The FiDJI story begins with the creation of Le Club Innovation Banque Finance Assurance,
organized by Altran, a leading European consulting firm, which brought together corporate
innovation directors from thirty-five leading retail banks and insurance companies in France. Led
by Jean-Luc Strauss, Altran’s head of financial services innovation, the group gathered to share
ideas and explore new paths to innovation.
At a conference in late 2009, Jean-Pierre Legrand from BNP Paribas (a consortium member)
became interested in the possibilities offered by a design thinking approach and wanted to learn
more. He sent professor Brigitte Borja de Mozota an e-mail asking a single question: Could
design thinking help the financial services industry? Her enthusiastic “yes” led to an invitation to
attend one of the consortium’s meetings.
Professor Brigitte Borja de Mozota’s pioneering work bridging the fields of business and design
and her high-profile positions at Université Paris Ouest and Ecole Parsons à Paris (now the Paris
College of Art) put her on Legrand’s radar.
While pleased that such an elite group of managers was interested in design thinking, Brigitte
was skeptical. She knew that the financial services industry faced unique obstacles to innovation,
such as regulation and the lack of patent protection.
Changing Views of Design
The group’s brief was wide open, though from the start the goal was clearly twofold: to explore