“If what you’re looking for right now in your professional life is personal growth, whatever the topic, you’ll find it at Qonto.”

Discover our Qonto Insider of the month: Philippine Rougevin-Baville, Managing Director at Qonto.

1. What did you do before joining Qonto?

Before Qonto, I had what one could call “no career plan whatsoever!” I’ve always been passionate about problem-solving across fields, so I loved maths and physics, and graduated as an engineer from École Polytechnique (graduating in 2014). I realized then that I’d love to learn more about our economy, and how companies work and grow from the inside. So, I moved into Strategy Consulting at Roland Berger for a few years, where I specialized in strategic and operational transformation projects for companies seeking new growth levers, with a focus on Retail.

One day, a previous manager who had joined Facebook Inc. (now Meta) reached out about an opportunity there. Pretty much overnight, I decided to join this incredibly fast-growing Tech company to lead their luxury vertical’s operations globally.

2. Why did you join Qonto?

It was a very lucky coincidence that Qonto reached out when I was just starting to contemplate what my next step would be. If I’m being fully honest, I knew little about the French startup ecosystem, but my husband did, and he told me, “This team is creating an amazing product and business. Go and see.”

So, I hopped on a call with the Leadership Recruiter, Robin, who told me more about the Chief of Staff role that Steve and Alex (our co-Founders) were looking to create. That’s how everything started.

Ultimately, my decision truly lay in Steve and Alex looking like some of the smartest, most inspiring, driven — yet cool to work with — bosses. I knew back then I would learn tons working for them, but I had no idea how much I would actually grow working with them.

3. How would you summarize the recruitment process?

The best I know of: fluid, clear, truly two-way, and fast.

I accepted my offer approximately two weeks after my first call with Robin. Side note: I learned later that when we first spoke (in a call that lasted close to one hour), he had joined only one week earlier. I’m still in awe of how knowledgeable he was, living proof of how good we are at onboarding and upskilling people fast at Qonto.

After speaking with Robin, I went through a process that enabled both me and Qonto to assess if the other party was the right one:

• I met with Alex for one hour and we discussed the business, their strategy and priorities, and why they had decided to hire a Chief of Staff — what their needs were (or for me, what my problems to solve would be!).
• I then built a business case at home, based on actual matters the Chief of Staff would handle, and I discussed it with Alex a couple of days later. I loved this step: the questions were non-trivial and stimulating, and the case successfully projected me into what my next role would be if I moved forward with the process.
• A few days later, I met with a few peers (our CMO, CPO, and VP People) and, finally, with Steve. During these conversations, the entire focus was on discussing problems to solve or opportunities to address, and how I could contribute as a Chief of Staff. These discussions definitely convinced me.

The same night, I got an offer and decided to join within 48 hours.

4. What stood out for you about the onboarding process?

How ‘mature’ it was for such a young company. When I joined, Qonto was only three years old, and the professionalism of the entire process really impressed me. It was Meta-level, and Meta was already at 40,000 employees!

5. Tell us about what you do as a Managing Director at Qonto.

As a Managing Director for the French market, my focus is on accelerating Qonto’s growth in our historical and primary market. I guide a team of fifty people dedicated to developing the business, in particular the Sales, Marketing, and Partnerships departments. I also work hand-in-hand with all centralized teams (e.g. Product and Customer Success), contributing to our success in France to ensure we’re all working in the same direction.

In addition to these internal responsibilities, I represent Qonto externally on all topics related to our development, specifically in France, from business events to press and public engagements.

6. What are the qualities required to be a successful Managing Director?

When I think of my peers (Lukas, Mariano and Carles, who respectively manage Germany, Italy, and Spain) and what common strengths they have, I see all of them leading by example on the following:

• An outstanding customer obsession: they always think “customer first” in everything they do and focus all efforts across the different teams on delivering more value to customers. That may sound trivial, but at 1,300 Qontoers, it’s sometimes easy for any individual to lose sight of the end customers we’re serving.
• A top-notch ability (supported by vision and drive) to think and act all the way from high-level strategy down to the most tiny executional details that ultimately make a difference for customers. This requires an excellent understanding of Qonto’s entire business, challenges, and objectives, as well as internal operations.
• They are accountable, reliable, and get things done.

7. What has been your biggest challenge as a Managing Director?

Making sure I am focusing my time and energy on what matters the most.

8. Which of Qonto’s 5 values (Customer focus, Ownership, Teamwork, Mastery, Integrity) resonates with you the most and why?

That’s a hard one — all! No, really, because I realize how much they’re part and parcel of Qonto’s success, and if one is missing, everything crumbles. Values should align with an organization’s mission, vision, and strategic goals, while reinforcing the desired behaviors within teams to succeed.

It’s less about articulating how the culture is today than articulating how it should be to succeed tomorrow. We’ve recently updated our values from Ambition, Teamwork, Mastery, and Integrity. We realized that, after a few years and our team having grown substantially, Ambition was no longer an actionable value for most of our teams. We decided to be even more explicit about desired behaviors to deliver Ambition. For us, at our size, Ambition is about being ruthlessly customer-first, and taking ownership.

Personally, I clicked immediately and the most with Integrity and Mastery, and learned to develop a customer focus. Coming from consulting, I’d say I was a process-oriented person and used to thriving in heavily analytics-based decision-making. At Qonto, I learned that the fastest and most efficient way to make a good decision or solve a problem is to go and talk to an actual client first.

9. If you could speak to potential future Qonto candidates, what would you tell them?

If what you’re looking for right now in your professional life is personal growth, whatever the topic, you’ll find it at Qonto.

10. Do you have a fun anecdote you would like to share about your time at Qonto?

One thing that makes me very happy about my new job is that it’s much easier to explain to people what I do. I can’t count the number of times people (at Qonto and outside) asked me: “Ok, but, what does a Chief of Staff do?” The first time I was asked this, I had just joined a few weeks earlier and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. When you’re no Chief to no Staff at all, it’s hard to figure out a decent answer to fake it!

About Qonto

Qonto makes it easy for SMEs and freelancers to manage day-to-day banking, thanks to an online business account that’s stacked with invoicing, bookkeeping and spend management tools.

Created in 2016 by Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi, Qonto now operates in 4 European markets (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) serving 400,000 customers, and employs more than 1,300 people.

Since its creation, Qonto has raised €622 million from well-established investors. Qonto is one of France’s most highly valued scale-ups and has been listed in the Next40 index, bringing together future global tech leaders, since 2021.

Interested in joining a challenging and game-changing company? Consult our job offers!