Friday, September 19, 2014

RIP Patrick.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of INSEAD graduates owe their entrepreneurial madness to this super humble, super keen, and an upright straight talker - Patrick Turner. The professor who encouraged people to dream big, to take leaps of faith and to 'never, ever run out of cash'. I owe him a lot. He helped me accept myself as being different and supported me in realizing what I am capable of. So in his memory, I tell you all about the David vs. Goliath. Some random Friday morning, 3am, a bit drunk....it was just over a month since I had been mulling about the under performance of the company where I was interning. This is a billion dollar plus, public listed company in the healthcare space. And it happened - I emailed Patrick for the first time "Patrick, I want to buy this company". The next morning, Patrick replied "Seriously? Lets talk when you are in Singapore". Without going into the details, at INSEAD I didn't bother looking for jobs. With immense help from Patrick, I secured PE backing of upto 300 mn Eur to buyout a part of the public listed company where I interned. It was the defining phase of my life where I came to terms of with a lot of things. I grew some massive cojones too - well you have no choice when you walk into the boardroom of a tier 1 PE fund, eating expensive sushi and you are supposed to convince them why a fuckin 28 year old thinks he can do better with a public listed business. The deal didn't work out. During the due diligence phase, the target withdrew their interest from selling. I was close to running out of cash, with the recruitment period over. I somehow found myself a consulting gig (note: even dumb asses like me can end up in consulting post INSEAD) and am currently COO of a business unit within the FTSE 100 company. Since graduation I attempted two other buyouts, with solid PE backing, but fortunately it was me who withdrew interest from the deal after due diligence. And I am on my way out of the corporate gig too. I will be going back to entrepreneurship very soon. Patrick - this is for you. You made a huge difference to my life. You instilled in me a weird mix of values and ambition. A sense of doing something with good intent. A sense of courage to not give up to suited jocks. You listened to every random shit I came up with. I will forever remember the beer you bought me when we were in the due diligence phase and I was running out of cash. You, sir, were truly great. Rest in peace.