From satellites to Sophia Angel

Serial entrepreneur: Candace Johnson is driven by a desire for change

One day, he told them, humans will rely on these satellites in space - for their entertainment and for their education, for everything. Who knows, he said, in the future it may even be possible for human wars to be fought by satellites; then we would have peace on earth.

Listening more avidly than the others was the general's daughter, who was then 10 years old, although this was not the first time she had heard her father talking about satellites: as a girl of five, she had been hanging toy ones on the family Christmas tree. That was in 1957, the year of Sputnik. Fast-forward 26 years to 1983 and Candace Johnson set up SES Astra and SES Global: the world's largest satellite system.

"Don't ask me how I knew how to put together a whole satellite system. I just knew. All my life, I have understood how to create and build networks: telecommunication and human networks for example," she states matter-of-factly when we meet at her home in Vallauris. This expertise in telecommuni-cations and networks was honored when Johnson's peers awarded her the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Communications Summit in 2002. Now, many years later, Johnson is known as a venture capitalist with a golden touch.

She has been involved in financing, establishing and running numerous other telecommunications companies and High-Tech investment funds and is considered one of Europe’s 50 most powerful businesswomen.

Sophia pioneer

Since 2001 she has had a second residency in the South of France and has been heavily involved in developing investment projects at the Sophia Antipolis Technology and Science Center, Europe's ‘Silicon Valley’. Sitting on her plush sofa in an elegant white trouser suit, she remembers with glee her first meeting with Sophia don, Senator Laffitte, who she was introduced to through a friend. They sat and talked for two hours and she told him then and there that she'd like to help to continue his vision: "I said we'll start a consortium and we'll invest in high-tech companies based in Sophia Antipolis. He was flabbergasted!" she laughs.

When Johnson arrived in Sophia all her investors at Johnson Paradigm Ventures came with her, and she became a co-founder with Caisse des Dépôts, AXA, and Bavarian State Bank of Sophia EuroLab, a ten-year fund, which is due to close next year. Prior to this, Sophia did not have a venture capital fund or industry yet this would be vital if an economic system was to thrive. Then in 2002 she was a founding member of the Sophia Business Angels: 50 serial entrepreneurs, grouped together to privately invest in high-tech companies in Sophia Antipolis, France and the world.

Many, like Johnson, have second residences in the region. The organisation, of which Johnson was president between 2007 and 2008, has undergone many changes since its foundation, including moving into the 'cleantech' and 'medtech' sectors. Since 2008, under Johnson's Presidency, there has been an investment structure based on yearly funds. Six have been set up so far, from which 35 French companies have benefited.

"It's a great platform," says Johnson, "and I prefer collaborating with other private investors, who are also putting up their own money."

The SBA - Sophia Business Angels - has also become a global network and has inspired Business Angels waving their wands as far and wide as Chile, Turkey and Bahrain.

"It is important to educate citizens in certain countries that the government can't do everything, that sometimes it's necessary to take a certain degree of personal risk and responsibility. For example, in France for a long time there was this idea that being an entrepreneur was not an honorable profession."

Off your own bat

'Personal responsibility' is key to Johnson's philosophy. "Whenever I start a project I am responsible for making it happen; it's what drives me. I have a personal responsibility to the vision, to the team, to the investors, to the universe and to myself. These are the five things that I am answerable to… I guess you could say it is a leitmotif of my life."

This ‘Personal Responsibility’ and ‘Just Do It’ approach has driven Johnson to create more than seven companies herself (SES, Teleport Europe/Loral, Europe Online, FMN, etc.), which she has built to global success, and to invest in more than 50 companies. "It is just as easy to build a big company as a small one," she notes. "I always tell all of the companies and entrepreneurs we invest in: ‘Think BIG!’ I also like to create markets because I think those are the most profitable things"

As such, she created Europe's first private satellite television system, (SES ASTRA), Europe's first private trans-border satellite telecom-munications system (Teleport Europe), and the world's first Internet-based online service (Europe Online). As a VC and private investor, the funds she has created together with the Sophia Business Angels and Meeschaert Gestion Prive have also invested in the world's first deep-water off shore windmills (Blue H) and the world's first individual wind turbines (Nheolis) among other enterprises.

Cultural bias

Not surprisingly, this entrepreneurial attitude also drives her to do innovative things in the arts. In 2006, she created the Festival of the Fourth Dimension - the First Global Festival of the Arts, Technology, and Science, which has spawned a number of initiatives in High-Tech Arts in France. She has also now just set up France's first fonds de donation (ARTS - Arts, Research, Technology, and Science) where the first recipient is the Museum of Vallauris. The fond is an opportunity for those who qualify for the wealth tax (ISF) to invest in the arts, as opposed to handing the tax over to the government.

It is not surprising that Johnson has a cultural bias as she has five degrees in music.  "I learned about telecommunications, networks and satellites in my family, so I had to go to university to learn about music," she laughs.  "The music education came in handy when I married my husband." The piano-playing husband is Adrien Meisch, former Luxembourg ambassador to the US and Germany. "Wherever we've gone, my husband and I have been known as the piano-playing ambassador and his singing wife!" she jokes.

SES - A Love Story

Their passion for music brought them together and her 30-year passion for him has driven her in other ways too. "The story of SES Astra," she explains, "is really a love story. I wanted to do something for my husband and his country. I wanted to give them something and I gave them what I could: SES - the largest satellite system in the world."   SES is Luxembourg's largest tax payer.

Despite her success, the investing powerhouse has no interest in trying to pretend that the path she has chosen has always been easy. One of the most important lessons she's learned? Never accept no for an answer and never give up. "Schumpeter always said, 'Entrepreneurs bring gales of change' and people don't like change. I get told ‘no’ all the time, but it doesn't mean I listen. You don't go away, even though people want you to at first."

For example, when as a young woman just starting out in her career she was trying to contact John Stein-way of Steinway Pianos for a business idea she had, she called him every day for six months. His secretary always gave her a reason why he could not speak to her.

Finally Johnson called at 7.30am, before the secretary was in, and the great piano maker answered the phone himself. He asked her if she had believed that on each occasion she had called he'd really been too busy to talk. She said yes, the idea that he had not wanted to speak to her had never entered her mind. He was so taken with this unswerving belief he agreed to help her and they went on to become close friends… and to work on the business proposition she was pitching to him.

"Since usually the things I’m suggesting or doing are  'brea-king the norm', I’ve learned that the only people coura-geous enough to make the decisions are at the top," Johnson adds. "It is not fair to ask people who are not in a position to make a decision to do so - particularly if it could cost them their job. Those at the top can take the responsibility. Besides, what I am suggesting helps them, like when I created Teleport Europe in Hanover. Lower Saxony's Governor Gerhard Schroeder got the reputation of being a hi-tech oriented politician who supported entrepreneurialism. He went on to become German Chancellor.

"I've learned a lot and I always look forward. We all make mistakes, it's human, but I'm not the type of person to have regrets," she speaks candidly. "Life is hard but  that’s a given. Negativity makes people bitter. I have  chosen to dwell on the posi-tive and to do things that I believe will make the world better and create value for all. I am a happy person. I think that's an important part of my success.”            

HM