Providing connections

SITTING in a rather spartan office in the middle of Paris, whose only notable feature is an unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower in its full grandeur, Orange Business Services (OBS) CEO Helmut Reisinger talks about his first job - that of an au pair in a French household.

Speaking in impeccable English, Austrian-born Mr Reisinger says: "I was not born a polyglot; actually I was literally born on a farm in the mountains of Austria. However, I learn languages easily and the first internship I took up abroad was that of an au pair, a job usually done by ladies in France to keep the household in good shape. My intention was to use the internship to acquire a good knowledge of the French language before going to university."

In a way this typifies the meticulous approach that Mr Reisinger takes in tasks big and small, including his job running one of the top enterprise telecommunications companies in the world.