Entrepreneurs Etienne Jornod - active in the pharmaceutical industry - and Léa Miggiano - founder of Carvolution - shared their fascinating experiences of free enterprise at the opening of our special issue produced jointly with Schweizer Monat.
Popularizing free enterprise in Switzerland: that's the goal set by Le Regard Libre and the German-language magazine Schweizer Monat by producing the Esprit entrepreneurial« special issue» with a variety of articles on the theme of entrepreneurship. Key elements of this issue are a series of interviews with innovative entrepreneurs from different sectors and regions of the country. This special edition was presented on March 26 in Berne as part of a entrepreneur talk featuring leading personalities.
Entrepreneurs Léa Miggiano, founder and CEO of Carvolution, and Etienne Jornod, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NZZ Group and currently head of OM Pharma in Geneva, gave inspiring insights into the world of entrepreneurs in a roundtable discussion moderated by Ronnie Grob, editor-in-chief of Schweizer Monat, and Jonas Follonier, editor-in-chief of Regard Libre.
No «entrepreneur gene»
Asked whether successful entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, can also be difficult personalities, Etienne Jornod replied: «From my point of view, entrepreneurs are not particularly unpleasant people. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't afford to, because I'm dependent on my collaborators».
The native of Neuchâtel is convinced that «there is certainly no such thing as an entrepreneurial gene, i.e. a single quality required to succeed as an entrepreneur». Rather, you need a multitude of skills, and always a certain amount of luck. For Léa Miggiano, it's important to have a vision, to be persistent and to want to persevere. And, she adds, you simply have to enjoy your work.
A strong culture of failure
Léa Miggiano was 23 when she founded Carvolution with a group of friends. According to Bilanz, Today, she is one of the «100 richest young people in Switzerland». She embarked on this adventure with a fundamentally positive attitude. «Everything can only go well», she said to herself: «If I fail, it will be extremely memorable and instructive. And if I succeed, it will be even more powerful.»
Basler was not afraid of failure, but rather took a calculated risk. Risk analysis and measures to keep this risk at a controllable level were important to her. Today, failure is a hobby for her,« jokes the show-jumping enthusiast. What's more, after a failed first attempt, the starting situation is simply excellent for a second attempt. Etienne Jornod believes that the culture of failure is insufficient in Switzerland: »If you don't make mistakes, you're not doing anything.»
The entrepreneur spoke of the failure of the NZZ in Austria as an instructive example, when the Zurich-based media company lost several million francs. Today, however, he is convinced that it was this failure that made the subsequent success in the much larger German market possible. The NZZ now has over 60,000 paying subscribers in Germany, a much larger and more exciting market than Austria.
In his party, the PLR, there used to be a lot of entrepreneurs,« explains Etienne Jornod, »but unfortunately that's no longer the case. Since the excessive salaries of top executives, the image of entrepreneurs has massively deteriorated. Although there are many positive examples, the image has not yet been corrected. The entrepreneur takes a highly critical view of France. «Since Colbert and Napoleon, we haven't understood that the real wealth of a country is its entrepreneurs,» he says. In his view, we're not there yet in Switzerland, "but we have to be careful not to fall into that rut". The lively discussions among the hundred or so participants continued over a sumptuous aperitif.
The original article by Fabian Gull appeared in German in Schweizer Monat.
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