Frederic Laurent
I graduated from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris)
with a master's degree in physics, and from
Imperial College with a master's degree in
bioengineering. I joined CHP Consulting as a
Junior Consultant in October 2006.
Compared to my fellow classmates, I started
to look for a job quite late in the year - around
May 2006. I did not know precisely which
sector I wanted to work in but, after a stint in
an engineering start-up, I knew engineering
wouldn't do it for me.After a year in London,
one of the financial capitals of the world,
I was intrigued by the attraction of the City
and felt I needed to find a job related to
finance. I also wanted to create and
implement concrete solutions that would help
businesses. For all these reasons, consulting
in finance seemed to fit the bill. I applied to
a few companies with the right profile and
CHP Consulting stood out from the rest
during the recruitment process, both for their
professionalism and for the respect they
showed towards candidates. I didn't get the
impression that I was just a number,
something which can be a very real feeling at
some of the bigger consulting companies.
Also, CHP replied swiftly after each step of
the process.
My job at CHP started with a month-long
induction; which provided me with the right
knowledge and tools to carry out my day-today
job in IT, finance and consulting. After
this, I was assigned to a business-critical
project for one of the biggest English banking
institutes. This included the migration of one
of their finance portfolios from their old
system onto our solution, ALFA. The project
involved understanding the specifics of the
portfolio, adapting our in-house migration
tools to their system, and checking that the
numbers before and after added up correctly.
Interaction with the client was constant, as their
knowledge of the business was invaluable.
After the successful completion of the
migration, I was reassigned to the company's
marketing team. It is a very different role to
my previous one; I am mainly in charge of the
technical set-up for demonstrations. This
involves setting up realistic data for demos
and developing enhancements to our
products to match the clients' needs. Our
product range is very large, so I often have to
ask for help from the people who developed
them originally. The supportive nature of my
colleagues and the quality of the knowledgesharing
system in place at CHP helps me a lot
in this regard. As I take part in presentations
to prospective clients, I learn about how we
sell our products but also about the market
and its needs and expectations. I also work in
collaboration with our R&D department to
add functionality to our systems in a
proactive manner.
CHP's commitment to training can't be
overstated. After the initial month, further
training is given regularly, either to deepen
existing knowledge or to learn new fields in
order to take on new responsibilities. Both
internal and external courses are delivered.
On-demand training requests are also
welcome. For instance, I am currently
following a Japanese language course funded
by CHP Consulting. Also, the working hours
are reasonable and the company culture is
excellent.We went to Dubai for the company
conference last year. It is always nice to mix
work and recreation.
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