On January 18th I will launch my HumanIPO. It's a good moment for reflection - do I have something to share? Is my experience of any value to other?
I hope it is.
From Zero to Hero
I grew in a countryside and leaving it for university in a capital city I had one and the only aim - to find my spot in investment world and build a life around it. It took me 10+ years after the university, I worked here and there, mainly in financial brokerage, learning a lot, developing and offering my clients new and then non-existing services like US stock trading or investing into hedge funds - via structured notes at first, then multi-strategy, then CTAs, and so on. Three times rejected the offer to join one of the leading banks investment management and advisory team, took the forth and raised to deputy head and CIO of Private banking. Assets under management and advisory then reached 1bn in local currency, life was good, I enjoyed it a lot, made risky bets while investing myself and didn't care about the future.
From Hero to Zero
At the very bottom of 2009 crisis I was asked to leave high ranked position as a bank clerk. We had some investment loses (who didn't then?), all investment management decisions were moved to headquarter overseas, leaving local private banking divisions as translation bureaus only. I was unprepared, with few thousand on hand and bank account, huge debts and for a day or two thought its the end of life.
From Zero to Hero
On a 3rd day I started my own financial advisory company. Some former clients followed. Almost everybody around me then said I’m the craziest man on Earth who wants to start financial services business when market crashes like never before. However, that was a perfect timing and during the next few years I grew the new company to one of a largest in its niche with €100m+ Institutional assets under advisory.
From Hero to Zero
Our super active, innovative and even revolutionary approach was pain in the ass for regulatory authorities and they used all possible means to stop us. Finally found some (when you grow fast it impossible not to overlook some minor issues) and revoke our licenses and almost overnight destroyed 8 figure business.
From Zero to Hero again
It took some time to stand up again, few months to refocus, few years to rebuild my fortune and since then I’ve been managing my own financial assets portfolio only and devoting 99% of my time to philanthropy.
You never know what tomorrow will put on a table, but I can share a rich collection of pieces of advise how to survive when there is no light at the end of a tunnel, how to rebuild what was broken, how to restore what was completely damaged.
Invest early to gain the most.