Jean-Philippe Martin, VISCONTI partner, welcomes Eric Mignot, president of + Simple, former director of Boursorama Banque and Hiscox, to share his career as a manager who became an entrepreneur to build the leader in Insurance for VSEs and Independents in continental Europe.

After working for ten years in Latin America in large groups (France Telecom and Suez), then managing the companies Hiscox and Boursorama Banque, Éric Mignot launches + Simple.

He founded this company in 2015, accompanied by Anthony Jouannau and Salah Hamida.

Married for 30 years, Éric is the father of three boys, “+ Simple was a family decision”. The support of his family on a daily basis was essential in this entrepreneurial adventure.

In 2015, Eric became an entrepreneur, what are the key elements that led to this change?

Envy and frustration. The desire to create, develop, innovate... and the frustration felt in Corporate life characterized by a lack of energy due to the very (too) pyramidal organization of large groups.

So why not put this energy into the service of creating a personal project?

How did he put the experiences of his career in large groups to the benefit of the creation of + Simple?

In all his experiences in large groups, Éric was involved “thoroughly”.

So he learned a lot, met great people, and created a network, which he then used to build + Simple.

As the manager of an established Corporate company, a lot of questions arise about organization and operation: and this at each stage of growth and/or evolution.

These experiences made it possible to manage these various stages well within + Simple: starting with 3, + Simple now has around a hundred employees.

Together, the founders of + Simple have put in place specific governance and effective functioning, but how do they work?

Entrepreneurial adventures often come up against the relationship between partners, which deteriorates after some time.

The fact that Eric, Anthony and Salah have known each other for a long time, and each have complementary experiences and maturity, allowed them to ask themselves the right questions from the start and be aligned with the project: “What are we looking for? “What do we want to bring?” “How do you organize yourself? ”. These questions result in specific roles, Salah takes charge of the technological part, Anthony the general management and supervision of the operational teams and Éric is in charge of business development and finance. In fact, governance is very collaborative and each person positions himself as a resource leader for the teams with the granting of a large autonomy of actions.

In this logic of empowering employees, how can you check that the work is done?

In this organization, each employee has his responsibilities and his autonomy; control is achieved by construction because the priority is the Operational Focus.

+ Simple being established in several countries, the Country dimension takes precedence with priority in the “field” and each initiative and action is thus at the center of attention and “can be seen”.

The Group structure is positioned “below” and aims to provide support: essentially the technological platform (a guarantee of coherence) and some corporate services.

This organization, which prioritizes the field, business and business units with the support of the platform, is an impacting governance philosophy.

We are in an era in which this subject of responsibility is important. Hierarchical and vertical organizations tend to disappear. Now, businesses are smaller, more collaborative. Moreover, the revolution we are witnessing affects all human organizations; they are put to failure when they are too vertical. To do this, it requires responsible people who are project leaders.

This growth is largely achieved through acquisitions, so the subject of integrating new teams arises. How does + Simple achieve this integration of acquisitions in the best possible way?

For Eric it's a challenge. They have made seven acquisitions over the last two years. The key to acquisitions is to tell yourself that M&A must be understood as a skill. As in sports training, you start by lifting ten kilos then twenty, thirty... Little by little. At + Simple, M&A is programmatic, it is “processed” and each is a learning field.

By design, integration is particularly good when the acquisition is for companies in which the founders are still working: they can stay and find space to continue to develop, using different means.

Éric, Anthony and Salah have put in place a DNA that makes it possible to keep entrepreneurs within + Simple

From the start, all three said that they would not be able to do it alone. They are trying to perpetuate this collaborative spirit. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes not, depending on the affinities. In any case, they strive to give everyone a place to continue with other means and a team... and always with responsibilities and decision-making capacity.

What are the major goals and prospects today with the requirements of + Simple's new prestigious investment funds?

It's a big step. For Eric, it is nice to see that as they go, they are progressing. They have partners who help them grow through their professionalism and their reputation. It pushes them to become better on a daily basis. Moreover, the saying at + Simple is: “If you think you've arrived it's because you weren't going very far”.

Their ambition is to become the leading platform in continental Europe for the insurance of professionals and small businesses. There is a huge need for these entrepreneurs to find insurance solutions.

The KKR investment fund has just given them the means to meet their ambitions by supporting them in this European development. It was the ideal partner at the stage of development they had reached. + Simple also counts on other important partners: Eurazeo and Tikehau.

These partners are essential to enable ambitions to be achieved.

As part of the company's deployment in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, Éric Mignot intends to invest by leaving for Italy.

If they want to give the country the right perspective of their organization there is nothing better than being there, that's why Eric made the decision to move personally to Milan. Italy is the European country in which there are the most professionals and entrepreneurs. It is therefore the most dynamic market for + Simple.

Eric is very present in ecosystems, what does he get out of this ancillary part of his job as a manager?

You should try not to “rest on your laurels.” Eric doesn't have a lot of internal meetings, which frees up time for him to work on other topics. He participates in the France Fintech office and meets a lot of project leaders.

This anchoring in the ecosystem and this dialogue with entrepreneurs is a way for him to observe the market and its evolutions. This feeds the roadmap put in place in the company. Humanly speaking, the relationship maintained with these entrepreneurs we met is a real driver of energy.