From France to Singapore: One Man’s Story from Surfing Internet 1.0 in 2000 to Becoming Head of Digital Customer Experience in 2013 and Still More to Come… appeared first on . Read more at
“We think of success as only measured by your money. / But, money never lasts. / In fact, it’s only last / on the list of impactful things you can ask for / …So, with that – we need us a plan…” – Wale, The Perfect Plan
Welcome to The Many Faces of Success Interview Series: a reoccurring interview series focusing on success in many forms. From entrepreneurs to writers, to travellers who are just living the life they want to live…in this interview series I sit down with people who are living and defining their own success on their own terms, people who I find inspiring, and whose stories I find interesting enough to share here.
In today’s post I sit down with Pascal Ly: Head of Web Marketing for Salesforce.com Asia Pacific at the time I have done this interview with him, before he moved into his new role recently as Head of Digital Customer Experience for Schneider Electric. Pascal was promoted to this post at a fairly young age, after stints in consulting, IT, web development, business development, and an early start in entrepreneurship. He is originally from Lille, France, which is where he started his early career in 2000 before moving to Paris in 2006 to continue exploring new horizon before ending up in Singapore in 2010.
I originally met up with Pascal when I was living in Singapore last year and he invited me out to Salesforce’s offices for a chat and share his story with me. I enjoyed it and found it quite inspiring. So much so, that I caught up with him during a recent short trip to Singapore to hear him tell it again in order to write this blogpost. We caught up at a Starbucks on a Saturday, had a couple of coffees, and the following conversation took place:
Pascal Ly
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Beginnings: An Entrepreneur by Age 19.
William: Let’s start with your story. I remember you telling me last time, when you were young you started a company?
Pascal: Yes, that’s correct.
The company I created with 2 other partners, it was in the year 2000, just before my 20 years old. It was a company that was offering professional stock charts tool to the general public. All was needed to use our service is a computer, a browser and an internet connection. The users would sign up to be able to create their online portfolios, and would also connect several times per day which was increasing the numbers of page viewed. That was basically our business model – create value to the business with customer data and also generate revenue with ads. I can tell you that business model was almost the single one at that time and the only one valued as every business income was generated by the ads at that time. It was the “everything is for free on Internet” era.
How did the development go?
Well, once that our platform was ready we went down showcasing our services in an exhibition that was focused on Online Trading for the general public interested in personal trading. To be honest, the exhibition was 3 days long and the very first impression I had was a mix of happiness and stress. Our booth was only 10 meter square in a corner of the exhibition campground and we were surrounded by those enormous booth held by those Online brokers which were subsidiaries of big banks. They had tons of resources: manpower, demo, goodies and… names. We were no one at the exhibition, and lucky for us those guys were not our competitors. I quickly realized that we could offer our services to them, having our solutions integrated into their platform and be useful to their customers.
At the end of those 3 days exhibition, we had attracted a lot of interest both from the public and the Online trader companies. I believe it is thanks to that exhibition that we had business angels getting interested in buying our company. So, the company got sold to those business angels, even though I didn’t want it as I wanted to continue making it grow, but my 2 other partners were keen to proceed, so it was sold. They didn’t want to keep the management at that time. They were saying “youngsters, let us do the business and we’ll figure out how to do it even better”. Now looking back into how things went, well it was a good decision because at the end of the day what happened is that the bubble came very quickly and then…
So y’all were able to sell the company right before the bubble?
Yeah, that’s right. And then the bubble came and it all crashed. Like wow, we didn’t see it coming. Also I was still green and had hard time to understand what really happened.
I just felt that we were doing things without really knowing what can happen after.
So sometimes it’s just luck?
Sometimes it’s just luck. I really believe that sometimes it’s just luck. That also means that you do need to provoke luck. Do nothing and nothing will happen, try something and see what results come out of it. Even though I do believe that a 360 degree view in 3D is needed to really understand where your business is standing and what could be the opportunities and threat to your business. Most of the time we only look into one single direction, and that is when you are putting a company in a dangerous situation. So that was a good story to learn from that experience.
So you quit your studies to start the company?
I just quit, because I just felt that – I didn’t know what studies were going to bring me. I mean, what would be the outcome of my studies? So, just continuing my studies… I mean, you can take studies at any time more or less whenever you want. But if you have an idea and you’re passionate about something you should go ahead…
Act on it while you have the passion?
Act on it while you have the passion, and also because the window frame… You see, if I thought about my business a year after, it would’ve been too late. Because then the internet bubble would’ve came in already. So when you have an opportunity, you have to grab it. And if you fail, it’s okay to fail, because when you’re a pioneer you have to be able to accept that failure is part of the path to success.
This company was created and located in France, right?
Yeah, that was in France. In 2000. Just started at the beginning of 2000, and the end was in 2000 as well.
The Early Internet, Dial-Up Modems, and Big Car Phones
Ok. So what’d you do after you sold the company?
So, after that I moved… However I wanted to stay on the internet industry in a way or another. It was something very new and I could sense the opportunity. My first time I was on the internet I was 16 years old in1996. So I was already on the internet for 4 years before I was starting my company.
What do mean by “the first time you were on the internet”?
Meaning started to surf on the internet, to chat, and to send email. You know at that time we were using the 56K modems, so you know… tick, tick, tick… beeeepp… and then you’re getting connected. I was using internet with 2 other classmate, and actually it’s one of them who had initiated me into internet. No one I knew in my network was using it or even knowing what was internet. At that time, I was already wondering of how we could be able to transfer files without waiting weeks. I was a huge PC gamer at that time and our internet connection was billed per hour (sic) with no online gaming such as MMORPG.
Guess what, I’m still using nowadays my Hotmail email address that I created in 1999.
And you still use the same address?
Still using it. It’s my primary email address and not something I will change. Nowadays thanks to mailinator we can sign up for almost anything avoiding spam. I didn’t had that at that time and so I’m regularly using mailinator nowadays when I sign up for non-important stuff.
Actually, I like to detect early trends. Because, I remember at that time the internet was something, but mobile was also something coming up. My first mobile phone I had it in 1997.
Was it one of those big car phones? Or what was it?
It wasn’t that big. Even though it was like the size of a soft drink can, without the antenna and the keyboard clap deployed and with double the weight. So all deployed it was the size of 2 soft drink can. I discovered that mobile phone gives you freedom with totally new experience. Imagine yourself as a very young adult, if not a teenager still, being able to call your girlfriend in a quiet room without anyone hearing your conversation. So I bought one for my girlfriend and it the experience was amazing. I also remember starting using SMS at that time. It was totally free at that time as it was more used for technical usage, soon to be the cash cow for the telcos when they realized that there was an opportunity for them to create an offer. Remember what I said earlier about opportunities and 360 view in 3D? That’s a great example.
Progression into a Digital Agency
So, what’d you get into? You wanted to stay in internet?
Yeah. So, I stayed in the internet industry. I moved on into a leading digital agency, so creating and bluiding of intranet, internet, and back-end admin systems was of my daily activities. So, for business. The agency had 150 employees with big names as our customers, and I was lucky to actively participate on the account of Nintendo. Sometime people ask me how come I got embarked into it. I believe it’s a combination of luck and work attitude. Remember, provoke luck.
So I went on working with my bosses’ boss and meet with the Marketing Director and his team. The experience was really great, nothing is more worth than the experience compared to the theory – maybe that’s why I was wondering what I was doing at school instead of experiencing real life. Attending meetings, listening to conversations happening was fantastic, especially when the customer is asking me directly questions and encouraging to really voice out what I was thinking. You have to put back in context where internet was still relatively new to everyone, and they needed idea to be ahead in this new media. I learned at that time that any ideas can be good and can be coming from anyone in a room regardless of their position or experience. Review what you know in an unknown context to understand the new rules. This could be applicable for social media nowadays.
This fantastic journey in that agency lasted for about 2 years before it completely shut down. The company grew so fast that it had hired in consequence, and have not seen an important factor in the equation – when a website is done, it takes 3 to 5 years before revamping it. So when you have almost all the big companies having a website already then what do you do meanwhile? When realizing the situation, it was too late. The company had no choice but to completely close down. Even nowadays, I’m really grateful to have been part of this company and have worked with people who have mentored me, as I also have learned on both the operational side and the strategic side.
So, after that company shut down, then what’d you do?
So after that company shut down, I was still convinced that I wanted to stay in the internet industry. And also enhance my project management skills as I have started to acquire some project management skills. There was this communication agency that was a traditional agency, 20 years in the business already and they wanted to do a shift into digital. So I come on board and I tell them that I wanted to help them develop their online business. At that time I was 23. And they said, yeah alright, why not? But let’s do a trial run first.
So they gave me a 6 month trial for me to really help with one of the big customers that they had to see if I was able to manage it and ready to start collaborating with a bigger multinational. Then at the end of 6 months, they saw that I could do it and they saw that I was ambitioned and I was passionate and that I knew which direction I wanted to take.
They gave me all the keys so I could create that business unit. So basically I created that online business unit. I come up with the new name, the new logo, build up the team from the ground. My role there was in general management because I was taking care of the business unit. So meaning like what would be the direction they want to take, the kind of customers that we want to get, kind of people we want to recruit. Also doing the sales pitches. So basically I was doing a lot of RFP, competing with big players. Most of the time it didn’t go through, but it happened like a few times that it went through, so we were competing against very big players and we were shortly stood, coming in second or sometimes winning it. But, when I look back into it, when I ask people why they’d chose us, our brand was quite small, we didn’t have a big team, it was just me driving it mostly, and basically they said it was the fact that we were listening. Listening to their needs, trying to really solve their problems. I have the example of this company that was very unhappy about their website made years before I joined and were also losing trust in our capabilities. I was able to turn around the situation by getting their trust again, it took time, a lot of dialogue basically. We finally ended up working together very closely and we won a trophy of the most well-designed website in the tourist category. That was a huge achievement for me at that time. I also have this example of account we were trying to get into. Well it took me a year before they would open there door. You need to be perseverant without being pushy and also giving a value to your customer. If you can give value, then you will have their attention.
I stayed in the company for 4 years. Growing up from just myself and another guy to nine people when I left.
So this is still in France?
Yeah, still in France. So, then at that time I started thinking that 4 years is quite long, I started to be feeling like turning around in my role and I was still hungry, still very ambitious, and I just thought that it’s a good time for me to move on. It’s at that period that I went back to school attending 1 year study at EDHEC Business School for the Advance Management Program. After graduating I realize that I was time to move on as I wanted to explore consulting and experience multinational company.
Stints in Consulting and Working with Smart People
I went to a big company this time: Capgemini. I joined them because their business was attracting me and I was hoping to do some consulting work.
Kind like strategy consulting, but still in the IT or, something else?
It was my first big multinational company and I was very happy with it, as I was discovering all the possibilities proposed. Even though later I realized that you can’t just do everything and need to specialize. My focus was definitely into consulting, getting in touch with decision makers on another level than my previous experiences.
It was the biggest company you worked for so far?
Definitely, I also made my move to Paris to join Capgemini. Being working at La Defense which is the French business district with view on the Eiffel Tower was a blast. I have quickly been appointed as IT consultant assigned to a public function account – basically working for a government body that I will call the Agency. I was in charge of ensuring that all the architectures on the different projects that the Agency’s project managers wanted to implement was respecting the different principles of SOA architecture that we wanted them to apply.
I learned a lot. My colleagues were fantastic as at that time I was green in the field. When I say green it means really I’d had less than 1% of the knowledge of what I my role was supposed to be covering. All I had was trust from my management and my team members.
I was with two senior people. They were very senior: like more than ten year experiences in that field. And, I was clean, slick: 0.01% of the knowledge that they had. So, I was very stressed because, I was thinking that they might be thinking “what the hell are you doing here?”. Luckily I didn’t get any of that such, meaning that the guys all welcomed me. What I realized was amazing to me, and I call it the mirror effect, meaning the guys they were asking me questions, I would answer and also ask questions, and it helped them trigger ideas. Then, they’d say “thanks, you just helped me solved the issue.” I would just say ”What? Did I do that? Okay.”
This is really powerful. That’s also what I was saying earlier: ideas can come from anybody, because you can help others to generate other ideas, to find solutions when they are just talking with someone else.
One of the things that was fantastic from my colleagues is that they never at any moment questioned why I was in the team. I was part of the team. They were trusting me. There were things that I didn’t know how to do, but I was just pulling up my sleeves, getting into reading books, doing research, getting things done by understanding what those things are about.
So, at the end of the my assignment, which was the one year assignment, I was able to understand and explain to others what was an SOA architecture, how to implement it correctly, and what were the things that we should be doing. I continue on that assignment for an additional year.
So, the thing that made me moved from Capgemini is because it was too technical and still a bit far from the business. I wanted to be much closer to the business. So, I moved into this company, weave, that is a consulting in management and organization.
Okay, so you stayed in consulting?
Yeah, I stayed as a consultant.
I joined weave, and was impressed by the number of very smart people I was working with. When you work with smart people you tend to become smarter yourself. It’s true.
So, basically I joined and then I was assigned to a lot of different kinds of assignments. Finally doing the kind of consulting I wanted. The kind of consulting that is looking into a problem in 360 degree view with 3D level.
So, this is strategy consulting?
The partners were coming from other big consulting companies with their tools and methodology. The mojo was constructive impertinence. Which I still adhere to nowadays.
I was more looking into the Information System at first, however I was always back to the business: “what is the business objective? what are the IT systems that will enable it?”. When I was consulting in my previous job, it was more like: “what are the systems that we are going to implement? And then how are the users are going to change their behaviour to adapt to them?”
The entire paradigm is changed and do make sense to me.
Okay and now it’s flipped, right?
It’s flipped. So it’s: “what’s the business requirement? what’s going on? what’s the problem? how can we help to get things working better for the business by implementing solutions that will be adapted to the business’ needs?”
Totally different and it just opens up. You can look into a problem from different angles. Depending on the angle that you take, you will have different effect.
I stayed there for 2 years. I enjoyed it a lot.
The mind set of the firm was very good. They wanted to grow, but not become humongous. You know, you want become taller and stronger, but not fat.
Next Stop: Singapore
Ah okay..
So, I moved out because I just wanted to come to Singapore. I did a transit in Singapore and I found that Singapore was a place that I wanted to be.
A great place for business, or for technology, or for..?
To live. It just felt like home.
I didn’t know Singapore. It was just a Southeast Asian Country I’ve heard about.
But, I was very surprised by the country: the dynamism, the infrastructure, and I was just wandering around the city and it just felt like home.
I just felt that I had to come. On the way back to France, on the plane, my decision was made.
You just decided that you needed to come back to Singapore?
Yeah, so I went to my to see my boss in the consulting firm and I told him I’m resigning, I’m leaving.
So, you resigned just to go to Singapore?
Yes, I resigned, moved out my stuff and then I came to Singapore.
I wanted to continue doing consulting but my English was an issue, at least in the consulting world where each word has got its weight and importance.
Okay. So, the jargon and slang..
Yeah, so I was thinking that between being half good or not at all I have preferred not pushing for a certain failure. For anything I would engage myself into, I would have a high level of confidence and knowing that I would achieve pretty well, or at least thinking about it that way.
So, I wasn’t able to pursue anything in that field in Singapore and also wanted to find a way to get into the big ones: the BCGs, the McKinseys. So, I was thinking of going for a MBA. Taking a step back then, I thought about it and though that’s not necessarily what I want.
Again, it’s a question of what’s your objective at the end of the day. You might have zero plans or a very well-crafted one. In many cases plans might fail. One thing that will stay there is your objective. So you have to stick to it and just stay focused on the objective. The plans will come along the way to make you achieve that objective.
How long were you in Singapore looking before you found a job?
3 months. I took on a job that was senior project manager role. The role was like what I was doing back in France, when I was taking care of the business unit and I also did that at Capgemini, I was certified: project manager certified.
I felt like I didn’t really want to take the job, as I was feeling like a step back. Well guess what, at the end of the day I realized that I was learning quite a lot with the customer that I was working with. I realized that the corporate world may be small and big at the same time. I mean that I was realizing that in any situation you have new experiences regardless of your level. It is about what you want to do about your job that will make it an awesome experience or a mediocre one. I managed to turn this experience into a really great thing because I felt I could: new environment, different culture, different project and different industry which was FMCG and Electric industry. Anything can basically be new in all experiences one can face.
So how long did you stay?
I just stayed 9 months as then the project was ending and was facing a dead end, so in this situation I only could quit and start looking around.
So with that customer what markably are they at? Was it the Asian market?
Yeah, it was Asia.
It was Asia so it was very interesting because before when I was back in France it was just France. So, coming here it’s an eye opener. Wider opportunities. Entire APAC region was quite interesting, I was working with different people access the world, from Europe to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, also Australia. So it was really interesting.
And, Into salesforce.com
So I moved into salesforce.com taking care of a regional role for the APAC region actually. The first role I had at salesforce.com was quite interesting for the anecdote because before coming from France I was applying for that role already without success. Once inside salesforce.com, I’ve been told that my English was horrible on the phone (sic) that’s why I didn’t get the job despite the right experience. Anyway I then made it after my 9 month experience here in Singapore, and was thinking that it’s again an attitude you need to have and also needing provoking luck. I come back visiting salesforce.com website applying for the role, didn’t had answer, so I went through a headhunter. After 5 rounds of interview I got the job that was vacant for a year!
So you moved from FMCG into saleforce.com?
Yes, correct.
So, basically in 10 years of experience it was the first time that I was moving into the customer side. Meaning that I’m sitting in salesforce.com, solely working on salesforce.com benefits. While before, I was always concurrently working with a lot of different companies, servicing them.
I do have a very strong service sense. I know what it is to serve your employees, your peers, your customers, your stakeholders. Service is very strong in my DNA actually.
And when I finished the previous job with the FMCG, I didn’t have any fear. I was quite comfortable. I was feeling good. And, I think that it comes back to attitude. When you’re in a positive attitude spiral, you get positive things coming in. So, I just realized that the role was there for a year, and it was just waiting for me to come in.
So, I joined salesforce.com, and I’ve stayed there for 2.5 years. My first role was Web Production Manager for a year, then I get promoted to be the Head of Web Marketing just a year after. I have held this last position for 1.5 years.
Lucks also means being at the right place at the right moment. If you feel like there’s something to do, you should be really trying to push and to do it. You never know if it will be success or failure at the end. One thing for sure, you won’t have regrets of having tried.
So, in the past, you did a lot of servicing clients, servicing customers and I guess a bit of business development too. Now in salesforce.com, do you think that plays into the business model or customer relationship management?
It’s like what the CEO of salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, is saying, “every role in salesforce.com is customer-facing”. I can only be agreeing to this true statement, true for the admin, true for sales, true for marketing, true for finance, true for HR, true across the entire organization. Myself and my team are customer-facing through the interface we’re providing through our website. People come, get in touch with us through the website. And this is how we are working, developing, and proposing our website. This is how we are welcoming our customers by showing them respect.
People get in touch with you through the website? So, it’s mostly inbound marketing? or…?
It’s both.
Mainly for us, we are applying an inbound strategy to try to attract people to come to our websites. It’s also asking them to leave us contact details if they are interested so then we can get back to them and that’s how we are generating leads in our business.
Alright… Time up?
Yeah, time up. I really need to run.
Change is always happening
======= UPDATE: from Pascal ======
Since our last interview, I have moved into an amazing opportunity with Schneider Electric. I’m basically making the company get into this transformation journey, shifting the entire company into the digital era. My role is crucial here as I need to ensure all parts are moving along together. This is great to see all the accumulated experience getting a practical case. No more direct reports, but huge amount of people to work with in virtual teams.
It’s been over a month since I’m in this new business. Totally new, with people having huge amount of experience in the business. I’m impressed by the number of years people have been with this company and expect to learn a lot from them.
For sure this new role is a step further towards my objective. The plan changes along the way as opportunity appears, but one thing remains stable – the objective.
Probably will be able to share more in near future, I would be glad to look back into this blog post in few month or years and see how things are evolving.
From France to Singapore: One Man’s Story from Surfing Internet 1.0 in 2000 to Becoming Head of Digital Customer Experience in 2013 and Still More to Come… appeared first on . Read more at
