Antoine Tortorici
Antoine started off his career as a criminal lawyer in the famous french law firm that used to be run by the heads of the Paris bar: Farthouat Stasi Asselineau and was given the unique opportunity to handle complex criminal cases before the highest jurisdictions : He has had the opportunity to represent and defend before the French criminal courts (and some International jurisdictions) a vast swathe of personalities from the highest French ministers /politics to celebrities to young lovers murdering their mistress out of passion to high-calibre crooks setting-up Ponzi schemes in the Bahamas to junkies, serial-killers, money-launderers, etc.
He then joined the largest European Law firm: Stibbe Simont Monahan Duhot & Giroux (now Latham & Watkins) to work as a corporate lawyer, his areas of practice included project financing, venture capital, private equity, M&A, and capital markets. His main focus had been on the representation of technology, life sciences, and other growth enterprises, as well as of the venture firms, private equity firms, and industrial investors that finance them, at every stage of development from entrepreneurial start-ups to multibillion dollar global corporations. He has acted as principal lawyer in a significant number of early to late stage venture capital financing rounds, LBO and M&A transactions, joint ventures, initial public offerings, rights issues, private placements, and tender offers.
Upon completion of his MBA in South Africa, he was recruited by Glencore in Zug to strengthen their Central African trading operations in the resources-rich Katanga region. He lived a couple of years in Lubumbashi (Congo), sourcing cobalt & copper, implementing mining and industrial Joint Ventures, providing the headquarters with market intelligence, selling products to China, India, Malaysia, etc.
In West Africa, he was part of a team of young and dynamic entrepreneurs who decided to set-up (from scratch) bulk-blenders and logistic equipment’s in Lomé (Togo). From strategic planning to accounting to negotiating trade finance deals with local banks to dealing with governments and port authorities and to marketing products in the entire West African region, he found himself in full immersion and quickly had to adjust to the various intricacies of the African business environment.
Back in Europe for a short while, he entered the derivative world, managing and hedging the physical price risk exposure, trading derivatives using options/futures/forwards and put together some carbon and oil-related transactions.
He then went to live in the whole of South America, trading various commodities, from biodiesel in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina to copper in Chile, agro-chemical products in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay.
Antoine was an Attorney-at-Law from the Paris bar. He holds a Doctorate (Ph.D) from University of Sorbonne and a MBA from University of Cape Town .He speaks French, English and Spanish.
Antoine is passionate about literature, geopolitics and game theory. He was a cadet in the French Special Units (Infantry commando EAI) and Reserve Officer (Captain) in the French Cavalry. He practiced high-level martial-arts for several years (Qwan ki Do).