Hardware. Software. A Burgundy wine estate. Thirty years of backing the founders building things that matter, told the only way a finance guy knows how.
Then act three arrived. A mentor called from Burgundy, and the next morning I was on a plane to Paris.
A friend had just bought Château de Pommard, a wine estate founded in 1726, and asked me to help carry it forward. For a finance guy, wine was a whole new world: overnight my balance sheet held barrels, corks, labels, and a great deal of Burgundy.
The job: carry a centuries-old name into the future without touching its soul.
The throughline was never the companies. It was the international dimension of business.
“You can’t understand someone’s nuance without meeting them in their language.”
Early in my career I lived and worked in France and China. It permanently shaped how I see leadership, markets, and people.
Five languages, carried on the balance sheet.
I’m a big advocate for picking up and moving.
You learn fast what you value, what you keep, and what you’re willing to rebuild from scratch.
I was recruited as CFO and finance advisor at FOUNDER.org, now The Yope Foundation, backing student-led startups across the US and Europe, where I helped build the 8D framework: the eight dimensions of building and scaling a company.
The most important thing a finance leader does isn’t the model. It’s giving founders the clarity to make brave decisions.
It’s also where I first met Andy, more than a decade ago, in the very early days of KONUX.
Work on projects that make a lasting impact. With people you love.
When Andy, Danil and Samy told me what they were building, an AI designed to serve people rather than extract from them, it wasn’t a hard decision. I joined to keep RHISE AI healthy and fundable, and to build the backbone that lets the team move fast.
The books balance. Make sure what you build adds up to the life you actually want.
