Hugues Hallot

UMA Ventures is the Venture Capital arm of a single family office. We are investing in start-ups leveraging in future technologies across fintech, environment, logistics and media. - I developed an investment funnel to formalise and accelerate our historic early-stage funding activity. I source, vet and recommend start-ups to be invested in by the family. My selection criteria include business efficiency, market prospects and capacity to be upscaled. - I provide organisational, management and strategic advises to our invested companies. I helped one of our companies to divide their IT solution development cost by 4 while securing their delivery date through an incentive-based contract.

I joined RioDeFi as a project director to support the scaling of the company. RioDeFi is a start-up developing decentralized finance solution based on distributed ledger technology, commonly known as blockchain. The company goal is to make the benefit of these new technologies in the field of personal finance available to the greatest number of people. RioDeFi raised 20 million USD and employ more than 80 people across the world. - I led the incubation hub to go from ideation stage to fundraise, and then from fundraise to the release of products. I advised blockchain start-ups on management, organisation efficiency and business plan creation and application. We raised over 10 million USD and sold over 15 million USD of products, effectively securing resources to weather the downturn in market conditions - To support explosive growth of the company from over 30 people to more than 110, I set up reporting and project management standards. I demonstrated the benefits of those methodologies by improving our delivery time and quality. - To improve our relationship with our external suppliers, I set up an incentive-based contracts to align RioDeFi interest in time and quality deliverables with the supplier financial interest.

As a management consultant, I drive teams to create value across industries, infrastructures and IT projects. I am passionate about delivering high quality projects on time and on budget. I support organisational changes and increase the efficiency. - For FWD Insurance’s Group Finance Transformation Implementation unit, I set up a governance structure, including program working groups and steering committees (10 million dollars of projects per year). I onboarded stakeholders and sponsors in a strict scope management structure. After 3 months, the programme steering committee operated efficiently. Its duration has reduced from 2 hours to 35 minutes. - I increased process quality and reliability. I managed an Oracle project, where I set up a change board and strict project management process. I reduced the cost of projects by 15% and ensured on time and on quality delivery.

I directed the creation of a ground test installation. The installation was composed of an aircraft inside a building and simulated its flight condition. We bended its wings and tail while operating its systems to verify proper operation and safety for the place test certification. For the first Japanese commercial aircraft in 60 years, we needed to develop internal skills while integrating experiences from global experts. Here is a sample of the issues I tackled: - The culture of the local team was based on production process. We however needed to assemble only one such test installation. To support the building of this installation on a tight schedule, I set up a project management methodology. I identified subject matter experts and implicated them early in the development phase. I strengthened the coordination both for the internal team of 12 and the external partners of 50+ peoples. We successfully used a project mode, established a preliminary plan in 1 month and a solid plan in 3 months. - To support the testing, we needed custom made measurement components. After defining the schedule, the design and identifying the supplier, we encountered quality issues upon delivery. Solving this issue would take 4 months, while we only had six weeks before the start of test. I set up a task force to address the problem. By mobilizing our engineer, negotiating with the supplier and redefining the final check sequence, we successfully supported the first test on time with the revised parts, meeting the quality standard. We successfully built an operational test installation worth several tens of millions of dollars. We also created a knowledge management process and increased the skill level of the local engineers in aircraft testing.

I joined Safran Program team to support an ambitious goal: reduce the development time of a low-pressure compressor, the front part of an aircraft engine, from two and a half years – the best experience yet – to nine months. We undertook this challenge to support our customers Airbus A320 neo and Boeing 737 Max launch date. To reach our target, we mobilized energy across the whole company. Communication and networking were critical to obtain the stakeholders’ full support. Below are instances of actions I undertook: - The creation of the schedule supporting our target, as well as obtaining the support of the stakeholders for it, proved major challenges. Sponsored by 2 Vice-Presidents, I coordinated workshops to identify the normal plan of each team, their risks and opportunities. Creating a schedule from the end, using crashing and fast tracking, we drafted each team milestones. I helped the team transition to crisis operation and support the team members in having a “how to do” mindset. We achieved a feasible schedule, meeting our target of compression from 30 to 11 months while building credibility and engagement in the plan. - As we took the challenge to divide our schedule length by 3, our partners were concerned over our progress. We agreed on indicators, as well as the frequency and the form of the information sharing. I created the management tool used to transmit the information and built a relationship with the first receiver on our partners side. Explaining the indicators and our progress, illustrating them with visual of the parts, we avoided misunderstandings and smoothed the communication. We built trust with our partners and clients, and earned recognition for our skill levels, upon which we capitalized for further partnerships. We delivered our LEAP engine modules on time. We supported our mother company SAFRAN Group, its partner General Electric, and our customers with their new planes launch. We also reinforced our recognized level of expertise.

Management consultant for 5 years, I am passionate about delivering high quality projects on time and on budget. I delivered software upgrade, cost control and business development projects. I supported a family farm, French energy companies Enedis (electricity) and Engie (gaz), Paris public transportation group RATP and the British National Health Service - NHS. Mobilizing the stakeholders to accept the change, to build and to stick to the schedule, and to control the costs are especially challenging. Here are some of the cases I acted on: - French power grid company migrated 90 workplaces with 1000+ users who used a local, customizable software to a cloud based, unified software. I supported the transition to maintain the operations. I organized the change management, prepared the communication plan and maintained a communication channel with the users from early in the development. I created a booklet containing step-by-step process for the most common, daily activities to support the first days on the new tool. We got back to pre-migration performance within 2 months, beating our 3 months target. - I oversaw the budget and scope of a financial software upgrade (ORACLE R12) for Paris MTR company, a billion-dollar company transporting millions of people a day in one of the world’s busiest city. My first responsibility was to reduce the budget of the project by 10% as we had limited resources. I organised and directed a clear change board to eliminate out of scope change. This prevented out of process change. I set up a control of each deliverable’s quality within a week of delivery and ensured the correction cost was covered by the suppliers. We overperformed by reducing our costs by 15% and delivered a stable software on time, on budget and without data loss.