Vincent Dufresne joined the firm at inception, being one of the four founders in 2005. After 15 years of successful growth and leadership in the industry, he leaves the firm conscious of the value built by the inception team and restful of the solidity of its current business model and developments. More specifically, he built the backbone of the firm in terms of information technology, human resources, financial management and administration, as well as its risk and compliance function and regulatory architecture.
“It has been an incredible experience to be part of this successful adventure, fulfilling professionally and satisfying in terms of the development impact we brought to our partners. I’m thankful to our passionate teams that made this possible. I will look forward as a shareholder to see the firm continue to thrive”, says Mr. Dufresne. “It is time for me to engage into a new challenge, with the satisfaction and certainty of this mission accomplished behind me.”
He will transition in the general management this summer with Sébastien Duquet who has joined the firm a year ago, as business development director, and who will grow into a new CIO position, covering in particular the investment strategy as well as the product strategy, governance and development.
Prior to joining Symbiotics, Sébastien Duquet was CEO of the Oxus microfinance network for two years, managing their financial restructuring, operational reorganization and strategic reorientation. Before that he was a part of the general management at responsAbility for seven years, running their French affiliate and sales efforts, supervising their Eastern European, Central Asia and MENA team, and part of their group strategic planning committee. Mr. Duquet also spent five years as general manager of Planet
Finance, supervising five affiliates, 26 representation offices, 200 staff, and pushing the group into market innovations. He started his career at Ernst & Young, spending a decade there, half of which as a bank auditor and the other half heading their corporate finance unit covering emerging market banks. “I am thrilled and honored by this new challenge which regroups much of the experience, competences and track record I have been able to build over the years”, says Sébastien Duquet. “I’m confident that we will achieve our current goals to deepen and diversify our client experience, grow our assets under management and innovate into new adjacent themes, such as listed impact bonds, unhedged forex strategies, as well as venture capital and green energy investments.”
