♪ haslinda: hello. i am haslinda amin in singapore. arnaud vaissie is a good man to know in a crisis. he is cofounder, chairman, and ceo of international sos, the world's leading risk services company. 11,000 employees and more than 10,000 corporate clients. arnaud vaissie is today's high flyer. he is in the business of saving lives, but international sos has

grown into much more. two friends who began in venture 30 years ago have journeyed to the summit of a global industry they created. international sos is present in more than 90 countries. for decades, it has been a lifeline for people ought up and some of the world's most dramatic events. a 2006 tsunami. an attack in mumbai. but it is also a daily lifeline for the hundreds of millions of people who travel the world every year. ♪ haslinda: arnaud vaissie, welcome to "high flyers." good to have you with us. arnaud: good to be with you. haslinda: the year is 1985.

two frenchman, both good friends, decided to set up a business in the lion city. what prompted that move? arnaud: singapore was already very advanced. so my friend, dr. rey-herme, who his military time as a medical attache of the french embassy decided -- since we were and had in very close friends from the age of four, we decided to do it together. i moved from the u.s., where i was working as a banker in finance, and came to singapore, which, frankly, i did not know much about. [laughter] haslinda: the business is the business of saving lives, but it did not start out that way. it was a different idea. arnaud: well, part of it was to save lives. part of it was to manage medical evacuations from indonesia to singapore.

and then from the rest of asia -- haslinda: but you had intended to make house calls initially. arnaud: exactly right. we wanted to put together a health care system that did exist in france, which we put together in jakarta. technically, it is a success. businesswise, a complete failure. [laughter] because again in tunisia and, whenlly, throughout asia, one is sick, one does not think dr.alling a dog to -- dr. -- doctor to your place. one goes to the emergency room. where as in france, you call a doctor to your place. good concept, complete failure. so we had to change the method quickly, and we established a clinic and emergency room in jakarta. haslinda: initially, you had to convince companies, corporations, that they needed your service. how difficult was that? arnaud: it was difficult.

because we change the paradigm. the corporation had plans in place, and the low point for us was to convince corporations what they wanted was to have the services available on the ground, and it was a human resource issue. a protection and prevention issue. it took a bit of -- people on the ground were instantly convinced. so local entities and corporations wanted the service. the job was to convince headquarters back home, in the u.s. or europe, that it was making sense to create a new program for their employees. haslinda: but once you convinced the like of bp, that was it. arnaud: that is exactly right. once you have business leaders -- for the u.k., ge for the u.s.

-- we were able to have their key customers demonstrating best practice. and, step-by-step, many others joined. haslinda: it was your first venture as an entrepreneur, a startup. what was the key takeaway? if you could do things differently, looking back more than 30 years, what would you have done? arnaud: the first thing is when you come from a large business, and i was managing the u.s. subsidiary of my group, you have many people that you work with. suddenly, with a startup, you push a button, nothing happens. [laughter] haslinda: you have to move it yourself. arnaud: it was very perturbing. but what would i do differently? i think i might do it with more capital, because we started small. haslinda: you started with $100,000. arnaud: we started with $100,000. with a team of around 20 people. for theok a while

concept -- the concept was the right one. but of course we did not have the resources to sell as much as we could or should. so if i had to do it together all over again, i would start with more resources. and if it had to be today, i would start with far many more resources. you need to be able to jump in with a great deal of firepower. haslinda: in the earlier days, was retaining talent a problem? arnaud: no. quite the opposite. in the early days of our startup, at least what we deed, we attracted extraordinary talent, who are still with the company to this day. who joined us, even though the company was very small compared to their skill set. for example, we had a neurosurgeon from australia.

because they love the adventure. what it was you were presenting. being part of a small team, building up a completely new industry, attracted very high talent. haslinda: i am curious -- is it a risky business? is it bulletproof? can it ride the recession, the business you are in? arnaud: no business is bulletproof, including ours. we have gone through a complex cycle, with a large pocket of clients is made of the oil, gas, mining, energy companies, which has gone through a tremendous crisis over the past four or five years that have clearly reduced their employee ranks. so not bulletproof. however, i think we have been able to continuously adapt and innovate. and innovation is really -- we

continuously innovate. for example, when you have the sound issue, and suddenly no one could read transported anywhere. so if you are a far off patient somewhere, you were stuck. after a while -- it took us eight weeks. within eight weeks, we created the first unit in order to be able to transport a patient from one point to the other, and we did transport patients from thailand to hong kong at the time. safely. so our entire creation, from doctors and engineers in australia, in that case. innovation is really what we do. it is what our clients are expecting. because it was a new industry. but now it is an established industry. haslinda: having been an entrepreneur this long, what has been the lowest point of your career, the most trying? arnaud: it is an interesting question.

we started in 1985. and then, from 1985 to 1998, we were in asia. and asia was booming. from 1985 to 1998, complete boom. as you might remember, in 1998, the asian crisis hit, and the crisis was massive, and overnight. overnight, financial markets were closed. financing was not available anymore. and we were suddenly very, very constrained in asia. the chance we had was that we bought a competitor of ours the same year in the u.s. and the u.s. market was doing well. and so we became global at a time when asia started going into recession. ♪

arnaud: the most complicated and trying case we have ever been involved in has been the 2004 tsunami. it was unprecedented. it was massive. ♪

♪ haslinda: arnaud, it started with two offices in singapore. now, you are in 90 countries, 11,000 strong. what has been the most challenging part about growing the business? was it recruiting talent, for instance? arnaud: this is very important. because we created a new industry, a new way of providing health care. clearly, nobody had any kind of experience in it, and we had to convince the right people. but the beauty of a startup is you can find exceptional people who are prepared to share in an in and adventure, and a new business is an adventure.

haslinda: what is the recruitment process like? these people have to deal with crisis, stress, intense situations. what do you look for? i mean, a doctor is a doctor. but you need more than that. arnaud: we need doctors, very good doctors. on top of it, we need doctors who are interested in living outside the usual setting of a doctor, which is either private practice or the hospital. some doctors want to travel. some doctors want to experience and change their life. the chance we have today is most doctors want an international job, they will call on us. haslinda: you have been in business for more than 30 years. you receive about 4 million calls a year. what has been the most complicated case you have had to deal with? arnaud: to this day, the most complicated and trying case we have ever been involved in has been the tsunami in 2004.

the reason was that it was unprecedented. it was massive. it was on a multi-country basis. thailand, sri lanka, indonesia were involved. we had to deal with a multitude of people to take care of at the time of the tsunami, and then many people who were missing. so for more than 12 months, we were working, trying to identify them, finding the missing individuals, so it was technically complicated. resource wise, we were very very stretched. it was emotionally draining. haslinda: you were also involved in the terrorist attack in mumbai. tell us what happened and what your involvement entailed. arnaud: in mumbai, actually, we were called during the terrorist attack. so our security personnel in

several of our assistance centers were on the phone with our members during the terrorist attack, telling them what to do, how to take the best care of themselves in an extraordinarily dangerous situation, and handling the situation from the beginning to the end, working with the security forces to let them know we have members involved in the attack. haslinda: you received 3000 calls for that incident itself. arnaud: yes. not 3000 and the people involved. -- we hade literally our long conversations with the members involved in the hostagetaking. haslinda: have you had a failed mission before? i would not be surprised if you say "no." arnaud: we had missions that did not go as well as they should, but altogether, we had enough

redundancies built in so that missions go as they should. haslinda: why do you think we are seeing more and more cases of crisis? is it because more and more people are traveling? is it due to mobility? what is your observation? arnaud: the obvious answer is the global village. everyone is going everywhere. you have more people on the planet. and corporations, governments, employers of any kind, are sending people everywhere. i will give you one example, which is the education world. the universities are now the institutions with the largest number of mobile people. at any one time, a large universities going to have thousands of foreign students inside its compound, as well as sending overseas hundreds of thousands of students.

so strangely enough, actually , large universities have more people traveling and being out of their country of origin then, for example most businesses. , haslinda: you are in the business of saving lives, but technology plays a huge role in it. we know you invest a substantial budget in technology by a substantial amount. how has technology changed the way you operate and how do expect it to change 10, 15, 20 years down the road? arnaud: for us, technology has been extraordinary. the key link for us has been the telephone. since we started with assistance centers, centers which function , security doctors people and all kinds of experts, , and access to network of providers around the world. haslinda: what can you do today due to technology that you could not do 10 years ago? arnaud: the first thing, when we

started, we were using beepers. then these huge mobile phones, where you had to carry a suitcase to make a phone call. what is extraordinary today, with new technology, is that, through digitalization, we can do things we could not do before. today, when we have to do with a crew member of an airline in new york who is falling sick just before boarding a plane, through a tele-health consultation, we can, in 40 minutes, assess the crew and see whether this crew member can or cannot or the plane and at a very low cost. just a year ago, it was a four and a half hour work to get a doctor going to the hotel, visiting the crew member. you see the kind of change it brings.

we can now communicate and treat our members around the world through tele-health/ . they can chat with us. we can exchange sms, and actually, we send 24/7 medical and security information to our members. ♪ haslinda: how do you view risk in your own personal life? arnaud: to sleep well. haslinda: do you sleep well? arnaud: i do sleep well. ♪

♪ haslinda: arnaud, the business is based on membership. they pay an annual fee. it does seem like expectations from the company have expanded. what do these corporations want from international sos? arnaud: haslinda, what those companies wanted from us in the first place was us saving and protecting the lives of their employees. today, it goes far beyond that. they want to show that duty of care will be filled.

that their employees will feel comfortable and safe while traveling or being international assignees. we realize now that one in eight employees of any corporation is traveling internationally, so it has become 1/12 of a workforce is an international traveler. haslinda: truth be told, though, it was not something you wanted to do as a young boy. you wanted to be exactly what your father was. what happened along the way? arnaud: he was a surgeon. well, i went into medical school, and i did not like it. haslinda: why not? arnaud: i realized that the hospital environment and the subject matter was not really what i wanted to do. what i was really interested in was politics and business, so i went into political studies and business school. haslinda: talking about politics, you are passionate about it. how is that translating to real life? arnaud: i have not gone into politics. i have gone into business.

i have spent a lot of time over the past 18 months. i was in charge of the economic platform of the conservative candidate in france for the presidential elections, and so i spent a lot of time with politicians over the past 18 months. and i am still involved in a number of issues. region,ple, the paris dealing with a lot of developments we're trying to manage, in particular in relation to brexit. paris is trying to attract a lot of interest. haslinda: speaking of managing, how are you managing the different responsibilities? strong running an 11,000 company, you are commuting to the different countries you operate in, and you are involved in politics. how do you manage that? arnaud: it is the question of organization. the thing is, the larger a corporation is, the more resources you have. now, i am working with many colleagues who can operate

without me, who are actually far better than i am, so they tell me. [laughter] and i think that the business is actually benefiting from the other activities. i have always felt, in light, that one needs to change one's circle. if you only do with the people you meet within your business environment, it is very restrictive. haslinda: i am curious. on a personal level, because of what you do, your stress must be really high. what would it take to rattle you? do you stress out in any way? how do you view risk in your own personal life? arnaud: to sleep well. [laughter] haslinda: do you sleep well? arnaud: i do sleep well. i think it is fundamental. to succeed in business, i think, as an entrepreneur, it is an advantage to have a strong resistance to stress, because in business, you have far more bad

news than good news. bad news flies quickly, the good news not so quickly, so i tend to be fairly even, from a mood standpoint. haslinda: when was the last time you were stressed out? arnaud: when we had a cybersecurity attack. this was three years ago. it was very serious. i think we did cope with it extremely well, but it was a high concern, and talking to key stakeholders about it was not an easy thing, and then building up the systems and the capability so that the chance of repeating it is lowered was quite an undertaking, so this was very stressful. and i think that cybersecurity will be stressful going forward. haslinda: if you could look into a crystal ball, what do you think will be the biggest risks for the world?

arnaud: i think cybersecurity is one. and the general geopolitical situation, which is becoming far more chaotic right now, is another one. because we don't know. we see, every day, new incidents taking place among nations, and it is quite critical that people go back to a system where one doesn't say openly what one thinks and keep some reserve so as to leave understanding for the others, so i think the world is more dangerous today. of course, more terrorism. and within a community which is far more intertwined than we used to, because we are completely interdependent. we are interdependent now, with asia, of course, and it will be more so going forward. haslinda: you have succeeded in building a company from $500,000.

to an excess of one and half billion dollars. what is the legacy you would like to leave behind? --aud: "legacy is a big "legacy" is a big world. but what i really want to leave behind, or actually want to develop, is the fact that we have created this industry around taking care of employees around the world, convincing corporations it is good for them, good for the bottom line, and good for their goodwill that spending money on their employees, from a prevention standpoint to a reaction standpoint when a crisis , happens, is good for everyone. i think this industry is really, now, starting to be recognized, and i want this industry to grow and develop as one clear market. haslinda: arnaud vaissie, thank

you so much for being a "high flyers." it is a pleasure. arnaud: thank you. ♪

♪ tracy: welcome to the "best of bloomberg markets: middle east." i'm tracy alloway. the stories of driving headlines across the region this week. antigovernment protests sweep across iran, claiming lives and inviting threats of sanctions from the u.s. oil prices surge to three-year highs on fears of supply disruption as u.s. stockpiles fall. and anger in ankara as the u.s. convicts a turkish banker of all helping evade iran sanctions.