Sebastien Aubry

Siamesebox is a community and economic development consulting firm. We offer integrated services to bridge entrepreneurs, communities, and asset stakeholders to grow local ecosystems and rejuvenate economic zones. Our approach is based on systemic and design thinking for making sense of challenging situations and developing simple and effective interventions for transforming them. We offer strategy consulting, business development, project management and coaching & mentoring services to small business owner, nonprofit, local government (cities, regions, states), economic development organizations, business incubators, clusters, and business networks. Examples of ongoing and recent mandates include :

- Strategic advisory, business development, and project management for me93.com, 250+ members Paris based business network: designed and executed strategic plan resulting in +600% government subsidies, +30% members, and design and implementation of 3 successful programs for entrepreneurs (mentoring, HR services, acceleration).

- Fundraising and grant writer for multiple entrepreneurship and economic development organizations in France and North America : Drummondville Economic Development Corporation, Wacano, Hubstart (Paris Airport incubator), Starlabs Incubator, Réseau M, Moovjee (mentoring for entrepreneurs, LEX), District 3 Incubator (Concordia University, Montreal), MDE Convergence Entrepreneurs, Time2Start, Entrepreneurship School of Quebec, and Les Premières Woomen Incubator.

- Business Coaching for entrepreneurs, executives, and non-profit leaders.

MDE Convergence Entrepreneurs is a 30+ employees economic development corporation based in the Greater Paris Area, France. It covers a broad array of services : HR, training programs, incubators, coworking, acceleration and mentoring programs for entrepreneurs as well as monthly networking events and international development advisory.

- Designed and implemented MDE Convergence Entrepreneurs' strategy, resulting in pivoting a declining business model into a successful digital and entrepreneurial training operation

- Developed and executed a change management plan including new HR procedures and training programs for middle management, resulting in a 70% productivity increase and a 60% decrease of employee non-attendance

- Raised 1M€ of new grants over the last 3 years, resulting in the ability to finance the design, experimentation and industrialization of disruptive digital training programs operated by Simplon.co, Apple and INFA

- Implemented a new branding, community management and communication plan with the support of ME93 (strategic alliance) to increase outreach to entrepreneurs, resulting in a 140% increase of applicants over 3 years to the entrepreneurship training and mentoring programs

- Applied design thinking methodology to the development of new (in house) acceleration training programs for entrepreneurs, resulting in fast growth of participants in 2018 (+81%) and 2019 (+125%)

- Applied Lean Startup methodology and successfully launched Convergence Coworking SAS corporation as a subsidiary dedicated to entrepreneurship incubation services, resulting in +190% new startups located in the incubator over 3 years and 96% client satisfaction

- Built long-term partnerships with international incubators (Entrepreneurship School of Montreal, SDE Drummondville, District 3 Concordia), resulting in 3 delegations of entrepreneurs across Canada & France

SEMAD is a property management firm based in the greater Paris area between Le Bourget and Charles-de-Gaulle airports. It operates over 100,000 sq. ft of industrial incubators and business centers dedicated to small businesses.

- Developped and executed cost cutting and restructuring plan, resulting in 177K€ EBITDA increase (13% of annual revenues) during the second fiscal year of employment

- Implemented new debt recovery procedure, resulting in ~400K€ recovered over 2 years

- Designed corporation development and recapitalisation plan (5M€) in order to support future real estate investments