Who are the faces of October?
Let’s continue our serie “Faces of October” with two new portraits: Marie Tricot, Institutional Investors Relationship Director, and Eugenio Brambilla, Chief Risk Officer.
Marie Tricot, Institutional Investors Relationship Director
What do you do at October?
I am in charge of the Institutional Investor Relations team. We are a four-people team looking after our community of institutional investors who are lending to European SMEs via October’s debt investment funds.
The funds are managed in-house by the team who oversees all aspects of investor relations from fund management to fundraising.
What did you do before joining October?
After graduating from business school, I started working in London and then moved to New York where I spent eight years working in Investment Banking.
During my time in banking, I was in charge of marketing the bank’s product offering to large institutional clients.
I came back to Europe and joined October in July 2019.
My previous experiences help me learn and adapt fast which is key to become a trusted advisor to our community of investors.
What aspect of your work are you most passionate about?
I love being part of an amazing international team and thriving to be October’s best-in-class ambassador through rich and transparent exchanges with our community of investors and partners.
We are benefiting from the renewed trust of a strong community and the team is doing its best to meet and even exceed their expectations.
We are relentlessly committed to learn and improve.
There is never a dull moment!
What are the 3 skills that you definitely need in your role?
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to be able to engage with all our stakeholders
- Grit and focus to tackle complex topics and pro-actively design solutions
- Being curious to keep expanding your knowledge of October and the industry among a lot of other things
What does diversity and inclusion mean to you?
Diversity and inclusion are key to having open-minded and meaningful debates leading to, the best decisions. It only works when leaders are showing the way through exemplarity and a strong culture that welcomes people from different backgrounds and creates an environment where everybody has a chance to reveal their potential.
This is important to me on a professional level as well as in my personal life.
I recently joined an mentorship program through which I hope to be able to learn and pass on some of the things I had the chance to experience along the way.
What was your first touchpoint with the digital world?
I did my first internship in digital marketing at PriceMinister, a French e-commerce website, where I learnt a lot.
How do you think technology will impact the industry in the next years?
It will massively change the way we do a lot of things and will require us to adapt our framework to have sensible rules and checks in place. In the financial industry, there has been tremendous progress in the past years.
There is still a lot to be done to automate, simplify and secure processes.
This should lead to a simplified and seamless experience for clients.
With October Connect, our neo-lending technology made available to financial players, we are contributing to speeding up this process by leveraging our own tech built in line with our mission to empower businesses to thrive by simplifying and democratizing their funding.
What do you do in your spare time?
I love spending time with friends and family ideally hiking, skiing or sailing.
I also love traveling.
Options are more limited these days but I keep discovering beautiful itineraries running or riding my bike throughout Paris.
I started practicing yoga a while ago and recently complemented my practice with daily meditation. Definitely helps me keep a (somewhat!) healthy balance in these turbulent times.
What kind of job would you do if you were not in Fintech?
Neuroscientist.
I find fascinating to better understand how the brain functions, its ability to re-wire itself and its impact on our behavior and cognitive functions.
You can only be amazed when you witness how much and how quickly a child learns in his first years and how human beings can (decide to) do so their whole life!
And let’s continue our serie “Faces of October.
Eugenio Brambilla, Chief Risk Officer.
What do you do at October?
I’m the Chief Risk Officer coordinating our local Credit Officers.
My mission is to manage all risk related topics in October, from underwriting to portfolio performance monitoring.
As we are a technology company, the goal is to leverage our data and technology to scale up our credit capacity, always keeping all risk parameters under control.
What did you do before joining October?
I was CRO for GE Capital Italy division focused on SME financing.
I’ve spent most of my profesional career in international financial organizations mainly focused on risk related activities like credit assessment, portfolio management and operational risk.
What aspect of your work are you most passionate about?
What I like most is working with people.
I definitely think that a company should be able to get ideas from everyone in the organization and make the best use of different skills and capabilities.
And this is what I like most at October!
What are the 3 skills that you definitely need in your role?
- Being curious and have a good understanding of how the company and the market works. You should know about origination, credit processes, operation activities, collection and recovery, systems and data.
- Good communication skills since in the company everyone should be aware of what are the impacts of what we do in our daily activities
- Being able to listen and work with others, the best ideas come from discussion and sharing
What does diversity and inclusion mean to you?
I see diversity and inclusion as a way to grow together, both on personal and company level. They greatly enhance mutual understanding, commitment and energy.
What was your first touchpoint with the digital world?
Back in 2004 at GE, we developed a fully automated process for SME that allowed us to approve a small loan in 20 seconds and to send the contract to the client via mail.
It was the first time I learned about xml.
That product was innovative and successful… and for me it was a clear indication on how technology would have changed the financial industry.
How do you think technology will impact the industry in the next years?
Only in recent years the financial industry started looking at technology as a real game changer.
Well….
But technology will help to provide a better and more transparent product to clients while keeping the business safe for all the stakeholders.
What do you do in your spare time?
What I miss most in the current environment is travelling.
Besides that I like doing sports in open air, like ski touring in winter and cycling in the hot seasons.
What kind of job would you do if you were not in Fintech?
I have always enjoyed doing manual work, especially woodworking.
Maybe an opportunity for the future?