Sylvain Andries (class of 2001), from Grande-Ecole to Vice-President at Criteo

Sylvain Andries graduated from the ESSEC Grande-Ecole programme in 1998. A 14-year professional career has seen him spend significant periods at Procter & Gamble and the Boston Consulting Group. Earlier in 2015, he was appointed Vice-President of Regional Finance and FP&A at NASDAQ-listed technology firm, Criteo. Criteo Intern, Adil Dewan, sat down with him to find out how he charted his accelerated rise.

You entered ESSEC after 2 years of preparatory class at Lycee St Genevieve. How do you reflect on that period?

I loved it. It was tough, really tough. But for me, it was highly structuring in terms of methodology, and how to approach work. The second positive dimension was the people that I met, who became friends for life.

What aspects of your time at ESSEC helped you grow in your career?

The first great thing is the concept of having a catalogue to choose your classes, the fact that you can build your own profile that is totally different to that of the guy next to you. From a pedagogical point of view, I really enjoyed having a catalogue, and not having pre-defined classes imposed on me.

The second thing is the system of betting points to get classes; something that teaches you to be responsible for your own future. It is very similar to what happens in life where you have allocation strategies, make priority calls and have constraints.

I always love going back to the ESSEC campus as I keep great memories of my time there.

You spent the first part of your career at Procter and Gamble. How did you first become involved with the company?

It’s an interesting story actually. I was in the GH (Grand Hall) at ESSEC between two classes, and I saw a huge panel from P&G saying they would select 50 top students from business schools in Europe to come to the European Financial Seminar in Madrid. So I applied, but so did almost 400 students, and there were only 4 seats for France! I got selected for a full day at P&G’s offices in Neuilly with lots of tests, interviews and, finally some cocktails. I clearly remember falling in love with the company that day.

I was hired by P&G, but at the time [2001] I was told that they didn’t have jobs in Paris or Geneva, instead that there was a job in a factory in Amiens in the north of France. People were turning these kinds of jobs down, but I decided to go for it - and it was one of the best opportunities in my life. It was so interesting to be in a factory, understanding the complexity of the industrial process, working with people on the factory floor to optimise costs and maximize the throughput of the supply chain. I ended up spending 2 years there. In Amiens, I met some of the smartest people I ever had the opportunity to work with.

You grew through the ranks at P&G to become Finance Group Manager, in charge of the largest business unit in France. Why, at this point, did you decide to join the Boston Consulting Group?

After I had done 7 years at P&G, I had the feeling that I had seen many things in my career, but always within P&G. The company was so large, and everything was very much internally focused, that I thought if I had decided to stay longer there was no way that I could do something else afterwards.

So I decided to take a risky choice and resign from P&G to join the Boston Consulting Group as a consultant. I wasn’t sure whether it was to be a career consultant, or to learn some methodologies before moving on. It was a great experience, but I realised after a while that when you grow in a consulting firm, your main responsibility is to sell projects, so you move away from being deep into driving the business. So after 2 and a half years, I made the decision to go back to finance.

You joined Criteo in October 2013, at a time when the company had just filed for an IPO. Why did you decide to join the company?

I had spent almost 3 years as CFO at Caudalie, a privately held fast growing cosmetics company with international footprint, when the Criteo opportunity came along. It was the kind of opportunity I couldn’t refuse.

My first Criteo role (Director of Financial Planning and Analysis) was all about doing a combination of my past 3 experiences, applying best practices of a blue chip into a future-NASDAQ listed company, it was about applying all the strategic analysis and business skills I had developed at BCG, and engineering in an unestablished environment, creating and administrating something that would exist.

Joining Criteo was a no-brainer.

In your opinion, what is the major factor behind Criteo’s success?

It’s down to the quality of people. There’s a quote from a former CEO of P&G that, if I am not mistaken, said: “even if we lose all our brands, factories, offices, we would rebuild the company from scratch if we still have our people.” The quality of people at Criteo and the commitment and passion that they have for the company is a great success factor. It explains why we have such brilliant technology, great execution from a sales and operations point of view, why we do miracles every day in finance, legal, facilities, HR and IT functions to scale the capabilities of those support functions very fast.

What is your advice to current ESSEC students who wish to make the most of their studies and progress as quickly as you have in your career?

The biggest asset in life is diversity of experience. It is through this that you become a fully-fledged manager. When it becomes tough, if you can leverage on a diverse set of experiences, you will be inspired to solve the problems which you encounter. I advise students through the classes they pick to see as many subjects as possible; choose different internships; locations of internships; try and do things that people have never done. Put yourself out of your comfort zone. Dare taking risks. Do not be afraid of making mistakes. But never make the same mistake twice. This is winning behaviour!

I am always very happy giving career advice to the next generation of talents. Do not hesitate to contact me on LinkedIn.