Frederic John

Tell us about your career prior to your studies

I’m from Belgium and studied business engineering at university then worked for Deloitte in financial consulting in Brussels.  I joined Deloitte as a Junior Consultant where the aim of the role was to improve financial processes within organisations.  I found that Deloitte was a great school to learn in as I developed my career. The teams you work with are international and smart and you have to work with senior clients of large organisations early on your career. However the challenge was that there were a lot of layers to get through to reach the top at Deloitte. That said I can only recommend a career in Deloitte.

I’ve always been sensitive to environmental issues but as a financial consultant it wasn’t a core part of the role. That was why I chose to do the MBA at Imperial with it’s focus on sustainability. I also did an MBA to fast track my career.

How did you develop your career both during your studying and afterwards?

I invested a lot of time during my MBA to networking. London is a place where top professionals and all the top companies have a presence. I met a lot of people and deliberately developed my professional opinion based on others insights. Networking was one of the most valuable things I did, It was never a waste of time and all the coffees I had and bought were a great investment.

I gathered expertise from my network. I developed open mindedness as I was exposed to so many different influences and insights. I realised that in Brussels I had a fairly narrow view but I was exposed to so many elements at Imperial College. Imperial College has a pool of outstanding students so I recommend talking to students in other departments such as engineering and medical students. I talked to future doctors, worked with them on a project and am still in touch now.

During the MBA I attended a number of events. The value was all the tickets I got for free through the business school was over £10k I calculated. I went to conferences to listen to speakers, mainly in the sustainability space. I also got involved with the enterprise lab, I liked innovation so that was a useful investment of my time.

I also spoke to the careers team a lot during my MBA. You need to prepare when meeting with them to really get value from the session and I tried to make the most of them.  I am forever grateful to Andreia Ferreira, my Careers Consultant, who was a tremendous influence on my career. She was very patient with me but was so supportive and a huge help.

How has your career developed since leaving the programme?

The original motivation was to get close to environmental issues. I also love planes, cars, boats, anything that moves. Combining both of those two passions I took a role as a mobility consultant at  Neckermann Strategic Advisors in London. I found this job through a coffee chat with my future boss whilst studying. I worked there for a few years and it really gave me a helicopter view of how organisations work and function.

However after a few years I wanted to move to the environmental rather than just the sustainability space. My position at Neckermann was flexible so I was able to work on the side on my current project – D-Carbonize with my business partner who I met through an online networking event during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together we realised that companies needed a dashboard to help clients understand how to use reduce their carbon footprint right across their businesses.

D-Carbonize was launched in August 2021 in Brussels and we now have are up to 100 customers and are now a team of 20 people working in 12 different countries and it’s going so well. We are just at the beginning of the journey and I know that I’m making a huge difference to society – making decarbonisation easy so any company can do it.

It was a leap of faith to launch my own business. It was tough emotionally and physically initially as I developed the business outside of working hours, during the mornings, evenings and weekends. It was really intense but it was also exciting. It’s your baby, you are building your own thing. In order to know when to go full time on it you have a few positive signs and then take a risk and go for it. Our positive signs were we had a few investors who would support the business initially but it was still a risk to do it. I don’t regret taking that risk now, I am making a difference in climate change. There is still some nostalgia about working for a larger organisation, I loved London, Imperial College and Neckermann but it was the right move for me.

What advice do you have for others to develop their career?

Throughout your career don’t be shy, explore new paths, speak to people, go to events, get out of your comfort zone. It’s never fun asking for 10 mins of peoples time but that got me a job in London and then helped me build D-Carbonize. I realised too late in my MBA how important someone’s network is in building their career. It’s also helpful to find something you love and are passionate about, you spend a lot of time at work. I was amazed at how open people were to giving me 30 mins of their time and I utilised my Imperial college email address which really helped open doors. As a student or recent alumni you have nothing to sell so when you send a message you are genuinely interested in the role.  Now when I reach out to people they think I have something to sell!

I also wanted to thank Imperial College Business School. I still use the institution to connect with people and the Alumni team have been hugely helpful. I would recommend anyone graduating to continue to leverage the services available both through the Careers and Alumni teams.

I’m also looking for senior consultants at the moment so I’m looking at French and English speakers so if any one is interested they can find out more at www.D-Carbonize.eu