François Marland

A fan of the definition: Have fun, do good and make money …
François Marland has spent his life bringing these three principles together and he explains how in the following lines.

Tell us about your background François, your studies, your training?

François Marland: My background is dense, protean and long: my studies were just as dense. I have a law degree. More precisely, I did a master’s degree in law at Nanterre and then the CAPA to become a lawyer. In parallel with my CAPA, I studied emotional and cognitive psychotherapy in the United States and in Europe from 1977 to 1980.

What was your first significant professional experience?

François Marland: It is certainly the one that made me want to become a lawyer. When I was 18, my godmother lived in Oran where I used to go and see her during my holidays. She had a friend, Ahmed Settouti, who was a great Algerian lawyer who was still pleading in French at the time, in 1972 (later the ban on pleading in this language was voted in favour of Arabic). During my holidays, Ahmed Settouti took me to all the provincial courts of Oranais to plead small, medium and large cases, and this with an eloquence and faith worthy of a Badinter or a Témime. It is this experience that clearly determined my choice to become a lawyer, since I passed my bar exam at the age of 24: I owe it to Ahmed Settouti. I have maintained a good relationship with him since then.

As far as the profession of therapist is concerned, two years before I passed my CAPA, my father had to go to an information session on emotional therapies: as he couldn’t go, I took his place. It was there that I discovered emotional therapies, which became, for 11 years of my life, a large part of my professional activity, and probably the best job I have ever had.

However, the most significant professional experience I had was certainly when I started as a young lawyer. I went to see my first inmate in prison and my dear colleagues told me that I had to wear the robe. As a novice, I complied and walked through the corridors of the prison in my lawyer’s robe, proud as Artabana, whereas in reality one never wears a robe when one goes to prison: the guards, the prisoner and my dear colleagues laughed a lot to see me strutting around like a peacock.

Of course, during my exciting young career, there have been many striking experiences, such as when I pleaded on 24 and 31 December, until 11pm, in room 23 of the flagrants délires, which was called the “flagrant delirium” room, because the situations were so astonishing, so morally insulting for justice. We saw, for example, virulent prosecutors demanding too heavy end-of-year sentences against poor transvestites with reborn beards and other festive end-of-year losers.

I also taught civil and social law and general culture for three years in various public and private establishments: the publication of the book “Guérir des pièges de notre enfance” (Curing the Traps of our Childhood) by Flammarion in 1983 led me to decide, in view of the enthusiasm of its readers, to give up the courses in favour of the therapy groups that I led twice a month: It was exciting, because it was the demonstration that the human being can change by taking what was positive in the behavioural and analytical therapies, with regard to our definition of emotional and conceptual beings all together, animated by a limbic brain and another cortex.

What is the most surprising human encounter you have had?

François Marland: Quite simply, it’s my father: Serge Marland. He was a magnificent being, a valiant man in the sense of Albert Cohen. Serge was magnificent in his humanity, in his culture, which was immense, in his kindness and his rigour, and in his vision of the human being, inherited (and magnified) from his father. He was therefore an extraordinary model who was himself marked by my grandfather, Maurice Marland. Maurice Marland marked his generation, at least in Granville, by being, first of all, Professor Marland, in philosophy, French and English. He became a natural Resistance fighter the day the Germans entered Granville, and then organised the resistance and the network for the escape of English airmen to the English islands. He organised the escape and rescue of British paratroopers for which he was awarded the posthumous medal by Atlee. He was murdered when my father was 18. Every morning my father would walk past the statue of my grandfather in Granville and every time someone passed him he would stop and shake their hand and say that my grandfather was a wonderful person. So he inherited this kind of magnificence.

You are a businessman with a proven track record in various fields, tell us about your current activities.

Marland François: Let’s start with jewellery. I took a high jewellery licence from a Swiss watch manufacturer, Quinting, for the wrong reasons: I liked the transparency system that made it up, the only watch of this type existing on the watch market today.

My second activity, Stark-Hair, focuses on “hair restoration” clinics, i.e. they are specialised in hair restructuring: hair transplantation through the displacement of follicles. Today, we have several clinics: a clinic in Greece in Thessaloniki, one in Milan in Italy and a clinic in Montpellier. The idea, by the middle of next year, is to set up between 6 and 8 establishments and 50 in the next 4 years. These clinics will therefore be dedicated to hair restoration, but also to Botox, hyaluronic acid, micro-pigmentation for hair (when there is no possibility of moving bulbs) etc. Between 2019 and 2020, we will develop an anti-ageing department specialising in slowing down the ageing of cells: the protocols are in their infancy today, but I have no doubt that in the next few years, certain partner companies will be at the forefront of “anti-ageing”, making it possible to reverse the decline of the body’s cells.

My third business is a global medical data trading and analysis hub called Hathor. We have set up a company in Singapore that aims to connect all structures, governments and doctors who hold data with public or private organisations or individuals who need this data. To do this, we want to structure an ICO: we will also use a technology that allows us to analyse the data without having to centralise it. This ICO should be launched by 30 June 2019. We are working on contacts with companies that have hundreds and thousands of Tera of data that they are unable to manage: we will offer them adapted solutions.

Finally, I have structured a vehicle that takes stakes in companies, mainly in the US, in companies specialising in artificial intelligence, in another that makes jewellery (Vita Fede, a remarkable digital platform run by a brilliant young woman), CHNGE, a brand of a digital sales platform with a brilliant young manager, etc.

Charity work is very important to you, what are your initiatives in this area?

François Marland: It is now 11 years since I started to organise the financing of an orphanage in Santo Domingo, an orphanage that takes in young children who were, for the most part, destined for a terrible fate. It is my brother who runs this orphanage with humanity and passion! He is married to an extraordinary Dominican woman. Of the 14 children, 5 are taking the BAC this year and next year and should go to university. So it’s very satisfying to see them evolve and it gives the resources we put into them a much greater flavour.

Secondly, I have been involved with other donors for the past ten years in financing two clinics in two villages in Haiti, which provide thousands of contraceptive, vaccination and other services to 32,000 people. This operation has made it possible to vaccinate tens of thousands of people. The other long-term objective is to raise funds to build a road that is not demolished every monsoon. This project will also make it possible to link the two villages in less time.

Finally, besides these two really organised projects, I also carry out some more sporadic actions in orphanages in Cambodia for example.

What are your plans and ambitions for the coming years?

François Marland: Simply live! Not to lose the link with what is essential. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t envisage spending two months without seeing my children because I consider that they are the nuclear nucleus of a family. So my ambitions and my projects are to live happily, to share and to enjoy my children.

You lead a fast-paced life, constantly travelling around the world. How does François Marland relax? Sports, leisure activities?

François Marland: I go cycling, swimming, walking and to relax there is nothing better than family and friends. I also like fishing, I recently went fishing. In my spare time and to relax, I am also currently structuring three book scripts, or scripts for series that could be broadcast, if they have appeal on fashionable platforms. There’s enough to do a good fifteen seasons on each of the three if I opt for the second option: it’s very exciting and probably brings me even closer to my father, who has written dozens of plays and many short stories.

Despite the hectic pace of your business life, you make it a point of honour to spend special time with your children. What organisation!

François Marland: It’s not a point of honour, it’s the basis. As I said before, I consider that children are the nuclear core of a family, so when they were younger I tried to have lunch with them every week. Now, for those in the US, I have made it a goal to go and see them for 2-3 days at least every two months. It’s a life choice.

We are all obliged to live with the tools of our time, how do you use the Internet and more precisely, how do you manage your E-Reputation?
François Marland: As far as the Internet and online reputation are concerned, I deplore the lack of total control and the absence of punitive legislation for abuses as scandalous as those of a certain press. Today, one can bully students because they have big ears or practice forbidden love affairs, or bully restaurants because competitors have asked 20 people to go there and post negative reviews, issue “fake news”, insult, and rant nauseating theories without the justice system applying sanctions commensurate with the emotional or reputational damage caused!

I went through this in the early days of the web and it is clearly getting out of hand. I therefore think that E-Reputation agencies are necessary for technology watch and to be able to respond to this new need. To go further, we need to strengthen the legislative arsenal and be absolutely intransigent with a certain number of companies that allow anything to pass on the web. This must be done to defend the individual.

However, we should not believe that the picture I am painting of the Internet is totally black. Indeed, the world is not black and white, but rather made up of many shades of grey. Although the Net has brought its share of inconveniences, it has nevertheless been a major advance for humanity. There was a before and after to the Internet. It is a wonderful tool that allows us to access an immeasurable amount of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. There is even so much data that it is impossible for a person to consult it in its entirety, even if he or she has been surfing the Internet all their life. And, as I said before, it is also a great means of communication that gives families and friends the opportunity to keep in touch even if they are separated by an ocean or hundreds of kilometres. If the net was not so democratised, I would have more difficulty contacting my children in the United States. But that’s not all, the internet has simplified even our everyday life. It is now possible to have anything and everything delivered to you, so that you don’t even have to leave your home.

So I would sum up my thoughts on the internet in this way: it is a great advance for mankind that is sometimes misused by some people.

Thank you Francois Marland.