In 1997, as Deputy Director of France Telecom R&D (4000 people strong, of which 70% were engineers), I was entrusted with the responsibility to launch an ambitious program to spin-out technologies from France Telecom’s R&D labs. I was able to quickly identify several promising projects which could conceivably lead to the creation of new companies, and I succeeded in convincing the young engineers behind the ideas to begin the entrepreneurial adventure. The most significant challenge remained: to transform the ideas into successful enterprises. I had the good fortune then of meeting Dr. Ossama Hassanein whose expertise with start-ups was precisely what we needed. He immediately identified the products and teams that had the greatest potential of becoming stars. As Chairman of the Board of Technocom (a seed-financing venture capital company created specifically to launch the start-ups), Ossama’s investment decisions were the wisest. With his charismatic personality, he rapidly gained the confidence of the young engineers, who enthusiastically followed his recommendations. Ossama assumed without hesitation the chairmanship of several Boards in order to ensure the success of our emerging growth companies, correct the novices’ mistakes, and use the funds wisely to build solid companies. Ossama worked tirelessly to instill the principles of good business management into the young inventors, who had previously known little if any of the real industrial life. He was able to tap into his large pool of business relations, which helped enormously in promoting the success of the spin-outs. I was particularly impressed with Ossama’s energy and will to succeed, not to mention his compassion. We owe immense gratitude to Ossama for making Highwave, Algety, and NetCentrex the star companies they have become – and for making Technocom one of the best-performing European venture capital funds. We could have never done it without him.

Jean-Noël Méreur

Former Deputy Managing Director

Dear Ossama,

I would like to express to you my deepest appreciation for your valuable contribution to High Deal, to its Board, and to me personally, during the four years you served as Chairman of our Board of Directors. I was particularly impressed by your vision, your market foresights, your charisma, and your strong personality. As a young entrepreneur, you stood as a pillar for me, and your advice was invaluable. You were able to rally and guide the members of the board and the management team through the most difficult period we faced in 2002 hence enabling us to intelligently push forward and get through the tough times.

You know how much I appreciate meeting you, sharing ideas, and listening to your advice in directing our company. I must say that without you, High Deal would not be the company we know today. High Deal, without a doubt, would no longer exist.

With my warmest regards,

Eric Pillevesse

CEO, HighDeal

Dear Ossama:

Just few words to express my gratitude for all the help you provided us at Highwave. Since the creation of the company in 1998, you were able to coach French investors to truly understand our business and strategy. Then you were able to guide the company to its IPO in 2000 and manage the board as Chairman in more difficult times until 2004. All the senior executive team members learned a lot from you, from the day to day operations management of the Company to how to make the much more difficult strategic decisions.

Joining Echovox, as usual, you were the first to understand how managing human resources is crucial to the success of a company and how financial results are so intimately tied to the practices and performance of a good management team.

For all this and more, I thank you.

Sylvain Boj

COO, Echovox SA / Former COO, Highwave

 

I met Ossama in 2004 when we started our process to raise our first institutional round. I had the privilege to share many great moments with Ossama, most notably an unforgettable trip in China during which I had a unique opportunity to witness one the most gifted analytical minds at work. China in 2005 was mesmerizing. Its scale, pace and stamina-charged atmosphere would have spun the head of anyone. Yet, Ossama saw the risks and weighted them carefully against the opportunity that was laid in front of us. He decided, although we had top-level connections, that China was not a leveled playing field and that it was too dangerous for us to engage in that market at Echovox's stage of development. We had many lively discussions on this topic back then, but eventually Ossama decided to make Newbury's investment in Echovox conditional to us not going after China at that moment in time. Today, I am grateful for his insight and vision, most non-Chinese companies that have launched their activities in our space in the Middle Kingdom have failed because of constant regulation changes and disputes with competitors or carriers. In the meantime Echovox focused its efforts onto becoming a leader in its home market, Europe, making it a stronger and more pertinent company than it ever was. I am grateful to count Ossama as one my dear friends and associates. Not only did Echovox benefit from his expertise, vision and corporate governance experience, but I believe I've learned a lot and became a better entrepreneur and executive throughout the past two years thanks to his guidance. Through his Alexandrian heritage and exceptional US entrepreneurial experience, Ossama has turned into a unique business gentleman. Combining ultimate refinement and hard performance drive in one man is very rare, add a phenomenal amount of energy and you have one of the most international and successful venture capitalist you'll have a chance to meet in our times.

David Marcus

CEO, Echovox SA

I had the pleasure of meeting Ossama Hassanein in 1997. This marked the beginning of an incredible friendship and extraordinary working relationship. As Chairman of Technocom Ventures, the largest fund investor in Highwave Optical Technologies (a French manufacturer of telecommunication optical systems), Ossama provided us with unwavering support from the moment he invested in 1998. Over a period of four years, Ossama’s lasting contributions, his invaluable contacts, his assistance in international expansion, and his advice in recruiting top management enabled us all to build an extraordinary company. In less than three years, our annual revenues grew from zero to Euro 72 million. Growth was accompanied with substantial profitability - net income exceeded 12 percent. The success of the company led to an IPO on the Nouveau Marché on June 19th, 2000. We were an instant success. By September 2000, the value of the stock had peaked at Euro 4 billion. We would have never achieved this level of performance without Ossama’s guidance and mentorship throughout this period. To me, Ossama remains a reference model for driving companies to success. His rigor and the accuracy of his counsel are the guarantors of great performance. Beyond his personality, Ossama has a vast pool of contacts world-wide that are all happy to be able to assist him in any way, and I am proud to be part of that group.

Eric Delevaque

President, Manlight S.A.S.

I met Ossama in 2006 when he recruited me to the CEO position of a French company he was investing in, PS’Soft. What struck me about Ossama was his penetrating questioning about every aspect of my professional experience and my character in various situations. He wanted to really understand how I achieved success and could I drive the kind of exceptional returns he expected from each investment. Since then I have experienced Ossama’s great insight into people, leadership, organization and business growth strategy. Even when we don’t agree I learn something valuable from every interaction. He is really unique in that he has experienced success in many settings and many cultures — U.S., Canada and Europe. This makes him the perfect advisor equally to startup companies expanding from Europe into the US, like mine or from the US into Europe. Ossama motivates people to set high goals and beat them. He can look at a complex situation and reduce it to the few, wise decisions needed to progress it. On top of all this he is a very principled and caring guy, which makes him the best of board members – both a friend and a mentor. I am looking forward to working with him for a long time.

Paul S. Rochester

Former CEO, PS’Soft

Voltaire's language does not lend itself to synthesis in order for me to be able to summarize our common history from the moment of your initial investment in LEA in December of the year 2000 till the day you negotiated at my side, with all the subtlety that is so characteristic of you, LEA's transaction with the HF COMPANY group in 2005. During the past 5 years, the young entrepreneur that I was, learned by following your sensible advice and by sharing your sharp sense of negotiation, to "think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."

The Venture Capital world is very broad; it is not easy to meet people who will be able to provide the enterprise with both the network that it badly needs for growth and the business acumen that is necessary to match the value of teams and their added value to the target market. Leading LEA over a period of 4 years towards a turnover of 50 million euros has given me the opportunity to gauge the power of your multinational culture as well as of your fearsome sense for "seamless closing." I truly believe that it is extremely rare to meet, in the financial world, a man like you, who combines the subtlety of his Arabic heritage, the all American business savvy, and the old European values. Your passionate sense of strategy, your leadership style and your ability to guide a company and its team to winning have, no doubt, helped scores of entrepreneurs like me achieve their ultimate goal of success.

Let me mention a few milestones that have marked our journey starting with the second round of financing of 10 million euros for LEA that you led in December 2000. Thanks to your sound advice, it turned out to be one of the 20 most important startup financing rounds in France. The great reputation that you enjoy in the VC world has given LEA the opportunity to conclude an impressive round of financing and to give reassurance to first round investors, making them massively re-invest in that second round. It is also through your initiative of the CEO FORUM meeting, sponsored by Newbury Ventures, that I was able to meet very important CEOs of multinational telecommunication companies who very rapidly became extremely important clients of LEA – hence guaranteeing our substantial growth. The strength of your international network has allowed us to maintain our exceptional growth and to rapidly validate the "value-add" strategies that were to represent significant commercial victories later on. Your perfect knowledge of the world of technological enterprise and of the difficulties and perils that go hand in hand with its growth has led you to appoint you a key person on the board of directors with the prerogative of validating our strategic and economic choices. Your reputation in the world of service providers has paved the way for us to penetrate certain markets that would have never been accessible to an average to small enterprise like LEA.

One last word to conclude this fresco of our friendly and professional relationship: I would like to emphasize your absolutely crucial impact on the selling of LEA to the HF COMPANY group. There too, your reputation in the world of telecommunications investors has reinforced the conviction of the buyer of the growth potential that we possess and the leadership potential of LEA both in the short and medium term.

It is certainly my sincere wish that, in the future, many entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to benefit from your presence for they will get to know a man who profoundly understands the meaning of taking a company from its venture phase to its pre and post IPO phases. The entrepreneur who is always on his own managing risk will surely benefit from getting reference points that can only come from the one that has already led multiple businesses to success, an undertaking that I hope you will continue to do so brilliantly.

Sincerely,

Eric Berthaud

CEO of HF Company

I have known and worked with Ossama Hassanein since 1997, getting particularly close after we together underwrote the financing of a company at a difficult period of its development as a private entity. That company, nCipher Plc, went on to raise over £100m in a late 2000 IPO on the London Stock Exchange and Ossama became a crucial pillar of support for the Company as its management came to grips with the realities of life in the public arena. Ossama manages to combine support for entrepreneurs and management teams with constructive, value-enhancing challenge and is able to bring a wealth of industry experience to bear at important tactical decision moments. Furthermore, Ossama would bring an invaluable international perspective to bear on any pre or post investment situation, rooted as he is the US, Continental Europe, the UK and the Middle East.

Finally, Ossama has been a delight to work with on a personal level. Although we have not always agreed on particular courses of action around the board table, I have always emerged from such encounters enriched by the experience and wiser for having engaged with an intellect of very considerable depth.

Richard Gourlay

Managing Director, Sussex Place Ventures

 

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Dr. Ossama Hassanein in Paris during due diligence prior to founding nCipher in 1996. On that occasion Ossama distinguished himself by demonstrating the breadth of his knowledge of the IT industry in Silicon Valley and the depth of his understanding of technology, including the obscure field of Cryptography. In the intervening years nothing has changed: Ossama remains one of the most insightful, measured and wise people that I have worked with. As the CEO first of a private and then of a public company, I know only too well the risk of isolation which can result from the complexities of managing a rapidly-growing business. In these situations the possibility of calling on a supportive Chairman for mentoring and support can make the difference between overcoming a problem and being overwhelmed by it. I have always felt that I could depend on Ossama’s support and that he was available to me whenever I needed him. Through these shared experiences we have built a great business together and we have also become personal friends. I am confident that he will continue to be a great success, and I am happy to recommend him and his expertise to entrepreneurs and investors alike.

Alex van Someren

Former CEO, nCipher

 

Dear Ossama,

I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed, and appreciated, working with you over the last few years. On top of the joy in my life from Newbury introducing me to Jackie, I have found your advice invaluable and your wisdom inspiring. I shall miss your presence at our board meetings but I am sure that we shall continue to see you frequently and will look forward to every occasion. Warmest regards.

Nicko van Someren

Former CTO, nCipher

 

Ossama, I just wanted to send you a note thanking you for the passion you brought to nCipher. And of course to wish you well and to thank you for what I have learnt from your excellent stewardship.

With my best regards,

Jamie Urquhart

Director, Former COO of ARM Holdings