Facebook for Executives

Who has a problem, like seeking solace and advice from people who live in the same situation stuck. Perhaps that is the secret behind the success of the Internet platform "Meet the Boss" - a sort of "Facebook" for executives from the financial sector, during the financial crisis has grown rapidly.

LONDON. Unlike Facebook meettheboss.com are not swapped baby pictures, and flirted will not. In the video conferencing and forums, is solely and strictly to professional and, of course, plays the current financial crisis, a prominent role.

Access to the platform gets only the operators who as a manager of the financial sector classify, for journalists and those who use the site would like to promote their products or services to sell, it is against: "We must unfortunately remain outside." "We reject about two-thirds of all candidates, which are about 100 requests per day," says Spencer Green, Chairman of Meet the Boss.

Despite this rejection rate, the website since its launch last September attracted 30 000 members. This includes executives from Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Visa. Most of the members is currently the French bank BNP Paribas, followed by Deutsche Bank and the U.S. monetary house Citigroup. "With 50 000 members, we make conclusions," says Green. "We want to keep the club exclusive."

So far, the major financial crisis to the new forum used rather than harm. "Of course you do not know how the long-term consequences of the crisis for us to look, but when the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, the traffic on our site by 60 percent," says Green.

About "Meet the Boss", the executives not only via the internet, email or SMS to communicate with each other. Regular members initiated and moderated discussion forums. For example, Gautam Bose from the U.S. bank Wachovia just completed a round-table discussion on the topic, "how will the current crisis in the management of customer impact? started.

Membership is free. Similarly, advertising is very sparse on the page. The project will be financed by British publishers and conference organizers GDS International, the project mainly the commitment to strengthen its customer wants. "Of course, we try to cover our costs, but at the moment is to make profits is not the most important thing for us," says Green.