Two Belgians in one of the most promising tech company based in California.
TeleSign, a security and tech company with Headquarters in Marina del Rey, CA and a global presence has direct links with Belgium. Proximus, the national Belgian telecommunication operator in Belgium recently took 100% ownership of BICS (Belgacom International Carrier Services) making TeleSign equally owned at 100% by Proximus. With a Belgian footprint like this on the West Coast, we wanted to reach out to two Belgians working for TeleSign and based in the US since a few years. Guillaume Bourcy is Global Sr. Director based in Los Angeles and Bart Goethals is a Communication Product Expert based in San Francisco. Let’s discover their work in the heart of US technology world.
Hi Guillaume, Hi Bart,
Could you tell us how you landed in the U.S. and why that choice when you left Belgium?
Guillaume: After starting my career at BICS in 2005 in the sales department in Brussels, I was quickly involved in driving BICS sales strategy and GTM in the areas of Messaging and Enterprise Communications. In 2010 I recognized the emerging growth of the Application Messaging and Voice Communication (CPaaS) industry and developed and promoted the synergy between start-up companies serving this market and BICS. In late 2011, during an executive meeting, I submitted a business case having in mind to open offices on the West Coast to locally address large Enterprises and digital-native segments. To my surprise my business case was immediately accepted and our CEO at that time ended the meeting by “Congratulations, you are now moving to the US…”. I did not really expected such a swift decision but obviously I was pretty happy about it. After the excitement of the novelty — immigrating to the U.S. and new responsibilities, a lot of questions arise and the first one was, “how to announce that to my family”? Fortunately, my wife was my first supporter and helped to make that decision and announcement smooth and easy.
After a few years spent between New York — where our son was born- and the Bay Area, we moved to the West Coast. Indeed, the new organization I built was quickly scaling up -hiring both local and Belgian talents. We built a solid customer base with the Internet giants not only in US but also in EU and Asia, becoming a reference and alternative in the industry for Global Connectivity and Communications.
In 2016, along with others on the team, I proposed and co-led the acquisition of TeleSign by BICS. After the acquisition was announced in April 2017 and finalized in October, my family and I moved to Los Angeles so I could work closely with TeleSign’s executives to insure the successful integration of TeleSign and BICS. Today, I am proud to say that BICS adventure in the Bay Area was the genesis of our success in the digital segment and the epic story we are now writing with TeleSign.
Bart: In 2007 I started my career at BICS. Entering international telecommunications learning and growing as Service Engineer till Senior Team Lead. After completing and supporting the growth and the business needs of BICS in the support and operations area, I felt ready for a new challenge! Eventually I got selected to be the Technical Manager in a new office in San Francisco to steer and guide the Digital Service Providers or OTT companies from pre-sales to post-sales. Summer 2018 I got a call from a very special person for me: Are you ready to work in our team to serve the enterprise market? Yes, I am! So I transferred to TeleSign, the daughter company of BICS. Now I am responsible for helping our Sales community from a pre-sales point of view and building out the Americas Product Expert team for the communication products. Also on this professional journey I had the pleasure to meet my wife here in the States and have a handful of beautiful babies. Life is busy and beautiful!
Can you explain in a simple way how TeleSign is beneficial to a lot of people without knowing it? And if you can, cite a few famous customers?
Guillaume: TeleSign is key in people’s day-to-day digital and physical life in a sense that through a lot of services and offering we are powering the communication and authentication of 22 out of 25 of the largest web properties worldwide. We are enabling smooth onboarding, seamless communication experience and safeguarding the digital footprint of billions of end-users. A concrete example is how TeleSign is helping gig workers to keep their communication secure and anonymized on well-known delivery food and shared ride companies. We are also reshaping the way fintech enterprises -such as cryptocurrency wallets or the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) industry — are onboarding safely their new users, through the phone number as a safe anchor.
Your company is based in Los Angeles and more precisely on the “Silicon Beach”. The “Silicon Valley” has always been known around the world to host the most innovate tech companies so what is so special to the L.A. area eco-system?
Guillaume: From a business perspective, work cultures are different, but not as different as we could imagine. Since it may vary a lot between companies and not just regions (there is only a few hundred miles between both), it is dangerous to make sweeping generalizations. I would say when I arrived 9 years ago in US, Sillicon Valley culture praised workaholics, close to what Wall Street bankers were doing in the eighties, working +100 hours a week. Although over time and specifically in the tech industry, habits have changed driven by companies such Google and Facebook, both investing resources and money into a more comfortable work culture. Although it is still very pernicious as they are indirectly incentivizing their employees to live where they work by getting them early on campus for (free) breakfasts, and staying late for Michelin-star diners, not mentioning all the on-campus perks.
However, Silicon Beach vibe is more relax and diverse as a large part of the companies are not necessarily from the tech industry but also from Entertainment, Gaming and Services, making it very diverse. I have the feeling people are working fewer hours, overall, but probably being more productive during that time since they are less tired and more focused.
Bart: Silicon Valley I probably do not have to explain. Such a busy area, so many tech companies, startups, investment companies, the big giants like Google, Facebook and so many more… Pretty impressive once you have your first meetings in their offices. Even meetings with those startups trying to create the newest hypes is so fun! Not to forget that if you have a 1-hour meeting with Facebook in the afternoon it will cost you a half workday: driving too, meeting and driving back. Business in Silicon is timeless.
By far not at all comparable with what I was used to in Belgium.
Recent years I have the pleasure in working more often in Silicon Beach area, which I truly adore. Silicon Beach is growing rapidly. Ideas are bubbling in LA area and so do the rising startups and tech companies.
I would even dare to say that people tend to be ‘even’ more relaxed mentality wise. Possibly own to that amazing soft (and hot) climate they have over there.
A fun overall people fact is that in Silicon Valley it is not about the looks, in Silicon Beach it is about the looks. I assume this is inherited from the entertainment business, Hollywood, celebrities, …
Being owned by a Belgian company and operating in the U.S. (and worldwide), do you feel the Belgian touch in your daily activities? Are we still good in negotiations abroad?
Guillaume: As long I remember Bart and I working together we have bee always been speaking in English and then mixing “French-glish” and “Vlaams-glish” in our conversations making it really weird for American to follow them but bringing a nice personal touch. When it comes to negotiating, I believe there is a couple of strategies to adopt, you need to come with your Belgian baggage while also adopting US business codes and practices. Also, US are a large country with variety of cultures intermixing together. Negotiating with New-Yorkers will be different than dealing with Californians or Texans. This is where our Belgian nature, used to the art of compromise, helps.
Bart: French-glish and Vlaams-glish, I love it, sounds a bit Bel-American! As Belgian I do believe you have a good advantage touch to whatever you want to accomplish or negotiate. As long you learn and respect the American aspect of business code. Being in San Francisco area now for the last 6 years. Let me understand as well that I am proud to be Belgian. ‘Rooted in Belgium, grown in America!’.
We recently read that the CEO of Proximus, Guillaume Boutin declared that he wanted to make TeleSign a unicorn as soon as possible. Can you explain what a unicorn is and why this is so important for a Belgian company like Proximus?
Guillaume: When you read about unicorn startups, we usually talk about over one-billion-dollar valuation companies, however, this is just the beginning. There are plenty of companies worth a lot more than just one billion, some being “decacorns”. On the other hand, it is a big deal for Belgium as most unicorns are from China and the United States, who currently share the top of the list of the most “bankable” ones.
On TeleSign side, this shows we have a lot of talent and resources “made in Belgium” while a global expansion with the right strategy and a good dose of ambition are offering a lot of opportunities and perspectives for the future of Belgian start-ups.
Over the past year, our digital activity has increased dramatically, do you see an impact on your operations?
Guillaume: Our overall customer base has been growing over the last couple of years and accelerated through the pandemic. Indeed, a rapid demand for digitalization has pushed a lot of non-digital native companies to move towards innovative and edge-cutting solutions to address their end-users needs and preserve them from scams and attacks. While on the other side of the spectrum, digital-native companies have seen a huge surge of usage and a growing customer base forced towards these services due to the pandemic. An interesting Mckynsey analysis mentions that during the last 12 months of the pandemic digitization of customer interactions accelerated by 3–4 years. While on the other hand, global e-commerce transactions have increased by 20%. These numbers speak by themselves and really comfort us in the strategy we started a few years ago.
On technical and commercial levels, what would the most important milestones that will shape the future of a secure Digital Identity for all?
Guillaume: Ubiquity is really the key to success, being able to offer a turn-key identity solution that can be embedded in each of the merchants, market places, social networks, etc.. cores and risk engines. This will also require a lot of different actors to either work together or bring them together through consolidation. A few countries are building initiatives bringing identity to the cloud and this is where you can read about “Data Sovereignty” and how it might shape the future of how we will identify ourselves with governments and authorities. But you will also have a digital footprint that will be missing from that government overview and this is where new digital identity models will fill in the gap.
What is the first thing to do when you feel that you are a victim of an identity theft?
Guillaume: First thing first, I would change all my passwords, focusing first on accounts containing personal and financial information, this is critical. Second step is to alert your financial institution as well as credit bureaus. Then, as third step alert body authorities in charge of such theft — depending where, how and what type of info have been stolen (credentials/password, PII, financial data, etc..) you might need to address this to different type of entities (e.g. FCC, FTC, …)
On a personal note, what do you like the most in the U.S. and what are you missing from Belgium? Was the cultural adjustment a challenge for you?
Guillaume: Personally I think living in three major cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles over the last 9 years has been a really great experience, bringing great perspectives about cultural and social life, with a lot of changes during that period. Things are always fast and big wherever you go and that is a true vision of Americas, “go fast, no compromise”. On the other hand, what I am missing the most is a great bottle of wine at a decent price …
Bart: And next to that bottle of wine for Guillaume and for myself, please add ‘frit met mayonnaise en samourai’.
With a big smile I often travel back to Belgium, besides this pandemic of course. Being Belgian is in my blood but I just feels right to be here and do what I do. I love the freedom of living your life here on the West Coast.
Thank you Bart and Guillaume for sharing these insights with the Belgian community in the US.
Interview done in California, March 2021.
