AMBA & BGA EXCELLENCE AWARDS
addition, any items that remain unclaimed after one year are given to charity or NGOs instead of being destroyed. In an era of disruption, do you think it’s important for the hotel industry to search for new ways of enhancing the consumer experience? PeeK’in is primarily concerned with enhancing the customer journey and experience after a guest’s stay in a hotel. This is a new standard that the industry must adopt sooner or later, or that competitors will make use of as a di erentiator. What has your relationship with your business school been like since your graduation and how has it helped PeeK’in and your previous ventures to be successful? I have always kept in touch with Audencia and, in return, the school has always demonstrated its support for me during the launch of my two start-up businesses. Joining the aforementioned business incubator, in particular, helped us to secure the necessary technical support and funding from banks. Do you think business schools have improved the way they support entrepreneurs since you were a student? Is there anything you would like to see more o ? Yes, I believe that improvements and areas where even more could be done both fall into three main categories. The first is in relation to encompassing the experiences and lessons learned by active entrepreneurs in business schools’ teaching of the subject. The second is the provision of incubators that o er frameworks for start-ups with relevance to hardware and deep-tech companies and not just those relating to software. Lastly, there should be an even greater availability of alumni funds from business school foundations and established, serial entrepreneurs. What advice would you give an aspiring entrepreneur who is thinking about whether studying for an MBA will help them get their business ideas off the ground? Getting an idea is one thing, but making it a reality is another matter altogether. In this light, joining an MBA programme to test your business ideas can be good and this is what we did with dVine. Indeed, my business partner on that venture undertook their MBA at HEC Paris specifically with the business plan for dVine in mind. Execution is what matters in entrepreneurship, so when it comes to choosing a business school, I would recommend a school that is well known for entrepreneurship and o ers great courses on how to start a business. In my opinion, an MBA is also a great way to build your network with other potential entrepreneurs. For example, an English MBA classmate of mine used to be a country manager for Veolia in New Zealand but is now back in Europe and I am working with him on starting and leading the PeeK’in business in the UK. You never know what might happen; nothing comes up by chance – it’s up to you to create compelling opportunities.
concept with 20 hotels in 2018 and then expanded its services to 100 hotels the following year. During the subsequent chaos and loss of revenue within the hospitality industry caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we focused our e orts on making our solution a ‘should have’ rather than a ‘nice to have’ service. This year, we have ventured into the UK and Spain and are moving towards 400 hotel customers. By 2026, we hope to become hospitality’s European standard for managing lost and found items. How does PeeK’in encompass sustainability in its business model and approach? There are two main ways in which we aim to contribute as a ‘tech for good’ company. Firstly, our business model of facilitating the process of recovering and returning lost items to their owners ensures that these items are not purchased again, whether they are high-tech or textile products. In fact, we have estimated that PeeK’in has saved the equivalent of 620 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by granting a second life to 100,000 lost items. In
Ambition DECEMBER 2023/JANUARY 2024 | 41
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