Mike
Sundman has always had a knack for getting into an industry right
before it gets interesting. However, after working in the international
liquor, biotechnology, and financial industries, Mike has found
a place where he will probably stay for a long time: at the helm
of his new independent consulting firm.
Sundman
Business Development [SBD], based in Basel, Switzerland, started
November 1, 2000. SBD consults businesses on mid-size transactions.
“I advise corporations on strategic transactions,” he said, “working
for large corporations on deals they consider small, or small corporations
on deals they consider very large.”
After
graduating from GS with a major in comparative literature (and a
concentration in French), Mike attended the New York University
Business School, and graduated in 1979. Mike then worked for Seagram
Wines and Spirits’ Treasury Department in New York, but he always
wanted to work abroad. “I wanted to do international stuff,” he
said. “ I was in French classes ever since I was a little kid.”
At the request of Mike and a few other students, his elementary
school board hired a French woman from Tours to teach French in
the school district. “She never spoke one word of English” in the
class, and she helped him to speak French fluently by the end of
high school, when he graduated in 1973. Now, he said, “I can work
in German, French, or English, and I can talk to a taxi driver in
Italian and Spanish.” He adds that he has conducted transactions
throughout Europe, in Japan, and in the United States.
In
1983, Seagram moved Mike to London. “I was brought in to bring order,”
he said with a chuckle.“ The whole [liquor] industry was consolidating,
and I was brought in to help figure out an international business
strategy.” It was so much more interesting than just selling liquor.
“It was selling an image,” he said, and “combining strategy with
deals to make the strategy come alive.”
In
1989, Mike noticed similar, tremendous growth about to occur in
pharmaceuticals. “It was an exciting time in the mid- to the end
of the ’80s in the liquor business. You would have one deal and
get 20 percent of the market. It was an exciting time and then it
was all over, but the same thing was happening in pharmaceuticals.
Top-line growth was coming in bio-tech.” So, Mike moved to Basel
and began working for Ciba, a major international pharmaceutical
company.
Although
Mike had “a lot of fun” working with Ciba, he eventually saw new
challenges on the horizon. When Ciba merged with another company,
he saw a future in European financial services. “It was a frenzy
— all these companies just kept getting bigger and bigger,” he said.
He started work in the Baloise Insurance Company, a company “with
not a great reputation. They needed a new way of doing things.”
Baloise was actually about to shrink in size because it was divesting
money in countries where the company was not doing well. Mike helped
turn Baloise Insurance around.
After
this most recent success, Mike decided to work for himself in Basel,
and began Sundman Business Development. Basel has become home for
his wife, Joan, and his two school-age children, who both already
speak French, English, and German. “I can hardly imagine a place
in the world that is more international than Basel,” he said. “Basel
is situated on the Rhine River, and borders France and Germany.
It’s small but cosmopolitan, with a 500-year-old university and
a streetcar ride into farmland.”
“It’s
probably the best climate in Switzerland,” he says. “The Jura Mountains
are to the west, the Black Forest in Germany, and to the south and
east we have the Alps. My golf course is in Germany, and I can walk
the dog into France.”
