Thank You Capgemini Family for an Amazing 20+ Year Journey

Today marks the end of an incredible adventure with the Capgemini family as I embark on my next journey as the President of the Family Office Exchange. I can still clearly remember the first week at my first Gemini Consulting project 20 miles North of Mobile, Alabama at a rayon factory in September of 1997. Meigan (girlfriend at the time) was still a Senior at Tufts and never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what the next 22 years would have in store for me.

When I graduated Tufts University, I was a 22-year-old Boston born, bred, and schooled graduate who didn’t have a passport. 22 years later and I have had the opportunity to travel across the globe collaborating with incredible colleagues, clients, and peers leading teams across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. My miles flown have well exceeded the 1 million mark and I think my countries visited has passed 50.

My early years of traveling Monday through Friday, 45 weeks a year, gave me incredible access and exposure to some of the best mentors I have had in my career, as well as great projects. Those were the days of intense A&D projects where half our meals were four course meals with endless bottles of wine and the other half out of the client’s vending machines. The core consulting skills, strong work ethic, importance of stakeholder management, and setting a high bar of excellence I learned in those early days formed a powerful base that would enable my success in each phase of my future.

When Meigan and I got married in May of 2000, we settled down and I joined as Capgemini’s Head of Production for a year and then joined the Strategic Research Group in Cambridge, MA, our feeder for Capgemini’s Strategy and Transformation practice. I had the chance to develop and refine my analytical, research, and storyboarding skills. My leaders and peers during those years were some of the brightest and most inspirational team members I have had the opportunity to work with over the past two decades (they also lived up to our core value of Fun). They were great role models showcasing leadership and how to develop and nurture high-performing teams. Those were the years where the motto “People Matter, Results Count” meant something. My time in the SRG also provided me the opportunity to get more involved in the wealth space working on the World Wealth Report in its early years.

Six months after the birth of our first daughter, we relocated to Paris where I had the opportunity to lead our Global Financial Services Lab consisting of seconded team members from our FS practices from across the globe. My very sheltered, American view of the world (and Capgemini) came tumbling down as my eyes were opened to what it meant to be part of a truly global leader in the consulting space. During those two years in Paris, I had a chance to regularly engage with the leaders of our financial services business from over a dozen countries. Beyond developing our global financial services thought leadership, I also had the chance to run quarterly workshops and forums with our global/local leaders sharing leading practices, building globally relevant solutions, and networking. The power of networking and collaboration was incredible. Those connections made during our time in Paris live on today and have been invaluable in helping keep me informed of all the trends and innovation taking place across the globe.

Prior to the creation of our global FS P&L in 2009, our ‘global’ businesses were siloed across countries with minimal incentive to cross-collaborate. When we returned stateside for the birth of our second daughter, I had the chance to run our virtual Global Wealth Management Center of Excellence (CoE) for two years. The WM CoE was a global network consisting of a virtual team of Capgemini’s leading wealth experts across 15+ countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. It was a steep task to coordinate a fragmented, multi-country $100m+ wealth businesses to act as a single, global go-to-market business by prioritizing the global portfolio of service offerings, connecting the global network, and packaging of core Wealth Management assets, IP, and collateral, but it was a great opportunity to better understand the global and local wealth management industry.

After the acquisition of Kanbay and the creation of our ‘Global’ Financial Services business unit, I received a call from Aiman Ezzat (soon to be CEO of FS and eventually CFO and COO Capgemini Group) asking if I would be interested in building a high-end strategy team in India. The idea was to take the core consulting and analytical capabilities of the SRGs (Cambridge), combine with the deep FS domain expertise of the FS Lab (Paris), and build a team in India with strategy consultants from the top Indian MBA programs to leverage the top local talent, as well as the lower cost. Unable to pass on this opportunity, we relocated to Hyderabad, India with our 2 ½ and 4 ½ year-old daughters in tow. 

While there are far too many stories to share about those three years in India, the end message is the growth (both personal and professional) I experienced was extraordinary. In a short period of time, we built a team from scratch and transitioned the entire development of Capgemini’s global Financial Services thought leadership to my new team in India. With this strong core team in Hyderabad, combined with the strategic engagement of our network of subject matter experts and client executives across the globe, we have published some of the most recognized and valued financial services thought leadership in the industry. We also consistently secure #1 media share of voice compared to all our competitors globally. Over the past 12 months, my team has successfully launched our 23rd annual World Wealth Report, 14th World Retail Banking Report, 14th World Payments Report (this month), 11th World Insurance Report, 3rd World FinTech Report, and 2nd World InsurTech Report.

Since our return from Hyderabad in 2012, the focus shifted from building a team and developing leading thought leadership to leveraging our thought leadership to enhance Capgemini’s brand and enable CxO relationships. I also discovered the power of leveraging social media to build a strong network and share insights and trends with leaders and influencers across the globe. An interview I did with Jay Palter on “New Rules of Engagement” back in 2015 are as relevant today as they were then. My Twitter followers have increased nearly 5-fold from 5k to over 25k. I have been part of an incredible virtual network of FinTech influencers across the globe, many who have become close friends.

Since 2009, over 100 consultants have passed through my Market Intelligence team. Every one of them had an impact on our team’s success, and more importantly, had become stronger consultants and leaders by the time they moved on. However, I would be remiss to not call out two individuals. Soon after I got that call to build the MI team, I took a flyer on a cocky, early 20s-something Brit who was wrapping up a stint in the FS lab before heading back to the Strategy practice in the UK. That decision was probably the single best decision I made at Capgemini. Without David Wilson’s partnership between 2009 and 2018 (before heading over to UOB last year), our team and the quality of our thought leadership would not be what it is today (nor would I have mentally survived). Similarly, in my first month in Hyderabad, I interviewed a quiet, reserved, but very sharp internal candidate. David and I knew right away we needed him on the team. Chirag Thakral became the first India hire on our team. As I leave Capgemini tomorrow, I am very proud of the legacy I leave behind but am confident it will continue to grow and improve with Chirag at the helm with the other MI leaders and great team in place.

I made my last visit to the team in Hyderabad last month. Leaving Capgemini after 20 years was always going to be tough but leaving my team in India was the toughest. On my last walk from the office to the campus gates to leave, the team surprised me with an incredible send-off (see video below). I will cherish the 10+ years with my Market Intelligence team and will always have this video to remember my last day in Hyderabad.

While my official time with Capgemini ends in a few hours, the Capgemini family will always remain close in both memories and future connections. I am the person and the leader I am today due to the great mentors, peers, and team members who I learned from every day. Thanks to everyone who played large and small parts throughout my Capgemini journey and please keep in touch. 

I am excited to start my next journey and start right back up with a 5:50am flight to New York on Monday morning. I am joining an incredible team at the Family Office Exchange (www.familyoffice.com) as their next President. More to come on the new role in the coming weeks. You will still be able to follow me through this next journey here on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @WFSullivan3. If you need to reach me, my new work e-mail is wsullivan@familyoffice.com.