An Ironwoman in Seattle Alternating Executive Responsibilities and Academic Duties
In 2012, at the age of 20, together with two friends, she founded Hear and Know, a startup that produces an innovative geolocalization system that does not need a GPS signal. Today, after a degree in economics and management at Bocconi ("Because the group needed that someone studied economics") and a master of science in financial engineering in France, Claire Lelièvre has become the CFO of the company she started. Having moved to Seattle a year ago, she is now Bocconi Alumni's chapter leader of Bocconi for the Seattle area, one of America's proverbial technology hubs.
➜ So you chose Bocconi because the company you started needed the expertise you could get here?
Yes, we had already created the company, but the other co-founders were an engineer and an army general, so someone had to get training in business and management. I decided to fly to Italy from France, where I was born and did my high school studies before enrolling at Bocconi. After my Bachelor's degree I returned to Paris, where our company is based, and specialized in financial innovation.
In the meantime, your company really took off..
In 2016, we won the silver medal at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the Academy Awards of the digital industry, which awarded the company a year of business acceleration in San Francisco. I moved to the United States and I've stayed there since. I have been living in Seattle for a year and my life is spent between the US and Europe: I work part-time for our company as CFO, and I teach entrepreneurship to university students the rest of the time. I hold classes at the University of Virginia, the University of Calgary, and the Pôle Universitaire Leonard de Vinci in Paris. Regarding Hear and Know, the company now has 15 employees.
➜ What is your core business?
A geotracking system that does not need a GPS signal, but uses for all the other air signals available for triangulation, from radio to wifi and bluetooth. Consequently, it is much more precise and does not suffer the limitations of the satellite signal, for example in closed or underground environments. At the moment, we are collaborating with the military sector, as well as the logistics industry. Among our partners are big companies such as IBM and Air France.
➜ Will you continue to alternate business and teaching?
I'm attending a data science course at IBM, because it's functional to our business. However, thinking over the long term, I wouldn't mind if academia became my main profession.
➜ You are also an athlete..
Yes, when I was in Italy, I ran the Milano marathon and now I'm getting ready for Ironman 70.3: they call it "the half-Ironman", but it's still 1.9 km of swimming, 90 km riding the bicycle, and half-a-marathon worth of running.
➜ And, as if your CV weren't outstanding enough, you have recently become chapter leader of the Bocconi Alumni Community in Seattle.
We are working hard to aggregate the alumni base. We would like to organize events that focus on what's hot for the tech industry here in Seattle: AI, blockchain, and digital innovation in general.