Patrick Delarive
an unusual journey
Patrick Delarive’s itinerary has been marked by timely encounters and seized opportunities. Endowed with a bubbly and energetic personality, he has already lived many different lives.
His amazing story began in 1962, in Göteborg, Sweden, where he was born and where he lived until he was six years old. The family then moved to Switzerland and settled in the Lausanne region. His first years at school were hard. Adapting to the system was a problem for the independent-minded Patrick. He felt hemmed in and promptly left school at the age of 15.
He tried his hand at different jobs, working as a labourer, a flower delivery boy, and a cigarette shop assistant. These first work experiences triggered a revelation: Patrick Delarive was cut out for action.
He knew where his skills lay and was keen to move ahead fast, so he chose the business apprenticeship route. After obtaining a CFC certificate, he was hired by Credit Suisse as a bank employee and joined their Management of Tomorrow team. He then worked for two years in New York before returning to Switzerland where an appointment awaited him, that of deputy manager of the Lausanne branch.
He was only 25 years old. But again, he felt hemmed in, so he decided to work as a freelance wealth manager and financial broker. Success was instant. He joined a large investment bank and in a matter of a few months, helped it rise to the ranks of Top 10 Best Brokers in the World. In 1989, Patrick Delarive created his first company and set up a business in Eastern Europe, just after the fall of the Berlin.
exploring new horizons
Driven by an insatiable curiosity and a spirit of adventure, he is forever exploring new horizons. More a hunter than a farmer, Patrick Delarive likes to create contrasts. These last few years, the Delarive group has been expanding its activities through the creation of a contrasted variety of enterprises such as Swissvet Group and Neho, Babylon Sciences and Definitely Different, as well as by equity participation in unquoted companies such as Nespresso B2B Europe du Nord and BeWater. Delarive’s approach is the same for all these companies:
to SHAKE UP industry STANDARDS AND do things DIFFERENTLY
PASSING ON HIS KNOW-HOW
Partick Delarive likes repeating that ‘talent is a gift, success is a full time job’. To give substance to the saying, in 2015 he launched D.Academy which offered entrepreneurship training based on shared experiences. The Junior Entrepreneur programme met with huge success. Today, many businesses still request this innovative instruction. Delarive’s academic commitments, speaker engagements and consulting activities all bear witness to his passion for passing on know-how. He is also a lecturer at HEC Lausanne and a research fellow at ESSEC Business School, Paris; he is regularly consulted by company managers and leading politicians from Switzerland and abroad on topics relating to generational, economic and technological change.
new territory
After obtaining his pilot’s license and overcoming his fear of flying, and after working as a producer for the Swiss-born international singer Bastian Baker, Patrick Delarive embarked on a new challenge which took him into the uncharted territory of literature. His first novel L’extraordinaire vie mort du père d’Arno Morel (The Extraordinary Life Death of Arno Morel’s Father), based on a true story was published in February 2022.
