Meet the Member: Olivier Attia, CEO, Gershon Consulting

In our latest Meet the Member feature, we spoke with Olivier Attia, CEO at Gershon Consulting.

Gershon Consulting offers businesses “one-stop” shopping with turnkey comprehensive solutions, as well as customizable media and branding programs and access to tailored strategic partnerships. Led by Olivier Attia, the Gershon Consulting team has extensive experience and a proven track record taking businesses to the next level - on both sides of the Atlantic. Gershon Consulting executives possess the desire and the “know-how” to facilitate and add value to a wide range of businesses.

Keep reading to learn more about Gershon Consulting as well as Olivier Attia’s extensive experience in consulting and entrepreneurship around the world.

FACC: Gershon Consulting works with law firms, accounting firms, government organizations, PR agencies, airlines, banks and more partners to help their clients expand in the U.S. market. Before making these connections, what does your initial discovery phase resemble? How do you assure that you fully understand their needs, if as a new actor to the market, they may not fully understand them themselves?

OA: This is an excellent question. We set up a process flow to help our clients understand what needs to be done and what we can do for them with our partners. The process is described at www.aboutgershon.com. More specifically, we always start the expansion project with a complete market research analysis of the market opportunity for our new clients. Description of this service is fully described at https://www.gershonconsulting.com/what-we-do/. I don't remember one client that did not learn something substantial from this first analysis.

FACC: Can you tell us a bit more about your background in France and the US?

OA: My complete bio is available at https://www.crunchbase.com/person/olivier-attia. I spent 3 years at Atos and 4 years at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Mexico, New York and Paris and then spent the rest of my career as CEO of 3 technology companies in New York and Los Angeles. 25 years of dual experience in consulting and entrepreneurship.

FACC: How long have you been operating and what quality or service makes you a trusted business partner?

OA: Gershon Consulting was set up in January 2013 right after CES 2013 in Las Vegas. I participated to 14 seasons of CES (Consumer Electronic Trade show) and understood then how important it was to bridge the cultural gaps of doing business in the US when you are a European technology company. Leveraging my 22 years of US experiences, I was joined then by seasonal consultants all experienced in consulting and entrepreneurship.

FACC: You work with companies in technology, service, retail and industrial sectors. Does your process change based on the field of your client?

OA: You will be surprised to know that the process is usually the same even if the details are very often completely different. Since we are learning extensively from our market research analysis and are preparing the business plans for our clients for immigration purposes, we can customize our process and expertise to their needs and market. All companies turn around 3 words: Create, Manage and Sell. We make sure to understand the product and services (the Create), we offer our recommendation to the processes (the Manage) and we focus on the selling side of the business in the US (the Sell). It includes support to the Communication, Marketing, Business development and Sales departments.

FACC: What are your plans to grow Gershon Consulting over the rest of 2019?

OA: Until now, the company was growing organically. We doubled in employees, clients and revenues every year since 2013. With over 100 clients, we have today a pretty good understanding of the requirements to expand a European business in the US. We were focused on the technology related opportunities; we became experts also in supporting Retail products and Industrial acquisitions. Next steps are focus on Franchise supports and expending our services to other European companies looking for the same supports in Germany, UK and Spain to enter the US market. 

FACC: How did you hear about the French-American Chamber of Commerce?

OA: We are bridging the gap between France and USA, FACC was impossible to miss. We are extremely happy to be part of the French American ecosystem. 

Interested in connecting with Olivier? Log into the FACC Member Directory to send him a message.