Press Release

CEO Worldwide CERTIFIES ITS NUMBER 1000 iCEO

CEO Worldwide, international recruitment expert of senior executives applies strict guidelines when it certifies its top managers: only 25 % of candidates receive the certification iCEO (1)

Paris, 21 June 2004 ­ CEO Worldwide offers a new solution to fit the temporary and/or permanent recruitment needs of High-tech and Biotech companies: management on demandTM. This approach has been developed to help companies to grow or to restructure their international operations. The idea for this solution came out of CEO Worldwide's ability to select locally operating, high calibre profiles that can be at a company's disposition very fast and at an extremely competitive price.

The qualification of senior executives: a rigorous process towards the iCEO certification CEO Worldwide's HR Director receives on average 200 applications coming from Europe, Asia, and North America per month. CEO Worldwide certifies approximately 25% of the candidates and holds a database of 1000 certified senior executives to date. For every mission, the respective local partner teams of CEO Worldwide select for their country the best profiles. Furthermore, the extranet of CEO Worldwide, a powerful, centralised IT tool enables CEO Europe to follow a mission step by step. Companies and VCs get access to this tool to do a pre- selection of candidates in accordance with the key needs of the mission in hand.

The rigorous selection guidelines are based on the following points:

• Founder or co-founder of a company with a high tech background
• Proven track record of a minimum of 10 or 15 years of professional experience
• International experience
• At least bilingual with English as one language
• A 4 or 5 year university degree and preferably a MBA
• Being able to take on a temporary or permanent assignment for the clients of CEO Worldwide in the country or region where they are based

CEO Worldwide's pool of candidates includes 86% of founders or co-founders of a new tech company. The distribution of the pool is as follows: 63% COO/CEO, 24% VP Sales and VP Business Development, 8% VP Finance and 4% VP Research and Development.

The iCEO : ready to jump on board in 33 countries

The main objective of CEO Worldwide's innovative approach of executive recruitment is to help companies to grow beyond their original territory at a cost of less than 40 to 60 % of an expatriation. Furthermore, CEO Worldwide offers a very fast access to strong managerial competence in 33 different countries in Europe, Asia and North America.

This unique offer combines a very strong reactivity regarding the selection process of the manager ­ it is actually less than 3 weeks for any chosen country- with a new flexibility on the contractual side of the operation : the three sided service contract covering several probationary months is in 40% followed by permanent employment of the manager and a contractual exit of CEO Worldwide.

(1) iCEO : senior manager certified by CEO Worldwide

About CEO Worldwide (www.ceo-worldwide.com)
CEO Worldwide offers an Interim management and permanent recruitment service dedicated to the High-Tech and Bio-Tech sectors. Managers qualified by CEO Worldwide are all proven High-Tech or Biotech entrepreneurs from Europe, USA or Asia. In less than 3 weeks and on the basis of a straightforward service contract, CEO Worldwide will provide its clients with senior Interim Executives (CEO, COO, CFO, VP Bus Dev) to work on projects alongside or in place of the CEO. Through its website, CEO Worldwide gives its clients access to its exclusive extranet ­ allowing them to see the profiles of all available pre-qualified managers.