While Kearney Partner Albéric Fischer certainly enjoys a bit of relaxation now and then, his career has been characterized by the need to push himself out of his comfort zone. It explains why, after five years, he left the M&A industry in 2013 and decided to join Kearney and has now bloomed into a happy partner.

“Long ago, I was warned against getting stuck in my comfort zone,” Albéric explains. “To this day, my mentor still reminds me not to do this. But in consulting, you constantly get pushed out of your comfort space because you’re always working with different clients in different industries on different projects, be they related to M&A, due diligence, digital, or any other topics that are important to my financial services clients.”

Albéric strives to make a meaningful difference on every project to develop productive, long-term relationships with his clients. “Delivering impact is key, alongside trust. The client should trust our recommendations,” he notes. “When clients present the slides that we helped write, which contain our recommendations, it means they are aligned with our vision and advice, that they trust in Kearney and know we will continue to support them through implementation.”

Although he says that working on a wide range of projects is key to avoiding complacency, Albéric has a special fondness for M&A work. “M&As are exciting because of the unique challenges each one poses and because you create a new entity with expanded capabilities,” he says. “For example, MACIF’s acquisition of Aviva France will elevate the company from a fairly humble position in the French insurance market to a €16 billion firm that will make it one of the five largest in the country. And Kearney has been instrumental to the efforts, as MACIF has publicly acknowledged.”

Albéric and his wife have three children, twin boys and a girl. The family likes to take trips to the park and visit the countryside. Albéric also enjoys running and kitesurfing.