ARCO Alumni

When ARCO Alumnus Mike Smith left the corporate world at 55 years of age, he estimates 100% of his business opportunities were based purely on his contacts and network. Today that figure is approximately 50%.

‘Thism combines grounded oil and gas operational and technical expertise with the more interpersonal sides of a company. We are specialists in the oil and gas sector and have been working for International Operators, Non-Operators and Service Providers since 1976. We hire Associates from our network in the industry that equal our experience and share the Thism company values (Thism Isms').’

Mike quickly learned that once your network generated work is exhausted it is quite a different and challenging task to generate new business. He has found the ARCO network very useful for many reasons, including knowledge sharing, networking, friendship and building trust. He gives an example of how common colleagues are found during conversation: - ‘I met with a potential new client for the first time. He asked me if I knew a particular person in ARCO. I responded that this person was one of my favourite ARCO colleagues and such a wonderful person. He replied ‘he is my father in-law’! From that our conversation and friendliness was on a different and much more familiar level.’

As with many other corporate professionals who decide to form their own companies, one benefit is choosing where to live. Mike runs his business out of Alessandria, Italy, where he lives with his wife Gabrielle and son Joshua. Upon setting up Thism the couple decided that they could run the business from anywhere and so for two years they spent winters in France and summers in Italy. When it was time for Joshua to start school a choice had to be made and ‘Italy was an easy winner’ says Mike. He finds it a challenge to work from Italy due to the bureaucracy involved with tax and the lack of industry network and clients. There is also more and further travel involved than if Thism were UK based.

The location, however, seems to make it worth the effort for Mike and his family. Less than 2 hours drive from the mountains and skiing, and 1 hour drive to the sea, the family of keen sailors have managed to combine a great life style with family values that are important to them.

Mike describes their transition into Italian life as quite easy and the people as the friendliest and most helpful he has ever met. The family was welcomed and embraced by the community and Joshua is treasured at the village school as the only ‘Brit’. Mike has found learning the language a tough and lengthy process but is starting to surprise himself with what he can say. He recalls an incident:- ‘ I think one of the funniest moments for us was when we were speaking to an Italian we had just met – he talked away with much emotion and we offered the odd Si, OK, Prego etc. When we left I said to Gabrielle ‘what was he saying’ – ‘no idea, I thought you knew’ she answered, we were belly laughing for some time at the situation as we had, it seemed, fooled our colleague as he never indicated that he thought we did not capisci!!!’ Pictured above right the village of La Girolata on the island of Corsica where Mike and his wife visited recently.

Looking at opportunitites, Mike prefers to work internationally where there is still real development and growth that demands a bit of a pioneering spirit. ‘China is clearly becoming more and more global and does not seem to have the political barriers that were there a few years ago – watch them grow around the globe over the next few years – plus they have money!’