Monthly Posts: March

Change

Change, whether related to the life of a person or evolution of a company, is perceived as a transformation that takes place that is visible and can be acknowledged by others as well. For Allevo, 2016 brought a lot of change, both good and bad and both foreseen and unforeseen.

Sorin

This article has a lot of potential to become personal, so I will start with Sorin, even though this may not be the correct chronological order of events. Sorin’s departure to a hopefully better place came as a shock to everyone. To us, the family he so much treasured and encouraged to always stick together for better and worse. A shock to the Allevo team which he always treated like his second family. A shock to his dear friends who he had shared so many fun times with and last, but not least, to everyone he had met and to everyone who he had worked with. The world now lacks an amazing person and he will be forever missed. Those who knew him or have been influenced by him I consider lucky. The only consolation anyone can have is that he left peacefully in his sleep without feeling a thing, just the way he always wished this would happen.

Allevo

Maybe Allevo is one of Sorin’s most outstanding achievements. Looking back, he created this company from scratch in 1994 together with 5 other lunatics (this is how he often used to refer to them). In 1998 he brought in a couple of other very close trusted friends whose professionalism and loyalty he valued. These were the founders of BIS, which later became Allevo. A company that grew on its own to about 55. It grew from no social capital to half a million euros, from no products or customers to qPayIntegrator and FinTP. The company gained a good portfolio of clients: banks, corporations, microfinance institutions, the State Treasury, insurance companies both in Romania and abroad, all on its own strength.

He was never alone in this adventure, he always kept close by his side his most trusted persons and he created an amazing team that shares the same set of values he invested in this initiative. This team has proven many times around to be capable of overcoming difficult times. It is a team that acts responsibly and fully in line with the business culture implemented at Allevo.

The succession plan

Several years ago, Sorin started the so-called “succession plan”. Not many people took him seriously at the time, but, stubborn as he was, he managed to convince managers it is a good idea to form people able to replace them in a couple of years’ time. He walked the talk and lead by example, choosing three persons to incubate and prepare to take over the role of Allevo CEO. His plan was to retire and spend more time at Poiana Marului, reading books on the porch, enjoying the crisp air the mountains were to offer.

New board, new CEO

A big change for Allevo was naming a new board of directors, led by a new CEO, Corina Mihalache, a new supervisory structure where Sorin took the seat of the President. The supervisors would focus on strategic projects, would advise the board on key matters, and would be responsible for attracting investment in FinTP and other Allevo projects. This was a big move, as it was the first step in proving Allevo functions perfectly well without Sorin’s presence in every administrative task.

The next CEO

As of March 1^st 2016 Sorina Bera, one of the three people involved in the succession plan, was named Allevo CEO and she started this mission with a lot of enthusiasm and dedication. Although her start is not as easy as it could have been if Sorin were still around, we know she is perfectly capable of sticking to the plan and of keeping Allevo on course for further growth and good customer service.

Plans for the future

Although this post is darkened by Sorin’s departure, all other changes mentioned above are proven to have been wisely chosen, almost as if this was the entire plan all along. It is very weird when looking back to see how right he was about the need to make the company independent of him. And to make sure that each individual department can carry out their part of the mission, without having the main shareholder and founder of Allevo push them from behind. He knew and trusted this team not only to survive, but to be able to work in such a way that it can adapt, produce, be efficient, scale and grow no matter what. This is Allevo and his most important legacy.

Plans for now remain the ones already set at the beginning of 2016, but I feel the need to outline a couple of these:

• Keep the management structure intact.
• Deliver projects to our customers on time and with a deep focus on quality.
• Continue to train the team to maintain and grow the level of expertise in the company by certifying both people and products on several tracks with our main partners: SWIFT, Microsoft, IBM and ORACLE. The first planned competence is SWIFT Technical Specialist.
• Continue to participate at relevant industry events: Money 2020 Copenhagen, Oxygen Events – Digital Banking, EBAday Milan, Sibos Geneva, SWIFT Business Forum Romania etc.
• Strengthen business partnerships with Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SWIFT and build new ones.
• Obtain financing for Allevo strategic projects, BOOST and TOSS.
• Continue focusing on the succession plan adopted by the current board.
• Plan new developments for FinTP.
• Organize Allevo events, starting with the 28^th FinTP User Group meeting – mid or end of May.

That being said, I have deep feelings for all those who are standing by us in these difficult times. I ask you to believe in us and our capability to continue Allevo’s activity as planned. On behalf of the Guiman family and of the entire Allevo team, I address a very warm thank you note to all of you who have been close in these last couple of difficult weeks.

We will not let you down.