Rolling Up Professional Networks: Dan Serfaty, CEO of Viadeo (Part 1)

Dan Serfaty is the founder and CEO of Viadeo, a company he launched with Thierry Lunati in September 2004. Today it is one of the leading worldwide professional social networks. Viadeo was initially conceived as a club to build bridges between private equity groups and entrepreneurs. Prior to launching Viadeo, he founded a tourism company, DIMO, and an import-export company, GEN. He is a graduate of Ecole des hautes études commerciales (HEC).

Sramana: Dan, let’s start by reviewing your background and the path that led you to become an entrepreneur.

Dan Serfaty: I am French, but my family tree has a lot of branches. I was born in eastern France. My parents come from Morocco. They are Jewish and left to come to France. I married an Italian girl! I now live in Paris and have lived there for the past 20 years.

I received my MBA from HEC, Ecole des hautes études commerciales. It is now rated as the number 1 MBA in Europe. In France, when they leave high school, the best students have two to three years of prep school which correspond to three years of undergraduate studies. At the end of those three years they try to get into a top business or engineering school. HEC accepts 300 students a year out of 12,000 applicants. Essentially, the top 300 students can go to HEC, the next 300 to another school, and so on. Once you get into HEC, the first year is considered you final year of undergraduate studies. Your next two years are considered your MBA years.

Sramana: Why does France train businesspeople and then not do business?

Dan Serfaty: Why do you say that? We have some nice companies. I have to remind my wife of this all the time. She went to an Italian business school. You are right when it comes to entrepreneurship, but I think that is changing.

Sramana: How many technology entrepreneurs are operating in France today?

Dan Serfaty: I don’t have a figure; however, if you look at the top schools, you can see change. I graduated in 1987 and the best students would go into finance and marketing. Today the best HEC graduates go into entrepreneurship. I remember back then that people could not understand why I wanted to be an entrepreneur. People felt I was not capitalizing on my diploma.

That mentality has changed drastically. If you look at the venture capital business in France, you will see that it is now the fifth or sixth largest in the world. That is not bad for a country of 60 million inhabitants. There are some technical centers of excellence, but there are just not as many in France and Europe as some of us hope there would be. We don’t have as many worldwide successes in this field. It has been a long time since we have created several successful international corporations, big companies, with global recognition.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Rolling Up Professional Networks: Dan Serfaty, CEO of Viadeo
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