The manager: John Wirth
The job: Founder and member of the board
The Company:  Hild Asset Ltd
Nationality: US

In breif: After developing the company in Hungary, Wirth's role is as its chief marketing officer and oversight of the expansion of the company into new markets.

The Background:  Chicago-born Wirth has 15 years management experience working with startups and corporate ventures. A US citizen who has lived and worked in Europe, North America and Latin America, he speaks English and French. He has a BA from Vanderbilt University and an MBA in corporate strategy and finance from Cornell University's John Graduate School of Management. As the founder, chief marketing officer and member of the board of Hild Asset Ltd, a pensioner services company headquartered in Budapest, Wirth authored the business plan, grew the company from concept to full operational capability, and in 2005 led the closing of a Deutsche Bank-led financing, one of the largest Series A venture capital investments in Hungary to date. Prior to founding Hild, Wirth was a USAID country economic adviser, helping fast-growth Croatian startups manage regional expansion, capability development and fundraising. As a venture manager with GorillaPark, Europe's leading technology incubator and seed-stage investor, he assessed investment opportunities and worked hands-on with multiple early-stage technology companies. While specialising in corporate venturing as a manager with Andersen Consulting's Strategic Services Practice, Wirth co-authored the business plans and launch strategies for Fortune 500 company-initiated ventures, including successes Silent Runner and Exostar.
The company: Hild Group
Set up in Hungary in 2004, Hild launched in early 2005 a product designed for pensioners that enables them to get access to finance on the basis of their fixed property. John Wirth is its founder and a board member, and Hild's chairman is Geoffrey Woolley.  Woolley is the founder and chairman and of European Venture Partners, a venture capital fund, and a number of US-based funds including Dominion Ventures. Deutsche Bank has backed Hild's project for pensioners in Hungary while Hild's expansion into Bulgaria, Romania and elsewhere in the region is being backed by Merrill Lynch.

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By the age of 37, many people have abandoned their ideals, or allowed them to be compromised or at least diluted.

Yet, when John Wirth speaks, the words "honesty", "transparency" and "ethics" figure often when he is talking about the way to do business.

It is true that he is in a field where a client must believe that trust is worth bestowing, or will not be a client at all. Yet, when Wirth speaks of those influences that have formed his approach to doing business, it seems clear that the values about which he speaks are enshrined out of more than mere self-interest. Following a formula tested in Hungary, Wirth is embarking on a venture in Bulgaria centred on a method of giving pensioners access to finance, and few would disagree that it is especially true in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe that pensioners have more reason to incline towards suspicion and skepticism than towards trust. In these parts, someone in their "golden years", a term that can be bitterly ironic in this region, will have seen economic and political systems rise and crumble, and along with this, probably their savings and perhaps their dreams will have crumbled too.

"Dreams" is another important word in Wirth's lexicon. He speaks of helping pensioners fulfil their dreams, against the vision of our contemporary world that associates life dreams only with the young, in the assumption that the old will have allowed their dreams to be dessicated by long reality. He had a dream too, formed in his earlier years, of having his own business, in this region, before the age of 40.

So to begin this tale, back in the days of inspiration, and the shaping of the John Wirth of April 2007.

The person who has been a particular inspiration to him, he says, is Geoff Woolley, a personal friend long before becoming chairman of Hild. "We were neighbours in Boston and I got to know him as a person before I got to know him as a professional. The reason why I invited him into the business, because I am the founder, was his very strong personal ethics and a very strong social focus. To give you an example, he's in his mid-40s right now and already very successful and could retire, but he is spending half of his time, if not more, on socially orientated ventures. My company aside, he's currently the chairman of the business school of the University of Utah, he is on the board of directors of Unitas, which is one of the world's leading non-profit organisations, which helps to foster micro-lending institutions in India, giving very small loans of 100 to 200 euro to women so that they can raise themselves out of poverty, and all of this is for no salary. I think that his approach to business has been a very good guide to me, and is part of why I brought him in, but also he is very smart, very intelligent, very consumer-focused in terms of understanding consumer's needs, and on consumer service, but very focused on doing business honestly. Over the years, you see people trying to grow businesses; Geoff and I believe in doing the right thing; people may believe that the little guy can never win, but I believe in the long term that they do. His conviction has helped keep me strong through the difficult days of keeping the company going."

This outlook, says Wirth, is also in line with his own background as a US army officer.

"The whole idea of serving society, giving back, living with honour."

Wirth was a ROTC officer at university, and after graduating from Vanderbilt University, was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He went on active duty for four years, serving in Germany and in Macedonia. In 1993, on arrival in Germany, he was told to expect to be posted within weeks to Bosnia. While this deployment did not come about, he was given the task of deploying his unit to Macedonia for peacekeeping duties along the border with Serbia.

"That experience really formed a lot about how I see leadership and what I look for in people."

Rather than clambering up on his officer's bars to shout at his subordinates, Wirth, then 23, chose to take the counsel of his second-in-command, a 35-year-old NCO with 18 years experience in the military. For himself, Wirth retained the prerogative to make decisions, after due consultation.

"The military was a difficult path of life, but it was a fantastic learning ground for leadership, and for what I would call selfless leadership."

It is put to him that it is debatable to what extent top-down military-style leadership is appropriate to modern private enterprise.

"When I was in the military, there were officers who were successful and there were those who were not so successful. I reserved my rank for times when, let's say, emergencies. It was my job to make the decisions. The military does have a lot of stereotypes, but my experience was different. Not only did I have the opportunity to lead and, let's say, leverage my personality. To build my credibility among my soldiers. You're given the rank, but you have to earn respect. That's one thing that people in the military, but also in business, tend to forget. It is quite natural for people to look at the privileges and the benefits associated with their rank and their position, but not to look at the obligations and the responsibilities. And not to assume that people will respect them simply because of their rank, of their position."

(As an aside, it may be added that Wirth's stated approach is probably the most appropriate for junior commissioned officers. In various wars, bombastic subalterns have paid the price of beating all beneath them with their pips. Sometimes, from World War 1 through to Vietnam and beyond, the consequences for such officers have been fatal, on occasion taking the form of bullet wounds in the back. This is how the term "fragged" entered the vocabulary of US English in the 1960s.)

Wirth pays tribute to his two successive superior officers, who gave him the leeway to command as he saw fit; what in civilian life is termed "management style". The second of these two officers, Wirth says, was the best manager he has ever had, in military and in civilian life.

Back to the corporate civilian world. "Geoff is very accomplished, but always in working together, he has to earn and retain my respect. If not, we can't work together. It is the same approach that I take with my people, where, although it is not always possible, I try to always be the one to arrive the earliest and to leave the latest. I try to make it very clear that I am the one who is working the hardest. Back to the military - lead from the front."

The military introduced him to the Balkans and to the region of South Eastern Europe.

"Even back in 1995 when I was still in the military and applying to business schools for my MBA, I knew that I wanted to come back to the region and to start my own company. I wanted by the age of 40 to be in this region and to have my own company. I didn't know quite how to get there. That is one the reasons why I chose Cornell, where I had a scholarship focusing on the region. I had internships lined up, both in Romania and in Hungary. At that time, 1997, I wasn't able to identify anything in Bulgaria. As a first year, you usually do an internship, and just to make sure that people would know who I was for the following unding year for full-time employment, I interviewed for a couple of companies and got a position in strategy consulting. Given that I had some military experience, and wanted to have some corporate validation on my resume, and that what they paid me in a month was double what I would have been paid in Romania or Hungary, I decided to go for the experience of consultancy."

He spent a few years doing strategy consulting, and then specialised in corporate spinoffs.

"Working with companies in the US and in Latin America, I was helping large corporations with a new product or new service to commercialise the opportunity."

From there, one of his main goals to start up a company and to get back into Europe.

"As an American, it is quite difficult to get a job in the local European markets. It is one thing to be sent over on a nice rich expat package, but I was, let's say, a little bit impatient and didn't want to spend 10 years waiting, and I wanted to take control of my life rather than spend it at the whim of some large corporation."

Based on his experience and education, and the value accorded him as an given his experience launching new companies in American, he was given a position in early-stage venture capital in London. "I was assessing business teams, business plans, market opportunities, and making investment decisions to go ahead, and helping to grow the team to the next round of financing."

That got him back to Europe, and closer to starting his own business, "but it wasn't in the region where I wanted to be".

He had developed a fascination, even though in spite of the good quality of his school and university education in the US, little had been conveyed about the terra incognita beyond the Iron Curtain.

"The history here is so rich. The culture is so rich. I think that Western Europe truly has an obligation, because these countries of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, if it weren't for them, the Ottomans would have been in Paris. Western Europe would have been completely different. Also, given all the change, this is really the land of opportunity right now."

He found similar work in Croatia, working with small and medium-sized companies in helping them to develop and to get funding. While he was based in Zagreb, he looked at various business opportunities. "I did the basic due diligence on everything from introducing coin-operated laundromats to buying out a naval shipyard from the Croatian government to turn into a yachting marina."

He smiles. "For a variety of reasons, those obviously didn't take off. But they say every entrepreneur tries a few things before he finds the right one."

It was in Zagreb that he first developed an awareness of the situation facing pensioners in Central and Eastern Europe.

"Very low pensions, very limited savings; given what they have experienced and contributed, not getting what they have earned and what they deserve."

Wirth started working through various models. "The whole field of equity release is very established in America, and to a lesser extent in some several European countries. I started to look at various ways to address it. And to address, as many people are doing, the fastest growing demographic in Europe. I saw it as a growing opportunity."

There was a further important dimension. "When I working in venture capital, it was great to know that I was being successful, there were great challenges, and that, intellectually, I was learning a lot. But at the end of the day, I felt empty. What I am I doing here? What I am I doing for society? It may be the way that my parents raised me, and the military enhancing that, but I really felt empty without feeling that there was something else that I was giving."

Wirth says that what he really likes about what his company is doing now is that, indeed it is exciting and a new market and is backed by major players, "but at the same time we are doing something where we are actually helping people".

He emphasises that the corporate social responsibility is not an afterthought but is core to the business.

After studying various models for the proposed enterprise, he decided to move to Budapest. The Hungarian capital city, he says, has the largest concentration of pensioners in Central and Eastern Europe. Further, in 2003 when he was working on what was still at the idea stage, Hungary was poised to join the European Union.

"From my perspective as an investor, I knew that it would be much easier to bring money into Hungary than into Croatia or even Romania or Bulgaria."

He examined all aspects, including the property market and at any products being offered to pensioners at that stage.

"It came out that the banks and insurance companies were doing nothing, in effect. There was so much more in the market to focus on. The government had been offering some kind of initiatives to help pensioners, but not really large scale. The only people `doing anything' for pensioners were what the Hungarians refer to as the `property mafia' - ill-intended individuals who were using a variety of different contracts, and means of deception, to take advantage of pensioners. So, I faced a very large market with a potential need that had no one fulfilling that need. The only ones who were, were the wrong variety."

He put together a business plan and investor presentation. Before presenting these, he spoke to Woolley. Instantly, his friend, whose experience includes development of companies for more than two decades and who started a sub-sector of venture capital called venture leasing and who came to Europe in 1999 with Venture Partners, now based in several capitals, agreed.

Seed financing was found. Deutsche Bank came aboard as an initial investor in 2005, the year contracting started.

"In 2006 and this year we have been concentrating on growing the business. We are now in three cities in Hungary. The goal is to expand to a further 10 in Hungary this year. And now we are entering Bulgaria and Romania." There is a staff of about 65 in Hungary.

There were a number of factors that prompted the Bulgaria move. One was EU accession. Another was the series of protests by pensioners (the campaign in Sofia, running for several weeks, features weekly Thursday protests outside Alexander Nevski cathedral) about the meagre allocation allowed them by the state.

"Initially, we were thinking about going to Romania first. But we have been doing media monitoring and it was overwhelming how much of an outcry there has been among pensioners for support. There is just such a need right now, we decided to leapfrog Romania and make Bulgaria our first market."

He says that he is aware of rumours that some banks and other financial institutions are looking at products catering for pensioners. "It is clear that there is a need and that pensioners are looking for support. We are creating an option for them. If the government or other financial institutions also create options, that's great."

Wirth says that his company was successful in Hungary and was quickly copied by banks.

"But our portfolio shows that we have been four to six times more successful than our nearest competitor, which is a very large bank in Hungary."

The reason, he says, is that such a product would be just an addition for any bank, while his company is devoted to catering for pensioners.

"It is not easy working with pensioners. It is very fulfilling, but it is not easy. They are demanding. You need to customise your whole approach. It will be interesting to see what happens here, but I am comfortable that our approach should prove successful."

So how does it work?

"A pensioner contracts with us, and when they do, we enable them to get an income from their property. They can do this in a variety of ways, such as a large payment upfront, or monthly payments, or a payment when they pass away to give on to their heirs. The idea is that there are different structures, so that it can be structured in a way so that the pensioners and their families benefit. It's about earning an income from your property."

Noting that this is a specialist field, recruiting the correct team is vital.

"When I was an investor, I would much rather invest in a good team with a bad idea than a bad team with a good idea."
He says that it was difficult to recruit in Hungary, and recruitment here in Bulgaria has been difficult as well.

"We have our MD, our COO, our head of relationship management, our head of marketing. It has been a challenge, I think, also because we are looking for so much and what we offer is so unique. We are looking for people who have the intelligence and experience to know what they are doing, but also the vision and confidence to make the decisions and to know what they need to do. I don't want somebody just to execute, but to say `this is my market'."

The history and psychology of the Bulgarian pensioner is different to that of the Romanian pensioner or the Hungarian pensioner. "Our approach to finding the right team is that we want to find leaders, people who are not just looking to blindly execute, who are creators, motivators...and then we give them very general guidelines: here is the budget, here are the targets, here is the legal side of the contracts so that we know we are secure, here are the ethical issues, in terms of how we communicate - we do not use any small print. We communicate openly and honestly."

Ethics are very crucial, he says.

"We are engaging in long-term relationships with our customers. It is the most important decision they will make for the rest of their lives. We have to honour that decision with respect and care and consideration. It is a private equity approach to business."

In Bulgaria, after Hild launches in Sofia, the ambition is to expand to other major cities.

His vision is that here, as in Hungary, the capacity given to pensioners will reinforce the family, while also giving pensioners a sense that they again, as people, have the capacity to contribute and to be independent.

"Giving them back their dreams," he says. Of his quarter of grandparents, only one was still alive when he was born, but died when Wirth was six. John Wirth smiles when he recalls how clients in Hungary have related to him, with warmth and affection. "Now, I have lots of grandparents," he says.