Team Spotlight: Gaetan Rieben

 RAPID FIRE:

• Grew Up In: Lausanne, Switzerland – the French side of the country
• Currently in: San Diego, CA – I was born Swiss but I’m Californian in my heart
• Star Sign: Virgo
• If you could see one movie again for the first time, what would it be and why?: Inception with Leonardo Dicaprio – I’m someone who really likes the psychological element of it. I’m passionate about understanding how the brain works
• Do you prefer savory or sweet snacks?: I’m not really a snacks guy, but if I have to choose, I prefer salty snacks 
• Pick one: Mountains, Beaches, Cities: A city with beaches nearby, like San Diego. I left Switzerland to be away from the mountains, but I do miss cycling them.

DIGGING DEEPER

Data analytics is a career change for you – what drew you to the field?

• I used to work in the commercial industry for 10 years managing clients
• My role was largely soft skills – and I wanted to do something with more problem solving and that requires me to use more of my brain
• I discovered data and data analysis and made the shift

   

What is your dream project/client/industry?

• I would love to gain some more experience first, but eventually I’d love to open my own consultancy to help small and medium companies leverage data in their own organizations

What’s the best advice you have ever received?

•  “They say you only live once- but that’s not true – you only die once and you live every day”
• For me this means every day is a new day and everything that I have lived is part of my experience to do something better the next day

How do you like to spend your time outside of work? 

• I like cycling –  you discover new places when you cycle. You go on an adventure and get to see landscapes, get fresh air, and when you’ve gone a long distance you feel you’ve accomplished something.
  It’s very difficult. You’ll be cycling up a mountain and you have to distract yourself to forget the pain of it, but when you get to the top you don’t even think about how hard it was to get there.  
• I started cycling when I was younger and got to watch the Tour de France. I liked how fast they could go just with their bikes. I then learned that my grandfather had been a cyclist and felt connected to him through the sport.
• For a while I was trying to go professional, but I didn’t like the vibe of the competitions and ultimately the sacrifices to make it a career were not worth it

   

• I was a DJ in Switzerland and in my free time I like to go to shows and see electronic music – not just at clubs, but also outdoors or in unconventional venues. I’m into house music and minimal music. 
• I really like the vibe of electronic music – what I listen to electronic music it’s something you don’t hear everywhere else it allows me to escape and go somewhere new and the community around the music is really fun

If you could switch lives with any one person for the day, who would it be and why?

• I would love to switch lives with an astronaut. I am a man of experience and love traveling, it’s one of my passions. Going to space and having a different perspective on our world would be breathtaking. I am sure this is one of the only experiences that could change me as a human being. If I could do it, I would definitely do it. Top of my bucket list

What’s something most people don’t know about you? 

• I learned how to hypnotize people when I was a teenager. I was interested in psychology, but I didn’t believe in hypnosis so I tried to learn it to see for myself if it was real and I was successful
• I got some media coverage when I was young and for a few years I was a hypnotist performer

If you were a kind of produce, what would you be and why?

• I would be an orange – it grows under the sun and I’m someone who follows the sun. I try to only go to nice, tropical places where the sun is. I can grow myself when the sun is near. This is part of why I left Europe