform
through review and tests of main vendors’ offerings and initiate a systematic quantitative statistical screening to
narrow the 65,000 funds investment universe to select 5 funds by pocket of the chosen strategic allocation. Three,
create RFPs/RFIs to narrow down further our choice to 3 funds. Fourth, impose systematic onsite visits and portfolio
Managers’ interviews to each of our final 3 choices to select the winners in each of our strategic allocation pockets.
The rest of the implementation phase included the following:
- Marketing: performed competition analysis and developed unique marketing tools (RFPs/RFIs, brochures,
presentations, fund fact sheets and regulatory reports) to tap institutional, consulting and private prospects.
- Communication: created and fed data flows with consultants, rating agencies, journalists, prospects and
clients to enter into recurring rankings and intensify relationships, gave interviews to press and web media,
created a press review, and designed and budgeted the corporate website with the IT vendors.
- Business development: sourced and negotiated institutional distribution partnerships with national insurers
and investment Managers.
As a result, my recommendations:
- Confirmed the retail and institutional recognition of A2 Gestion as one of the top 5 specialists for fund of
funds on the French market and gather praises by dozens of broad and specialized press and web articles or
institutional rankings, and interest by several large institutional investors.
- Improved investment management tools to ease the allocation process, and instigated formal fund selection,
due diligence and monitoring.
- Initiated 10 new sub-Managers agreements to enhance funds’ performances.
- Contributed significantly to rank our 5 funds in the top of their respective categories, achieve an excellent 3
year performance/volatility track record and gain recognition from S&P/Morningstar and Lipper.
- Allowed to collect EUR 7M through new relationships with independent financial advisors and institutional
clients, and the initiation of distribution agreements with BNP and Rothschild.
- Greatly contributed to bring AUM from EUR 25M at 1/1/2004 to EUR 45M at 1/1/2006.
 At GoHealth
My role focused on the creation and improvement of processes to refine sales leads and teams performance reporting,
create and ad hoc management dashboard and SLA reports for our clients, better allocate sales resources and
opportunities by geography, carrier and BPO team, improve sales reconciliation, and better track onboarding licensing
capacities and sales team rosters. This in a drastic ramp-up environment where teams grew from 70 up to 1,000 FTEs and
sales (applications or submissions) rocketed from 3,000-3,500 in average a quarter to 160,000.
I was in charge of reshaping the call / contact center reporting for sales, operations, finance and management teams,
improving processes in staffing adjustments, licensing and sales audit and help my supervisors in presenting periodic
results in corresponding board meetings. After my first week I noticed:
- Lack of internal database consolidation leading to confusions and inaccuracies
- Need for hiring and licensing trackers
- Need for a geo-staffing model to allocate the right number of licensed sales in the right states
- Need to reconcile sales accurately and in real time.
I worked on designing projects to be presented to each component of this stakeholder universe to present my ideas,
gather requirements, prepare communication channels for project updates and adjustments, and figure out ways to
combine stakeholders' specifics without conflicts. After nine month, all projects were achieved, my team grew to 6
analysts and I began to work on automating processes and reporting with the CIO and external IT consultants. My

projects generated sub-projects reflecting corporate strategy alignment: creation of a payment collecting team, QA and
onboarding improvement effort or ramp-up of a real licensing team to handle complex licensing requirements.
To achieve this, I proceeded in the following order of priorities:
1. Refine sales leads and teams performance reporting, create and ad hoc management dashboard and SLA
reports for our clients
I first spent time with the previous owner of the operations and sales reporting to understand the data, data cleaning
requirements and reporting structures, processes and process documentation in place. Once able to be independent in
covering the old reporting processes, I applied a consistent approach in archiving and building the models lacking it
and adjusted the process documentation accordingly. By doing so, I managed to improve the accuracy of the sales
reporting by already 20%.
Having achieved a low hanging fruit to facilitate headquarter and call center Managers buy-in, I set up meeting with
the contact center management VPs, sales directors and Managers to listen to their frustrations, better define the
issues and draw the scope of their requirements. This also helped me to realize that concretely I needed to combine
different sources of data into a central easy to access, archive and manipulate historic dataset. I vented this
intermediary issue to my supervisor, the VP of Consumer Enrollment & Sales to introduce the issue in board
meeting and get an assigned BA. I then started this discussion on a consolidated database of call center, marketing,
finance and HR data with the CMO, CFO, co-founders CEO and President, VMO SVP and their closest
collaborators to put together a uniform database structure including all the historical data fields needed by all of us.
The development team executed according to our requirements in SQL and located the output in a single location on
the network to restricted list of Managers with a secret access pass.
I drafted a first version of the sales & operation daily reporting template and communicated it to call center and
headquarter management. To produce the management dashboard, I worked with the VPs of Consumer Enrollment
and Sales, VP of Operations, VP of Business Development Director of Strategy to define the format inspired from
sales & operation daily reporting template. I stripped it from non-needed data fields, added the sales calls KPIs
defined from those meetings, and rolled it by carrier. Under the pressure of the first incoming ACA enrollment
period and considering the complexity of the task of gathering every morning multiple sources of data to produce
this report, I quickly worked with the VP of Business Development, our BA and the developers to automate end of
the day sales and call statistics summary and a Sr. Financial Analyst was assigned to the early task of assembling and
sending daily reports to all Managers before the new 8:00 am cross functional Manager morning meeting established
by the CEO.
But to achieve the reporting content and format needed by Sales Management and the Corporate Management
dashboard I wanted to create, I needed to add telephony and workforce management data into my reporting. I got
trained on our cloud based telephony platform and our newly implemented workforce management system. I then
created had hoc database in Excel to feed a pivot table combining all data in one place and sortable by state, carrier,
BPO team, sales director, Manager and team lead. I gathered feedbacks to make adjustments, presented it to the sales
teams and the call center VPs, defined a distribution lists and implemented it in daily reporting.
At GoHealth, I also acted as the key point of contact and SME to 12 health insurance companies in terms of
generating data, reports and analysis on sales, conversion and issuance rates, number of leads, opportunities and
contact our customer center team handled. I developed BPO SLA and custom analytics reports with our BPO clients'
PMs or SMEs, our VPs of Operations and Consumer Enrollment, our internal account Managers or business
development directors. This required defining the right KPIs with the client and using multiple client reporting or
archiving systems, our cloud based and multi-channel Virtual Contact Center monitoring & analysis tool Five 9 and
our Workforce Management skilling, staffing and forecasting tool IEX Nice. Each BPO client had a specific project
and account management team to which my team provided ongoing support.
2. Better allocate sales resources and opportunities by geography, carrier and BPO team; and improve sales
reconciliation
Aside from this, I advised the call center management team including VP of Consumer Enrollment & Sales, VP of
Operations and Sales Directors on which specific states and markets could maximize sales, increase conversion and
reduce cost per contact.

I first created a geographic staffing model in collaboration with the Workforce Management Team to properly assign
sale teams, assess FTE ramp-up and relative licenses needs in 50 states. This model was based on a multiple
regression analysis of 20 factors vs. call volume history and forecasts to isolate the top 5 highest correlations and a
final weighted rating.
Before the ACA, GoHealth had very low insurance rates and data from insurance carriers were sent to us for
reconciliation after 60 days, forcing accounting and finance to negotiate each month-end a sales estimate for
commission payments with each non pure BPO carrier. To counter this issue, and reduce the lifecycle of the
reconciliation, we needed to produce the effort by ourselves instead of waiting for carriers to react. I first met with
different stakeholders including the call center management team, assigned business analyst and project management
analyst to identify what types of operational data, metrics, analytics and other support needs will effectively meet our
goals in terms of sales conversion and revenue by agent and team while increasing customer satisfaction and service
levels and decreasing costs per calls.
After series of meetings and iterations of report descriptions and templates, we came up with standardized reporting
processes providing expected levels of analysis and insights to achieve those objectives. This necessitated adding a
page to our proprietary CRM sales process for agents to fill missing plan information and include gross premium and
subsidy data. My BA and I worked with the development team to add these pages and after a period of tests, we
were ready.
The next step was for me to source, hire and build an Operations & Sales Analytics Team, train them and extend the
test period with real daily sales data flowing twice a day from our CRM via an automated email to be processes by
real time direct checks on multiple carriers data sources (email, Siebel, Connecture, MS Dynamics, various websites
downloads), corrections of fields in our CRM (due to wrong typo, spelling or data entry of our agents in our CRM),
and dynamic and unified coding in the new model of the different status shown by each of our sales lead into the
carriers reporting systems in order to properly track sales leads reconciliations almost in real time. This process
reduced our reconciliation cycle from 60 days to less than a week in peak periods and a day in normal periods. It was
adopted company-wide, used for month-end accounting reporting and I later worked with the Chief Accounting
Officer to better communicate its functioning to management and prepare its automation.
This process also led me to direct my team into producing reports that would look at our customer demographics in
order to provide our carrier clients feedback on what demographics they needed to increase marketing efforts and
online presence. It also helped us to point out where we needed to streamline processes, create validation and
payment recovery teams or add additional technological improvements to improve customer experience and free
agents from administrative tasks to concentrate on selling the benefits of the plans and help end-users clients.
3. Better track onboarding licensing capacities and sales team rosters
The staffing model I put together with the Workforce Management Team gave us the urgency to create a licensing
team of 6 analysts to focus exclusively on licensing administration for our agents and the inaccuracy of fast moving
rosters with licensing issues, attrition and HR issues was requiring adequate trackers. I created a licensing tracker
and process to follow our onboarding sources, hire quality, licensing reinstatement, renewal and exam results by
systematically gathering licensing examination needs, dates and results by a rolling team of team leads dedicated
part-time to this task and we attributed its administration to a project team lead. To better track our entire roster of
licensed agents by team leads, sales Manager and sales directors, and eradicate the inaccuracy of multiple existing
rosters done at sales directors level, I created a unified template filled twice a month by team leaders, directly in
daily contacts with agents, consolidated in two days and sent to Sales Management, HR, QA, Licensing, Strategy
and Business Development.
 At Vaxa Inc.
Prior to GoHealth and since 2015, I spent 10 years at Vaxa Inc., a strategy consulting boutique specialized in growth
opportunity identification, strategy clarification and strategic problem solving for Fortune 500 clients with a focus on IT,
Consumers (Discretionary and Staples), Healthcare, Industrials and Financials. In this small multinational team, I
developed a solid strategic skillset including strategic brainstorming, research, conceptualization and planning, business
case and model development, project management and presentation backed by a proven ability for primary and
secondary macro / mega trend, industry, market, company and competitive research in a wide range of sectors
demonstrating adaptability and learning curve.

At this occasion I worked on syndicated data, private and public primary and secondary data sources from client's pricing
structures to government economics and demographics data or proprietary survey results to extract insights from data sets
in MS Excel or IBM SPSS using or creating various custom consulting frameworks, competitive benchmarking, business
valuation, "what if" analysis models, decision trees, linear or discrete choice models for the purpose of insight generation,
market sizing or segmentation, demand forecasting, macro or micro impact or trend analysis to solve strategic issues,
propose new business opportunity options or operate strategy adjustments. Beyond custom frameworks, here are some
classic strategic frameworks used by Vaxa: scenario planning, strategy maps, PEST / PESTLE Analysis, Porter 5 Forces
Analysis, SWOT analysis, BCG Growth-Share Matrix, GE- McKinsey Matrix, ADL Matrix, McKinsey 7S Framework,
Bowman's Strategy Clock, Mintzberg's 5 Ps, Mullins' 7 Domains, McKinsey's 7 Degrees of Freedom for Growth, E J
McCarthy 4Ps Marketing Mix, 10 Cs of Supplier Evaluation. I started as Sr. Strategy Consultant and ended up as
Engagement Manager managing project teams of 3 to 5 analysts or peers under the supervision of the founding Managing
Partner.
Break down of projects by type of research at Vaxa
o 60% Front-end industry and adjacent industries research: global trend analysis, opportunity exploration,
competitive industry analysis, competitive intelligence and benchmarking, customer insights analysis, adjacent
markets analysis, services and products offering gap identification, market sizing modeling, value proposition
and business model definition / refinement.
o 25% White spaces research: definition of new services and product offerings, advisory on alliance ecosystems
implementation, research of strategic distribution & licensing partnerships.
o 15% Back-end research: product development planning, dynamic segmentation, sales channels competitive
analysis, marketing campaign optimization, IP and branding assets leveraging.
Breakdown of projects by strategy focus at Vaxa
o 70% Growth centric strategy:
- MegaTrends to Opportunities: seeing how nascent trends create sustainable opportunities.
- Growing Market Shares and Shares of Wallets: new revenue streams from latent & unmet customer needs.
- Innovation in Strategy: embedding strategy innovation inside our client's organizations.
- Monetizing Technologies: finding new uses for idle or underperforming technologies.
- Emerging & Growth Markets: emerging markets are a must win for future growth.
- Venturing & Incubation: kick starting opportunities through measured investments.
- Growth Partnership Alliances: relevant partnering approaches and combinations.
o 30% Customer centric strategy:
- Channels Optimization: channels alignment to better compete and pursue new markets.
- Customer Insights: uncovering hidden and unmet customer needs.
- Dynamic Segmentation: unique customer segmentation to create more value from portfolios.
- Brand Awareness: determining brand hurdles in underserved or potential markets.
Client base by sector at Vaxa
o 40% IT
o 15% Healthcare
o 10% Industrials
o 10% Consumer Discretionary
o 10% Financials
o 5% Telecoms
o 5% Consumer Staples
o 5% Other (Materials, Non-for-Profit and Municipal Public Sector)
Project Samples Vaxa
o Quick Project Type Sample Laundry List:

- For a Fortune Global 50 integrated IT group:
Toys, board and outdoor games and video gaming markets megatrend analysis for the creation of a video
gaming concept and related services, virtual and manufactured accessories for its global gaming unit
(project adopted by its creative studio for prototype and R&D investment allocation);
National competitive survey of its storage channel partners with extensive pre-interviews of the
management of its largest resellers for its Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking division (operating
recommendations of improvement implemented and strategic benchmarking refocused on two leading
players);
Trend analysis of the US healthcare vertical, review of current and future capex/opex potential of federal
and state spending, in-depth competitive analysis of the distribution networks of its peers and peer analysis
of the imaging and Electronic Healthcare Record ISVs for its Small and Medium Business team and its
healthcare vertical team (results and recommendations presented at annual US healthcare summits and
implementation of insights in strategic asset allocation plans);
Growth drivers' analysis of the Indian Business Process Outsourcing competitive environment for its core
strategy & business development team (insights presented in board meeting).
- For a Fortune Global 100 IT service group:
Green innovation and global warming trend analysis for its core strategy team with a focus on revenue /
profitability impact by sector, sub industry group and geographic region (insights used for board meetings
presentations, creation of a new business unit and launching of a global "greener planet" initiative);
Business development project with SWOT analysis on the energy management market for its energy
vertical team (recommendation presented in board meeting);
Public and private KPIs and IT spend analysis of five US and emerging Global 500 telecommunication
groups with extensive industry interviews used to double the revenue generation of its telecom industry
practice (insights presented in board meeting).
- For two Fortune 100 logistics & transportations groups:
Strategic review of business opportunities to identify undiscovered applications and potential markets for a
new tracking technology (recommendation presented in board meeting and used for the creation of an
alliance ecosystem);
Holistic mega trend analysis and implications for LT and the client organization (recommendation
published in a confidential report).
o Information Technology 1
Why are BRIC companies growing faster than their developed countries' counterparts? Indian technology service
companies have doubled, in some cases, tripled in size over the last 5-7 years and at profits that make them the envy
of the industry. This caught the attention of main US and European companies. They all understood the cost
advantage but the real reasons for the successes were less evident.
Vaxa's global research was put into action to uncover what were the real drivers behind the rapid growth of this
handful of Indian companies. What made their value proposition so attractive that customers, small and large, trusted
them with operations that were once the exclusive domain of large US and European service providers?
Our research created a 360-view of this group of companies-peeling back the layers from inside the companies to
deeply understanding why their customers were hiring them. This work helped our clients to reposition and fine tune
their value proposition in different markets and to increase their deal flow from targeted customer segments.

Vaxa was asked to analyze a portfolio of global trends with the intent of surfacing 3 opportunities that can lead to
major revenue contributors in less than five years.
TechCo start some of the work but had mix results since the team could not get past the mountain of data, a common
problem we often come across.
We designed the project plan where Vaxa conducted preliminary research in phase 1 and surfaced opportunity pools
across the trends, then to work with the team in phase 2 to prioritize where more detailed research and analysis will
be required, and finally, to move on to detailing out specific opportunities and together with developing the initial
specific business cases.
This process worked nicely for the TechCo team since they invested minimal time during the early stages but
received a totally external and independent analysis of the trends. However, we agreed they should be more involved
during the prioritization of the opportunities, alignment, and the building of the business case.
Strategic alignment was a key success factor in increasing the likelihood that direct and indirect stakeholders were
brought along at pivot points of the project. The stakeholders' community was a broad internal base and also
considered those externally. The time for the project was about nine weeks. The end result was a corporate wide
"planet-centric" initiative that spawned several other related projects with the end objective of making businesses
and governments smarter.
ERPCo is a leading global software company serving the majority of the Global 1000 companies across almost all
industries. They are a premium brand in every boardroom for the reliability and quality of their end-to-end enterprise
resource planning applications. They have a leading presence in all developed countries but emerging markets are
still untapped for them. As part of increasing its global reach, the African continent was targeted.
ERPCo hired Vaxa to conduct two separate but inter-related projects. First, analyze and prioritize the African
countries relative to their readiness and propensity for advanced technologies like ERP and recommend a time-based
pursuit order for the region. Secondly, for the most attractive countries, identify and propose a portfolio of regional
partners as a first step in driving ERPCo presence in those countries.
Vaxa developed the framework to analyze all African countries using a combination of political, economic, social,
and technology, and other trends data. Each country was scored along two dimensions so it was clear to distinguish
the least-to-most attract. Similarly, our research uncovered a combination of local and international companies who
were a good fit for what ERPCo was trying to achieve.
In the first twelve months, ERPCo entered two countries with eight partners and had additional four countries in year
two.
Why has Partner sales of Brand-X fallen off so drastically?
A substantial percent of our client sales are from the indirect channels. StorCo created a strategy whereby indirect
channels played a larger role for Brand-X than other products. Sales Channel Partners for Brand-X was a mix of
large and small partner companies. The large partner company sales under-performed for two consecutive years for
Brand-X and TechCo had to do something to turn it around.
Vaxa was asked to assess the causes of the decline and recommend a course of action to fix it.
The client team's first reaction was something must be wrong with the large partners but Vaxa's approach was to
engage with all three stakeholders including large partners, end customers and StorCo selling programs in order to
analyze why partners were experiencing declining sales, what are the perspectives of customers, and the impact of
TechCo's sales programs to help partners sell.
The end results: modify sales programs to increase partners' mindshare and share-of-wallet, heightened joint
communications direct to customers on Brand-X value proposition, and replace specific partners with others.

Our client, a Fortune 100 Technology company, provides integrated IT solutions to enterprises, small and medium
businesses, governments and academia. Their services growth has come under pressure especially in outsourcing.
They have seen that companies have been gradually changing their attitude toward outsourcing and Vaxa was asked
identify the drivers behind the changing sentiments toward outsourcing, the trade-offs companies are making
between operating risks and economics, and whether the competitive tides of outsourcing likely to changing toward
insourcing?
Our approach was to design an approach that engaged with senior executives of companies in industries who were
existing customers and those who had potential to become future customers of outsourcing. We developed a short
list of key questions that we wanted to explore and brought together IT and non-IT executives together with our
client teams so new insights can be created from the open dialogue. These were a series of 2-3 days exploratory
workshops. In parallel, Vaxa created a market attractiveness analytical model that integrated economic trends and
use the work outcomes to develop a set of assumptions that estimated the future market across selected industries for
outsourcing.
This analysis also highlighted which industries and customers are least-to-most attractive and the capabilities that
will be needed to be successful.
The end result was a strategy that reconfigured part of our client capabilities to focus on specific opportunity
domains, a set of corporate development activities aimed at closing their capabilities gap, a short term portfolio of go
to market options and tactics and allowed for immediate action will continue the growth of their outsourcing
business, and a direction that all key stakeholders bought in to.
o Financials 1
Part of RegBankCo growth strategy was to increase loyalty among its affluent customers to increase their share-of-
wallet. RegBankCo has a substantial presence in the US Northeastern states with over 1.5 million clients. For two
years, they saw customer defection increase resulting from their brand being under pressure. The loyalty initiative
was one way of clawing back customers.
RegBankCo retained Vaxa to help define a loyalty program to ensure current customers stay with the bank, attract
new customers, and ultimately increase customer share-of-wallet.
Vaxa took two simultaneous approaches-first, conduct primary research with existing customers and work with
RegBankCo to define a customer loyalty program.
Given the outcomes of the research and broader industry analysis, we recommended a multi-dimensional customer
rewards program for different account types, credit and debit cards, and length of time customers are with the bank.
Within three of months of execution, RegBankCo saw a 33k increase in its customer base and 125k jump in eighteen
months.
o Financials 2
A private investment management firm contacted Vaxa to assess the viability of an acquisition project targeting
small banking networks in Florida after a recent period of turmoil.
In a first phase, Vaxa first approached the request by an analysis of the rationale of the deal focusing on "why",
"when" and "what".
For the "why" Vaxa analyzed pros and cons in the client point of view of such an acquisition in terms of
diversification, synergies, competitive positioning, barriers to entry and exit, regulatory, legal and fiscal
implications, and shareholder value.
The "when" consisted of an overall US banking market financial ratios and trends analysis to assess of the timing of
an acquisition in the banking sector and its major risks.
The "what" started by a thorough analysis of the Florida banking market reviewing the place of Florida in the US
economy in the economic context of the time, FL banking market leaders, market shares, growth, margins regulatory

and legal constraints, banking customers' behaviors and key drivers in Florida, and heat map of locally based
distressed banks.
In a second phase and having sufficient confidence in the feasibility and potential risk / reward balance of the
project, the management of our client asked Vaxa to identify potential targets. We built upon our "what" analysis to
go deeper and look at demographics, car traffic, public transportation, business activity, FDIC banks auction trends
and currently available opportunities, FDIC bidder qualification requirements, analyze of currently FDIC auctioned
banking businesses in Florida including client base, financial statements, financial and operational ratios and
margins, relative performance and valuation ratios vs industry comps at large and FL industry comps, risk and return
analysis of loans and other assets portfolios, sensitivity and cost analysis of deposits and other liabilities portfolios.
From this second phase of research, we isolated the top 3 contenders in the FDIC small banking auction group with
for each a fair price/valuation justification, average premium recommended, integration cost estimate, risk
assessment and SWOTs.
o Consumer 1
Making Innovation central to future growth… Our client is a global premier consumer brand-in health & beauty,
household care, fashion, and snacks. Innovation historically played a role in its success but going forward, it wanted
to systematize but not stifle innovation, encourage innovation but not have it out of control.
Vaxa's Innovation-in-Strategy model was seen as a strong option and for us to partner with the Corporate Strategy
team to adapt our approach for use at corporate and within individual brands. Several issues had to be addressed
including how to co-opt the broader, sometimes more independent organizations, demonstrating how to achieve
results without being shackled by the process and creating a support structure so operating teams have guidance
when needed.
The early work centered on demonstrating how Innovation-in-Strategy can deliver the level of results expected and
embedding the know-how in the client organization. Two pilots were conducted, one at Corporate and within a
Brand with the agreement of the General Manager. This ensured the process was exercised by groups whose
missions were different enough. This drove adaptation and integration of the process into all Brands within twelve
months.
o Consumer 2
Online program increases customer conversation rates.
Our client, a specialty online retailer of electronics and parts carried a wide range of merchandize at highly
competitive prices, even relative to its larger competitors. After five years, it still knew relative little about its
customers, which limited their ability to create targeted campaigns with emails or custom offers in their site.
Revenue per customer was down and was attribute the lack of ability to convert customers into buying other
products while shopping.
Vaxa partnered with this client to help them understand the drivers of customer value and behavior-and to develop
an online marketing strategy to increase conversion rates on the site and by email.
We started by analyzing their existing customer sales database to assess the correlation between the number of
purchases with product quantities across all categories. This type of segmentation was used to estimate the likelihood
of customers "crossing the aisle" to buy other categories and how that can impact revenues. For example, it revealed
some eye-openers: for instance lifetime value of customers buying high-end networking tools spiked when they
bought other categories. But, this client carried a very limited selection of high-end crimpers. The opposite was
shown for other products. In between this spectrum of buyers were some categories such as DVD players and
receivers that were very attractive and profit customer categories.
In addition to the data analytics, we interviewed a selection of customers to balance the internal insights. We then
worked with the client team to develop a portfolio of cross-selling and penetration techniques-making real time
product recommendations during the shopping and purchase cycles. We developed the business case for these
approaches to show the organizational value, piloted the approaches, and helped to develop the processes and back
office process to support them.

A 3, 6, and 12 month post analysis showed a dramatic "aisle-crossing" in the targeted customer segments ranging
from 18-46%. Sales increased 23% in the initial 12 months.
o Consumer 3
Pure play strategic thinking was a strength of this globally branded leading Packaged Goods company. They
pioneered and were a leader of segmenting consumers, down to the finest detail and ensuring they understood the
nuisances to each group. It started to become obvious to the organization that something was missing in their highly
analytical strategic mindset-a bias to a more qualitative approach that went much deeper into creating future
foresight in ways they had not previous done. That is, create a capacity for future innovation.
Vaxa was asked to collaborate with a new team that was put in place to develop the foundation of innovation for the
corporation. They were given carte blanche to look inside outside the company, to keep what is believed to be good,
bring in fresh new ideas that will challenge and stretch the conventional wisdom, not just in the company but the
industry as well.
Vaxa first recommendation to the client's team leader was to form a core team that represented the best of the best of
creative and innovative thinkers from across the company, and, in parallel, get time commitment from senior
executives who are likely to have direct or indirect influence on the future success of any new approach to
innovation through the company. Engaging these different groups goes toward key ingredients of success for such
initiatives: organizational alignment and leveraging innovative goodness that already works well inside the
company.
We built a common model from what already existed then started on a process of integrating and melding together
the internal view with Vaxa's innovation model that has been applied across numerous industries and business issues.
Then, Vaxa used part of its own innovation process to design and stage three Thought Leader Panels to explore how
others think about and implement their innovation initiatives. This is one way we challenge closely held company
and industry beliefs and assumptions relative to others who have been through the trials and tribulations of its own.
The internal, external, and Vaxa's innovation views were put together in a draft process then we did a soft roll out by
following three different paths: Vaxa leading the first project and the client team observing; for the second project,
leading was the client team with Vaxa observing, and, finally, the client team took over without Vaxa's participation.
Within six months, the client used their learning from applying the new process across 15 different projects to create
a corporate brand for the new innovation process. The success of this new approach was validated by other
companies asking the client to be a thought leader in help them to create and implement innovation.
o Healthcare 1
Using North American success to expand into Europe and Asia…
The success of this Medical Devices company came quickly and competitors were entering the US market at a rate
that meant their home market share was at risk. They knew that global expansion was inevitable but didn't plan on
having to do it so soon.
Vaxa's was hired to assist the company to develop its market entry strategy into Europe and Asia and to help them
implement it. A key driver in selecting the order in which markets were pursued was in the alignment of product
adaptation for local use relative to market readiness, the startup challenges and entry costs, and margin projections.
Direct, indirect, and hybrid entry models were used depending on how markets were tagged during the analysis.
Over a 24-month period, direct selling organizations were built and channel partnerships were established in three
countries. The profitability of this expansion provided the funding for our client to broaden its R&D base to develop
more advanced products.
o Healthcare 2
A global integrated IT company came to us with a set of questions.
A team led by VPs of US SMB Channel Sales & Strategy and Global Channel Management defined the end goals as
follow:

First, find two new market opportunities in healthcare solutions where their technology can fit and what are the next
solutions to focus on considering these technologies. Pick the most appropriate segments combining profitability and
alignment with their product and service offering and choose the top 25 US metro areas.
Second, look for new U S personal computing and printing resellers to target "sell through" opportunities in these
two targeted healthcare spaces. Pick the top two resellers they need to go after in those 25 US metro areas. Have an
idea of their geographic presence, products and services offering and certifications, size and competitors they are
mainly working with.
Third, analyze "sell to" opportunities targeting US hospitals and affiliated physician networks, but also regional
extension centers (RECs), dental practices networks and health care associations.
To approach our secondary research on new market opportunities in healthcare solutions, we've looked at Federal
healthcare expenses distribution and long term growth rates by program and states, and looked into the split inside
these programs by expense segment. Then we looked at the state level by looking into the accounts of each state and
isolate IT and healthcare operating and capital expenses and their composition. From there we've isolated the fastest
growing segments fitting our client capabilities and product/service offering for further profitability checks: eHR
(Electronic Healthcare Records) and imaging. We've then identified the major eHR and imaging ISVs in those two
segments and looked into their 10Ks to combine financial statements data and ratios to confirm our segment choice
on the profitability side.
In the next step, we looked at hospitals and RECs IT operating and capital expenses by using a benchmarking
approach. We distinguished the close to 6,000 hospitals recorded by the US Hospital Association by bedding
composition and ownership structure to have a better idea of the IT portion of the operating and capital expenses of
those major targets. We took a sample of representative hospitals varying in geographic location, ownership
structure, size and bedding distribution focus and dug into their public account statements to isolate average and
median IT operating and capital expense portions of total expenses. Combined with our federal and state data, we
used this research to draw a healthcare expense map by regions and states and isolate the largest and fastest growing
regions and top 25 metros.
Finally, the Vaxa project team designed an extensive database for existing eHR and imaging ISVs including
company contacts, partners list, business description, main executive contacts, list of certifications, target markets,
staff size, annual sales and split by customer type (hospitals, physicians, dental practices and home care) and implied
market shares, type of interface and list of compatible operating systems. I then assigned an analyst and our external
vendor to fill it up under my supervision.
Our client used our final presentation to build new partnerships with ISVs in those two segments, adjust their
channel distribution planning, launch new R&D investments plans to prepare focus global offerings in imaging and
eHR, and prepare sales teams gathered in a national conference about these new strategic objectives approved in
board meeting.
o Healthcare 3
RadiationCo is a leading provider of brain cancer therapeutics. Given the changes in healthcare, RadiationCo plan
was to diversify its portfolio and expand into larger and faster growing whole body irradiation segment including
diagnostics. Vaxa was asked to evaluate the range of options to build the whole body treatment capability and make
recommendations regarding corporate development, investment, alliances and partners, and the required capabilities
to be successful.
Vaxa designed an approach that analyzed the current state of the whole body irradiation market, growth drivers and
inhibitors, technology evolution, and the gaps in the current solutions value proposition. In parallel, we assessed the
reasons behind the current success of the brain business to determine what current capabilities and assets are
leverageable in the whole body market. This provided a basis to identify what gaps needed to be filled relative to the
key success factors.
Our analysis of the whole body market showed the relative attractiveness of the different segments and contributed
to a phase market entry portfolio of options. This also led to target companies who were a good strategic fit and the
types of partnerships and investments that will make sense over time and how these will contribute to the growth of
the company including revenues, margins, and competencies.

o Industrials
What do you get when you combine Chemicals, Agro Science, & Medicine? One of the oldest and most successful
Industrial companies has major businesses in different but synergistic areas like Chemicals, Agriculture, and
Medicine that provided a vast range of products and materials for applications ranging from kitchen counter tops, to
fertilizers for crops, electronic displays, pharmaceuticals, packaging and many more.
Management challenged the Strategy Team to identify new fields of applications that can create growth potential for
the company that are as big as some existing businesses. The brief was broad enough to include existing markets
where disruption was possible to kick-starting applications that did not previously exist.
Vaxa partnered with the Corporate Strategy team with the intent of identify exploration fronts, then doing deep dives
into those areas that showed greatest potential. We worked with the team to bring together a group representing
different business units, technologies, and experts-all of whom offering alternate perspectives of the locations of
significant growth pools that can leverage the businesses' core technologies.
The initial phase was a qualitative exploration leading to a more analytical approach being adopted once the team
and the broader organization were aligned around which opportunities were worthy of deeper investigation and
analysis. Significant attention was given to ensuring strategic alignment of the key stakeholders and the corporate
strategic intent.
Of the six major opportunities analyzed, two were selected for investment and the formation of new venture teams to
pursue.
o Media & Entertainment
What is the next "big thing" in Video Gaming? Fighting is to video games as ice cream is to apple pie. In other
words, the main genre of video games has not really changed that much in the last 10-15 years. The one difference
today is how games are played: no longer do players have to be side by side, they can be vast distances apart and still
enjoy playing together as if they were next to each other.
Our client wanted to see what other non-obvious avenues were possible that can catch the imagination of much
wider audiences for games and draw them in in ways that there were not previously thought about. They were
embracing the idea of developing an entirely new concept of video game for a recently acquired gaming division.
Although the central focus was on video gaming, Vaxa felt that a more holistic approach was needed if we are to
uncover ways in which gaming can be entertaining but also have more meaning to people's lives, not just be instant
gratification and a short-lived experiences but be more an integral part of living and life.
Our accepted proposal included a business case including current business state, project portfolio, evaluation
options, risk mitigation recommendations, timescale, business model and investment analysis.
Vaxa planned, as we often do, for weekly client presentations to inform them on the status of the project, present
weekly deliverables, obtain feedback and inform them on next week work plan.
For the primary research stage, Vaxa gathered macro and consumer profiling demographics and industry data to
define trends on broadband access, PC and video console hardware and software markets, video, board games, toy,
sport and gambling gaming markets, and current and near future enabling technologies. We then oriented our
research on the gaming experience of current, close to market and futurist gaming concepts and their underlying
technologies.
To make our insights appealing and easy to visualize for our clients we needed a new framework. After some
thought and unsuccessful attempts to put together a framework by the team, we proposed to map video gaming,
board games, toys, sport and gambling markets and enabling technologies in series of bubble charts showing the
multiplaying intensity in abscissa and financial development cost in ordinate, and market penetration, sizing and
growth potential in bubble size using systematically a color coding for sensorial user experience concentration
(sight-centric, earing-centric, touch-centric, taste-centric or smell-centric).
The same week, we presented the weekly advancement of the project and related deliverables. The market gap was
made obvious by those graphics and the client team was amazed by these data backed visuals conveying a gap they
never seen and the possibilities left by this untapped market in a very competitive industry like video gaming.

Consequently, we then developed three concepts corresponding with three gradual speeds to market and
development cost aligned with the product portfolio and technical capabilities of our client. We've brainstorm with
our team and the client to create SWOT matrixes and defined timelines, budget and return analysis for each.
After mid-project presentation of the entire business case, the client decided to dig into the middle range of the three
concepts in more details to develop a story board, underlying technical aspects and business model analysis of the
concept. Then we've defined with the R&D department the feasibility, features, resource allocation, development
schedule and budget. Vaxa designed the business model on the basis of this exchange with the R&D department and
our primary and secondary research.
The final presentation required the creation of a summarizing slide deck designed to be presented by our client team
to the next board meeting. Under the supervision of the managing director, the Vaxa team designed a deck including
all our weekly presentations including project outline, executive summary, research insights summary, and the key
slides of our intermediary presentations backed by annexes slides. In details our business case included: executive
summary,, primary and secondary consumer and market research insights, primary and secondary research on
current and incoming enabling technologies, three gaming concepts and their relative revenue models, storyboard of
the chosen option, revenue stream diversification, implied client business model extension, implementation planning
and proposed partners & alliances ecosystem.
The result was a portfolio of wholly new concepts that leveraged our client's competencies, capabilities and
product/technology/IP portfolio. This provided a roadmap to establish new R&D programs, create a new ecosystem
of alliances and look for acquisitions targets.
o Telecoms 1
On a recent project for Vaxa, one of our recurring and long term client, a top global IT manufacturing and service
company, contacted us with a simple end goal: double the revenue of their telecom industry group practice on the 3
to 5 years horizon. For this, they wanted to focus on a group of ten telecommunication providers based in the US,
Europe, Asia and Latin America. Those targets included three significant current and historic clients with whom they
wanted to grow business and seven potential global clients with whom they had only minimal or no business
relations at all. Their approach was to analyze public and private KPIs and IT spent in order to assess their strategic
objectives on the mid-term horizon.
Pre-assignment meetings with a senior consultant and a Manager of the global Telco delivery project team, a
geographic head of the Telco operating support system in the global business services division and the global head
of Telco strategy for the sales & distribution organization: during those meetings, Vaxa listened to their needs in
order to confirm and refined scope, milestones, timelines and deliverables definitions and expectations.
The team, put together and led by the managing director and an engagement Manager, created a prioritized list of
deliverables and set realistic timelines based on the user feedback, in scope and out of scope project items and
requirements. Then Vaxa's Manager and managing director to refine the proposal presentation, documentation and
contract. In this proposal, we assigned two additional consultants to the project including one external temporary
profile to bring us deep Telco and communications industry knowledge. The client accepted the proposal but limited
the job scope to only three companies over ten to begin with: one US, one Asian and one Latin American.
This project included three phases. One: collect, organize and analyze the targets' public KPIs found though industry
organizations and associations, investors relations websites, Telco consulting reports, press and academic articles or
other relevant online sources. Two: research and analyze the public IT operating and capital expenses of our targets
on a 5 year period and forecast on this base their expense in the 3 to 5 year period considering their respective
strategic moves in terms of technological choices. Three: collect, organize and analyze the targets' private KPIs and
IT spent selecting a narrow but representative industry panel, designing an interview guide, analysis the results and
exploiting them to design a survey to send to a larger sample of industry representatives.
The key in this third step was first to define a list of Telco competitors, vendors, consultants, industry associations'
representatives, journalists and academic experts to represent the communications industry since our targets were not
only selling wired and wireless telephone services, but also cable TV, internet or remote security systems and related
services. Besides, we've had to define the sample by selecting the appropriate departments and management levels in
each of the companies we intended to survey. Vaxa's Manager led the three men team to set-up this extensive list of
industry experts gathering information online, through personal contacts and alumni groups. After modifications and
approval by the managing director, the team picked a short list of contacts to interview to collect open ended

responses and prepare the survey. Under the supervision of the MD, the team designed the interview questionnaire
and response collection guide and a draft of the survey questionnaire. Manager and MD contacted the interviewer
panel to set-up phone or video conference interviews. Once the interviews were done, Vaxa adjusted the draft survey
questionnaire for launching. The Manager was then assigned to select a vendor for an online survey in the budget,
timeline and data collection format we've both defined for our team. We then launched the survey and analyzed the
results on with an analyst and a group of Indian vendors we've been used to work with, using the chosen survey
software, SPSS and Excel. The insights resulting from it were significant and very valuable.
For the final presentation, Vaxa's brainstormed in team on the flow of the slide deck including executive summary,
key slides of our previous weekly presentations, and final recommendations presented through business cases and
models for each target company. MD and Manager assigned the work load slide by slide, and after final review and
practice in video conference, they delivered the final presentation with Vaxa's Telco external consultant. Our client
was so satisfied that he extended the project twice by assigning us the seven additional target companies to analyze
under the same angle.
This project significantly increased the buy-in and respectability of Vaxa in our client's organization and generated
close to a year of above industry average fees.
o Telecoms 2
As competition increased, growth slowed in mature markets for this leading handset manufacturer. The plan was to
enter markets where they had very little or no presence. Their goal was very clear for these new markets: capture a
substantial share in each market within 3-5 years.
Discovery: the Vaxa team created a detailed picture of the new market to discovery the white space, untapped
opportunities that the company can take advantage off. This was a combination of primary and secondary research to
analyze dynamics such as buyer trends to identify implications for new product development and customization. We
conducted a wide body of interviews with operators and potential channel partners that provided a deeper
understanding into the consumers' psyche and distribution and manufacturing dynamics.
As part of our discovery, we designed and implemented a series of opportunities for our client to interact directly
with the market - consumers and potential partners alike. In this way, the client's senior executives and
implementation team were able to hear, firsthand, what the Vaxa team was learning from the research.
Business Case: Vaxa developed a preliminary 5-year business case with the investments, revenue flow, and return on
investment. We worked the client team to refine the assumptions, start facilitating introductions to local partners, and
creating and presenting the justification to corporate management and different stakeholders. This helped to create
the strategic and organizational alignment that is critical in accelerating implementation of the plan.
Impact: the team secured funding to enter the initial market with a proviso that whatever modifications to the go-to-
market tactics had to be made and implemented in the first six months so they can be adapted to the next market.
Within three months, the client signed distribution and manufacturing agreements with key partners but was able to
offer handsets as-is immediately. In just over one year into execution, the client gained an 18% market share which
was over the 50% goal they had.
o Materials
GasChemInc supplies gases and chemicals to almost all industries-its products are critical to keeping manufacturing
plants running to providing life-saving gases to hospitals. Its chemicals are use in applications ranging from specialty
surfaces to and personal care products.
GasChemInc wanted to move beyond just providing consumables and envisioned moving up the food chain to
provide higher value solutions, using its expertise in chemicals to either make existing products better and/or
eventually being a manufacturer of those products. Vaxa collaborated with GasChemInc strategy and R&D teams to
analyze its technology portfolio and identify industry applications where part of the portfolio has the potential to
make the most impact. The wound care market was select as the first market to analyze and
Vaxa analyzed the wound care market to dissect its value chain, gaps in the current solutions efficacy, and determine
the development path GasChemInc had to take to modify its plastics and adhesive technologies to increase the

performance of current products on the market. Additionally, Vaxa identified and engaged with target product
manufacturers so GasChemInc can approach with its new offerings.
SYSTEMS USED
 Programming: R, Python, SQL, VBA.
 Office: MS Office Suite Pro Plus (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, InfoPath,
SharePoint Workspace, Communicator) with Access SQL, Excel VBA/Macro, Offset, Pivot and Power Pivot Tables,
V/H Lookups, INDEX, MATCH, custom nested formulas, Analytics, Statistics and Finance ToolPak, Add-Ins and
Advanced Formulas.
 Project Management: MS Project & Visio,
 CRM: MS Dynamics, Five 9, Salesforce, JIRA, SharePoint, Connecture, Siebel CRM, Nice IEX.
 Statistics: SPSS, STATA, R and Python.
 Visualization: Excel, Tableau, Tibco Spotfire, R and Python.
 Financial Markets: Reuters D2000-2, 3000 Series & 3000 Xtra, Bloomberg Terminal Equities, Fixed Income & FX,
FactSet, S&P Capital IQ, Compustat, Decalogic M&A Analytics, Thomson One, Datastream, First Call,
Worldscope, I/B/E/S, MSCI Barra One, Dealogic, S&P Morningstar Micropal, Fininfo EuroPerformance, Thomson
Lipper IM & MPI Stylus fund analytics workstations.
 Queries and ERP: Sequel Pro, Sublime Text, Wagon, SAP R/3, Hyperion.
 Cloud, Notebooks, Libraries and Packages: AWS, Anaconda, Jupyter, Funf, Bandicoot, Pandas, Numpy, Scipy,
Scikit-Learn, Matplotlib, NetworkX.

Kevin Colas Deal & Career Portfolio 2001-2017

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