CITD Seminar - Doing Business in Europe

Europe is the USA’s most important trade partner and export market, and with 10 more countries recently joining the European Economic Union the stability and wealth of this region continues to increase. However Europe is not as homogeneous as the US, and it’s wise to look at each individual country as a separate export target market. Even the UK, a favored starting point with US companies because of a similar language and culture has differences in legal structures and ways of doing business. This seminar will address some of these issues and provide guidance in doing business in Europe.

This seminar is one of a nine-part seminar series on international business and is supported by the US Department of Commerce and the Small Business Association.

Click on the highlighted links for the presentation download.

Date: Tue September 21st 2004
Location: USDoC, 250 Montgomery Street, 14th floor, San Francisco CA 94104
Time 8:45 am - 1:00 pm

08:45 - 09:15 Registration and Networking
09:15 - 09:25 Keith Rayner, Kemarra Inc. - Overview of Europe, the EEC and EMU
09:25 - 10:20 Jacques Putzeys, Fred Nurski, company N2Euro – Doing Business and Finding Funding in Europe - financing in Europe, corporate structuring and investor relations, building a team of locally based entrepreneur-managers opening doors to strategic accounts and building the best sales channels
10:20 - 11:00 John Gosch, company the IronBridge Group- Doing Business in Europe, Accounting - international accounting strategies and tactics
11:00 - 11:30 break
11:30 - 12:15 Rupert Vernalls, company Osborne Clarke - Doing Business in Europe, Legal Issues - strategies for the legal/tax structuring of European operations and contracts, and practical examples of what works when forming partner relationships in certain European countries and what doesn't
12:15 - 12:30 Panel discussions and questions
12:30 - 13:00 Networking

The panel moderator will be Keith Rayner of Kemarra, Inc.

Biographies

Jacques Putzeys
Jacques Putzeys is a Monaco based consultant specialising in advisory work on corporate finance and financial markets. He is the former CEO and co-founder of Easdaq (now Nasdaq Europe). At Easdaq he pioneered the creation of a first European cross border stock exchange and worked very closely with all the companies listed to help them through the huge task of their IPO and this between 1994 and 1999. Before starting up and managing this pan-European stock exchange he was a commercial banker both in Brussels and New York. In New York he started and subsequently managed the New York branch of FORTIS bank and in Brussels he was President of Bank Nagelmaeckers. He started his career with KPMG in the audit department and has a degree in Business administration from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Freddy Nurski
Freddy Nurski has more than 25 years experience in general management, consultancy, sales and account management in international service companies like Arthur Andersen Consulting, General Electric, ISS and S1. As an independent consultant, he took on VP roles in several technology companies to integrate acquisitions and to operationalize alliances including Clear2Pay, Tectrade and Selligent. As Head of European Sales and VP Strategic Alliances, he has been responsible for the commercial integration of S1's European acquisition of FICS and for the set-up of S1's direct and indirect sales channels across EMEA. Prior to S1 he spent 2 years with ISS Europe as a Director Sales & Marketing, where he introduced internet and intranet technology, as well as a CRM supported international key account management program. This international experience has been acquired during his 13 years with technology company GE Information Services as Managing Director European Key Accounts and member of GE ISS European Executive Management team. He is a member of the exclusive "10 Years President's Club ". Freddy Nurski has a degree in Business administration from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

John Gosch CPA
John focuses on domestic and international businesses, and provides tax compliance and planning services for individuals and companies. He also specializes in employee stock option accounting.
John served as group and division controller for a Fortune 200 company both domestically and overseas (NYSE: Avery Dennison). He also was a CFO with emerging companies (Magnetic Transit of America and Bowne Global Solutions) and participated in the IPO of an advanced technology firm (NasdaqNM: Digital Insight.) John has over 20 years of experience and started his career on the audit staff with Ernst & Whinney in New York City. In addition, he has a significant international background and is fluent in both German and French.
John is a member of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He obtained his MBA from the Pennsylvania State University and his BS from Lehigh University; he is a CPA in California and Pennsylvania. John is also NASD Series 66 and 7 licensed.

Rupert Vernalls
Rupert Vernalls heads up Osborne Clarke's technology services in the Palo Alto office in Silicon Valley, California. Working as an English lawyer, his practice focuses on counseling North American businesses with their European establishment/outward investment issues, or advising when US-based companies have business transactions or legal issues in Europe. Rupert provides specialist advice on the ground in California and coordinates specific local advice from Osborne Clarke's European offices, acting as the hub for numerous multi-jurisdictional technology transactions. Rupert has an MSc in Intellectual Property Law and a degree in computer science and, before qualifying in England as a lawyer, worked as a software engineer. Prior to joining Osborne Clarke in September 2002, Rupert worked in the intellectual property department of Vodafone Group Plc as one of two intellectual property lawyers. Rupert was short-listed by the respected Chambers and Partners publication for an award as one of the lawyers most likely to succeed in the era of global communications.
Before moving to Silicon Valley Rupert worked in Osborne Clarke's technology team in Bristol where his work included advising on all aspects of intellectual property, information technology, e-commerce and privacy as well as more general commercial matters

Company Osborne Clarke
Osborne Clarke is a European Law firm with over 650 lawyers in 16 European cities and an office in Palo Alto. Osborne Clarke has assisted over 500 international businesses establish their European bases and provides responsive cost-effective European legal advice on the complete range of business legal services from choice of jurisdiction, stock options and the right corporate optimum tax structure to terms of business, hiring employees and protecting IPR. Being based in Silicon Valley means Osborne Clarke are better able to provide the European access and round-the-clock service that the technology sector, in particular, and its legal services providers want.

Keith Rayner , Kemarra Inc.
Keith Rayner is Managing Director of Kemarra Inc, an international business development consultancy specializing in the ICT and Life Sciences sectors. The company represents both US companies wishing to expand abroad, and foreign companies wishing to establish themselves in the US. The company is based in San Francisco, next to Silicon Valley, and is ideally situated to help companies establish themselves in this important high-tech region. Kemarra also works with its network of international partners to ensure the success of US companies in their move abroad.
Mr. Rayner started his international career in London, working on the commodity and stock markets. A move abroad to New York saw consultancy work on Wall Street with Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Citibank. He then broadened his international experience with four years in Berlin, Germany, and five years in Paris, France, consulting for a number of companies in the financial and IT sectors. With fluency in both German and French, he then represented a US software product company in sales and marketing to European multinational telecommunication companies, overseeing a number of projects in different countries. Keith then returned to the US, transitioning full-time to product marketing for several US software firms.
As founder of Kemarra Inc. Mr Rayner is keenly aware of the factors that determine the success of a move into a new market abroad, and can help companies avoid many of the pitfalls that await the unwary.
Keith has a BSc in Psychology from Reading University in the UK, a Diploma in Medical Sciences from the University of Central England, and the "Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom", specialist subject Economics, from the Goethe Institute in Germany. Kemarra Inc. can be found at www.kemarra.com.