Welcome to the team: Yves Cretegny

Yves Cretegny is joining Lift as CEO starting on February 1st. This is major news as Yves brings the experience and qualifications required to take us to the next level.

Since late 2007 and our first Asian conference, it became clear that Lift was turning into more than the side project it was in the beginning. From a conference with 350 participants in 2006, Lift has developed into three large annual events in Europe and Asia, a decentralized events program called Lift@home, an international and very active community of 5500+ members, etc etc.

^{The timeline of Lift conferences and projects, from 2006 to 2009.}

In the process, Lift became a little group as our legal structure adapted to our different projects. Lift developed into Lift Association, Lift Conférence, Lift Asia and the newly launched Lift lab. We hired several people in Korea, built a team with the Fing in France, took some office space, hired a couple of interns, a part time webmaster and even bought a plant for our office ;)

As the team and structure grew, so did the accompanying challenges in terms of organization, professionalization, finance, cash flow planning, human resources, and legal structure. Each early team member was suddenly confronted with growing responsibilities outside of their original focus, and something had to be done to stabilize and anchor Lift for the future.

^{Yves at Lift09 during the Ozwe QB1 casting. Photo by dgbp.ch}

A couple of months ago, we started discussing with Yves Cretegny - then CFO of Geneva's largest convention center - about our CEO position. It quickly became clear that Yves could bring a very important and complementary perspective to our mission. He has a rare mix of competence and experience: a former manager at Andersen Business Consulting (where I was also working as a consultant), Yves has helped all kinds of organizations grow, organize, focus, and adapt to new challenges and economic conditions. In 2000, he became the CFO and head of innovation at Palexpo, where he worked on the organization of several conventions, among them the 750'000 visitors strong Geneva Motor Show. Since 2008, Yves has been attending Lift. He knows where we are heading, and recognizes the potential our project has. Yves is also the friend of several friends, an important element in a human-centric structure like Lift. We met, discussed, tried to put ourselves in situation to see if things would work out. And on February 1st, Yves will become our new CEO :)

His mission will be to take Lift to the next level, growing our community while retaining our values and original purpose of inspiring and connecting pioneers to turn innovation into opportunities. He will oversee the transition from a team organizing a conference in Geneva to a team supporting several local organizers, working with a community of thinkers and doers from around the world. Yves will work to make Lift a stable and sustainable project, with regular funding streams and a strong community of partners. He will develop value-adding partnerships that respect our original belief that it is essential to separate the editorial from the marketing messages. Last but not least, Yves will also work with us at Lift lab - the company that originally launched Lift conference as a a spin off - and invest his consulting experience to further develop the offers and client base.

With Yves stepping up into his new role, Sylvie Reinhard will continue her work as COO to oversee our operations in Europe and Asia with the help of Sarah Suter. Nicolas Nova will focus on the editorial management of the conference, working on identifying the people and trends that really matter. On my side, I will now focus on the areas that interest me most: the format and strategy of the events, the development and animation of our community, public and partner relations. With less operational responsibilities, I hope to have more time to implement a larger part of my ideas and visions for Lift.

This is a very big step for us. We are very excited by the prospect of welcoming someone like Yves, to transition to a more professional and sustainable structure. The fact that someone with his experience and background left his job to join us is a very positive sign: the proof we are doing something positive, challenging and with a lot of potential. Another step in our short history, another occasion to thank all those of you who have helped make this project come true with your support, presence, advice, questions, comments, suggestions, and more! Thank you:)