From France, through London, to Montreal and the EMBA McGill-HEC Montreal
Since obtaining his degree in Finances from the École Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d’Angers, in France, Fabien Rossini has come a long way. He is approaching the final chapter of his EMBA McGill-HEC Montreal’s journey – the redaction of his final paper, and has recently accepted the position of Business Development Director for the mobile division of Square Enix, a Japanese video games development and publishing company.
After completing his studies, Fabien has evolved in several marketing roles, briefly in France before heading to London where he held positions ranging from Brand Manager to Director. In 2008, he joined Square Enix West as Strategic Planning Director, reporting directly to the CEO. After 14 years in London, the “French londoner” decided to move to Montreal, to broaden his horizons through an experience in studios at a subsidiary of Square Enix, Eidos-Montreal, a Canadian game development studio, based in Montreal.
Then, last April, as he brought the project that had brought him to Montreal in the first place to an end, he was offered the opportunity to join the mobile division of Square Enix West*, also based in Montreal, as Business Development Director. Fabien couls not turn down such an opportunity since, as of the Reflective Mindset, last fall, he had undertaken a personal journey, leading him to search for new professional challenges that would be consistent with who he found out to be as a manager: “Au final, je reviens vers un poste moins opérationnel et plus business et stratégique, un peu un retour à mes premiers amours.”
Applying the EMBA McGill-HEC Montréal learning in his new role
Fabien wrote all of his “Impact papers” (papers relating the theories and learnings from the program to real aspects of the participants’ work environments – these provide an opportunity to explore job-related challenges in depth) on topics that are applicable to his new role. So far, he have already put into practice many of the learning from different EMBA modules:
«My new job is all about building strategic alliances and creating value, it touches a lot of the Executive MBA modules, and will allow me to connect the dots between all them:
- The Worldly Mindset: I mainly deal with international partners in China, India, Korea or South America
- Value Creation: This is about alliance to create value together.
- Analytical Mindset: Need to understand the context, understand both strategic priorities and size the business opportunity before defining the actual deal mechanic/structure.
- Managerial Tools and Practices: Understand the ROI, the NPV of the deal and the bigger picture (i.e. might accept a loss project first to open up partnership leading to long term growth)
- Collaboration Mindset: This is all about building strategic alliance. »
* Square Enix mobile studios’ leading products include Hitman Go and Lara Croft Go. They have won numerous awards including “Best Game – 2016, Apple Design Awards” and the “iPhone Game of the Year – 2015, Apple’s Best of Awards”.
