To promote and share those values, which are key to entrepreneurship and innovation, the bank has for nine years now been organising its “Doers & Thinkers” lecture. Guest speakers are either “doers”, leading figures from the business community, or “thinkers”, from the academic or research sphere. Following last November’s talk by Jörg Reckhenrich, a figure on the Berlin art scene, BGL BNP Paribas is now welcoming the young Dutch entrepreneur Danny Meki?.

“If you’re not actively disrupting your world, somebody else is!”

Danny Meki? is part of the “Y” Generation that grew up in the world of IT/ICT, globalisation, instant communication and powerful collaborative energy. He set up his own web business at the age of just 15 and is now a serial entrepreneur and a successful consultant, sought after by major international companies looking to reinvent. For Danny, this last process cannot be achieved by merely developing business in a linear fashion or by sticking to the traditional ideas of growth and market share. He believes in the very different approach of disruptive thinking, as the societal systems created after the industrial revolution became outdated and are more and more challenged by the exponential development of new technologies. A number of major players failing to do so may well be overtaken by more agile and faster newcomers more able to think outside the box.

Danny Meki? confirms the approach of BGL BNP Paribas, which just over two years ago launched the lux future lab to support this entrepreneurial spirit that drives the Luxembourg economy. On its entrepreneurial platform – a company incubator – the lux future lab today groups 15 start-ups having created 165 jobs in fields as varied as IT/ICT, electronic money, the social media, etc.

Commenting, Carlo Thill, Country Head and Chairman of the BGL BNP Paribas Management Board, said: “The vitality created by these young entrepreneurs from Luxembourg, France, the USA, Israel, Italy, India and the Scandinavian countries brings with it new energies that are important for the economic momentum of our country as well as thinking on the adaptation to change that all large companies need to do.”