The Instituto de Empresa (IE), internationally recognized Business School, and The Asocación Española de Profesionales en Holanda (Spanish business club in the Netherlands) organize few days ago a joint event: “Entrepreneurship: an evolving mindset – from employee to entrepreneur”, in the prestigious Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam. Mr. Paris L’Etraz, renowned businessman internationally and a successful entrepreneur, led the conference. This one-time event attracted over 100 attendants.
During the conference Paris L’Etraz shared with the room the beginnings of his career. How he learned to embrace uncertainty, and how each very different job taught him something about himself, and developed his many passions.
L’Etraz followed his first dream into the finance world; he became the Managing Director M&A of UBS Investments Bank and the ABN-AMRO Bank. But after almost 20 years working in finance he discovered that he was no longer enthralled by it and he took the risky decision of becoming an entrepreneur.
His life as an entrepreneur saw him build several startups, some successful others not so much. Again after several years of living in the startup world he decided to make another change and became a Professor at the IE Business School.
The conference concluded with the presentation of the research L’Etraz is undertaking at the IE and Berkley University. L’Etraz is studying the relationship between risk/uncertainty in our professional lives and our personal lives. They found that more successful entrepreneurs are very comfortable with uncertainty and risk in their work lives, but prefer a more stable and predictable personal life.
The talk was followed by complementary cocktails and nibbles. The attendants had the chance to mingle amongst each other, make new connections and discuss L’Etraz’s inspiring talk. What more could you ask for?
