Managing Director
Excalibur Group
Total years of experience :27 years, 3 Months
Following the rejoining with my family in Latvia, together with another Partner I founded Excalibur Group, by combining my experience in Business consulting with his own one in Private Fund Raising from HNWI. The mission of the company has been addressed along two business lines: the Consulting support to companies with unexpressed potential for their re-launch and the Start-up of NewCos with high growth potential by nurturing them with expert managers and fresh capitals till the exit (within 2 years). In this company I have assumed four specific responsibilities:
• Corporate Governance of the company
• Management of scouting and selection process of high potential projects
• General Management of the individual Companies launched *
• Management of the projects designed to re-launch existing companies **
Below is reported the full list of projects launched:
• 2009 - Turism: "Solaris Vacations" * - Latvia
• 2010 - Education: "Punktins private school" * - Latvia
• 2011 - Information Technology: "Ardency" * - Italy
• 2012 - Trading: "Crystal International Trading Group" * - Italy
• 2013 - Sport Management: "Sport 4 All" * - Latvia
• 2014 - Sport Development: "Milan Academy" * - Lithuany
• 2016 - Retail Food: chain "Rosso Pizza" * - Latvia
Together with three other professionals, I successfully launched this company, assuming responsibility for General Management of the company and the Business Consulting division. Here are the details of the activities managed by coordinating several teams of 2-4 consultants per project:
• Budgeting and Reporting
• Profit & Loss analysis
• Presentation and negotiation of projects at Top Management level (Board, CXOs, VPs)
• Project management:
− Development of Business plans (new market penetration)
− Development of Marketing plans (new products/services launch)
− Market scenario analysis
− Development of SOPs and KPIs specific by sector
During this experience I was able to strengthen both my historical business skills and the knowledge of several vertical sectors such as Food-Entertainment, Information Technology, Manufacturing, Retail and Fashion, acquiring new customers such as: AC Milan, Alten Group, British Institutes, Decathlon, Decisyon, Eurocontrolli, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Gucci Group, Identicert, Nestlé, Calabria Region, Rose Island and others. In addition I have also developed operative partnerships with: Gramma, Real Time, Red Apple, Matmos, SDA-Bocconi Business School and others.
Reporting directly to the Chairman-Chief Executive Officer, I have been given the responsibility to manage various special projects by leading dedicated teams of cross-divisional collaborators, such as:
• Development of medium-term corporate strategy (3 years)
• Quantitative and qualitative analysis preliminary to M&A of other companies within the Group
• Development of new lines of offer
• Aggregation and renegotiation at Holding level of the main supplies for the whole Group
My role was focused on supporting the Chairman-Chief Executive Officer along the process of consolidation and expansion activities also taking part in the meetings of the Board of Directors.
Directly reporting to the Country Manager, I contributed to the start-up of the Italian branch and its consolidation, establishing numerous consecutive sales records within the whole commercial staff in the world. Starting from a "green field" condition and collaborating with the technical staff, I acquired several new customers including: Conad, Danone, Esselunga, Esprinet, Fineco, Gucci Group, Lombardini Group, PAM, Janssen-Cilag, Mediaset, Mondadori, Roche, Whirlpool and others.
In order to carry out projects at corporate level, I have also developed a set of operative partnerships with "best-in-class" System Integrators such as: Accenture, Cineca, CSC, HP, IBM, NCR, Sun Microsystems, Unyversys and others.
As Area Manager I was entrusted with the management of three provinces (Brescia, Cremona and Verona), where, working with the technical staff, I acquired new customers such as Trevisan Impianti and OTO Melara, setting a new world record of sales among new hire employees (6 months).
My first job was immediately oriented to the commercial area: Key Account Manager of the pigments division in Italy, where I distinguished myself for the achievement of new sales & profit records thanks to a mix of "recovery" of inactive customers and contracts with new prospects.
During this experience I also fully managed the ISO 9002 certification process of the pigment division, collaborating extensively with the Total Quality Team based in Basel.
During this 16 months long program I went through 29 exams and developed several projects within Strategy, Marketing, Finance, Organisation and New products development subjects, focused in the fashion sector for the usage of Gucci Group (which awarded me with a full scholarship) • Final mark: 110/110 “summa cum laude” • 1st in the final ranking out of 39 participants I spent the last 3 months by Gucci Group HQ in Florence, where I developed my thesis entitled “Strategic analysis of CRM solutions for the brands Gucci, YSL, Sergio Rossi, Bottega Veneta and Boucheron”, where I also developed a logical evolution of Porter’s ‘5 forces’ strategic analysis theory, by involving a new 6th force. The result was so impressive that I was awarded by Mr. Passera (former CEO of Banca Intesa & Ministry of Finance) with the prestigious prize “F. Turco” for the best project.
During this 5 years long university program I develop deep project management competencies combined with complex analytical skills, focusing on Industrial and Environmental chemistry. I spent an additional year to develop a highly innovative thesis subsidised by Enichem entitled “Definition of the ‘no-flow temperature’ of techno-polymers and development of the analytical model to define it”, scoring a final mark worth 98/100.