Eric Le Reste

Integrated solution provider of digital signage systems to advertising right owners.

Responsibilities:
Responsible for the identification and negotiation of partnerships with network owners and Value Added Resellers to enable Digital View to expand commercially in Europe. Unfortunately, I was made redundant following the arrival of a new CEO and a change in strategy, which did not include European expansion.

Leading international communications company, providing enterprise and carrier solutions to the largest users of telecoms services across the UK, US, continental Europe and Asia. Staff: 6,500.

Responsibilities:
Working with the UK Executive Team in developing and implementing the strategy of C&W during its turnaround following its merger with Energis in November 2005.

Achievements:
• Carried analysis on deal history & operators’ costs to determine C&W competitive strategy focus.
• Managed cross-functional teams & coordinated inputs for the development of a 5-year plan.
• Lead the development of market forecast model covering all of C&W’s lines of business.
• Created market presentations (internal & external use to C&W) on mobile, broadband, VoIP, etc.
• Analysed wholesale revenues & margins to evaluate the contribution of the international business.

Start-up telecoms operator with a 10,000-kilometer fibre network in Europe, offering bandwidth and co-location services to operators and ISPs. iaxis was sold to Dynegy in 2001 and to a private investor in 2003. Staff: 167.

Responsibilities:
Lead French and Spanish operations, including supplier sourcing & management (25 providers), contract negotiations, partnership management and relations with regulators. Also responsible for commercial development & corporate strategy project work, including modelling, proposals, presentations and due diligence work.

Achievements:
• Led negotiations & managed relationships in main partnership with Tiscali, opening access to Southern Europe (contract value of € 8.5M).
• Decreased network costs by 66% (€ 5M to € 1.7M p.a.) through supplier contract renegotiations.
• Established a Sales office in Spain, recruited sales staff and managed closure of French office (legal, tax, HR, etc.) as part of restructuring of operations.
• Conducted marketing & sales strategy analysis of an operator seen as potential acquisition.
• Sourced, managed relationships & negotiated contracts with suppliers for a total value of € 70M.
• Set up business models to estimate potential revenue streams from video-on-demand and other services, and project-managed a partnership with a US media streaming firm.

Clothing retail chain

Responsibilities:
Assessment of opportunity to set up a loyalty scheme for GAP stores in the UK.

Achievements:
• Benchmarked trade practices in loyalty schemes and determined best practices in the use of customer information & data mining in relationship marketing.
• Identified customer behaviours and requirements by segment (qualitative survey of 100 customers) and profiled loyalty scheme types and features against GAP’s customer and internal characteristics.
• Recommended not to launch a loyalty scheme, which was followed by GAP.

Pharmaceutical & agricultural products multinational

Responsibilities:
European distribution strategy project.

Achievements:
• Analysed key drivers of change in the agriculture market and created new customer segmentation.
• Recommended positioning and customer services to distributors of chemical products.

In France, all companies are members of their Chamber of Commerce & Industry. CCIs have a role similar to that of Development Agencies in the UK as they assist businesses in their development. Members: 9,000. Staff: 350.

Responsibilities:
Consulted for companies wishing to develop their exports. Responsibilities encompassed all phases of international sales development from market research to prospecting abroad on behalf of clients to find potential commercial partners.

Achievements:
• Advised over 300 firms with entering overseas markets.
• Examples of results included enabling a high-end hifi loudspeaker manufacturer to find distributors in South Africa; a producer of irrigation systems for stadium ground to find importers in Chile and Argentina; or a food processing equipment manufacturer to be represented in Hungary.
• Organised & led exporter delegations to S. Africa, South America, S.E. Asia & Central Europe (150 firms).
• Built and managed a partnership with a major regional player, which enabled fully funded trade missions to Hungary, Singapore and South Africa.

ENGLISH (Bilingual)
FRENCH (Bilingual)
SPANISH (Bilingual)
ITALIAN (Basic)