Never Say Sell

CHAPTER 7The Challenge of Introducing Your Colleagues

As an elementary school student in Paris, Thierry Chassaing loved three things: chorale, soccer, and mathematics.

I went to Sainte-Croix de Neuilly, a small diocesan school just a little west of the Arc de Triomphe. My father was a commercial executive in an advertising company, and the school was near where we lived.

Housed in a beautiful nineteenth-century four-story building adorned with gables and blue shutters, the school set Thierry on a path along which he has been walking for more than 50 years.

Football continues to be a passion of mine. I can't help but root for Paris Saint-Germain and bleed blue and red. I still love choral singing, especially anything by Bach, and mathematics became my academic concentration. I like finding harmony and order in complexity. Both Bach and mathematics feed that in me.

Today, Thierry runs worldwide marketing for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) out of their Washington, DC offices as a managing director and senior partner.

French people like Washington, DC. George Washington commissioned Pierre Charles L'Enfant to plan the new federal city. I feel very at home in a city designed by a Frenchman.

Sitting down with Thierry, he points to the importance of being able to leverage colleagues in client relationships that you have personally originated.

You hear junior people in our firm talk about looking for new opportunities to help inside a client, and that is important. Equally important, ...