Overstone Spotlight
John Jessen: Head of Business Development
What inspired you to join Overstone and help grow the company? How has over 35 years of international experience in building businesses influenced your role as Head of Business Development?
Throughout my professional life, I have been involved in founding, running and building international businesses across diverse industries, and in that capacity, engaging with clients and managing relationships has been at the core. In short, I'm a salesman, and proud of it.
Without clients, there is no business. From lawyers to dentists to life coaches, beautiful offices, charts, books and degrees may be on display, but if their businesses do not actively engage in lead generation, the rest is worthless, as there will not be any clients to serve.
I was inspired to join Overstone when I learned about the company's compelling value proposition. I work alongside highly educated and experienced professionals, who are all experts in their respective fields. I have their back, they have mine, and together we create magic.
Where do you see the greatest growth opportunities across the art/finance industry over the next few years?
As a share of total net worth, collectibles at large are significantly gaining in importance every year. Armed with actionable data generated from Overstone's SaaS platform, financial institutions will become more educated and subsequently more comfortable and competent in advising their UHNW clients in regard to their collections. Thus, by leveraging these hitherto passion assets, they can transform and unlock these into true asset classes.
In a troubled geopolitical environment, frothy securities markets make tangible assets attractive as a store of value and wealth, and this is a huge opportunity for financial institutions to increase their Assets Under Management (AUM) and generate significant new revenue streams and yet, this has been relatively untapped.
An obvious growth area is using collections as collateral to raise finance rather than liquidating assets. We see an increasing amount of financial institutions building their loan books against collectibles.
What role do you see Overstone playing in shaping such untapped potential?
Overstone is uniquely placed to bridge the world of collectibles, with the worlds of finance and insurance. As a team of ex-bankers, art specialists and data scientists, Overstone generates liquidity scores, mark-to-market revaluations at scale and sophisticated analytics. Our clients recognise that we are so much more than a collection management system.
As partners of Addepar, the world's largest and fastest growing wealth reporting provider, our partnership allows family offices and their principal UHNW collectors to integrate their collectibles into wealth reporting. Offering this integration is unique and a first of its kind.
Our vision is to become for the world of collectibles, what Bloomberg is to the world of finance.
...and finally, if any artwork could hang on your wall, which one would you choose and why?
At first, I would have jumped to a work by Gauguin or Monet. I am very fond of "Le Pont japonais" by Monet painted in 1899, for its colours, density and peacefulness, but then I remembered how lightning struck I was when last at the Thyssen Museum in Málaga when the museum ran an exhibition on Spanish nudes "Desnudos. Cuerpos normativos e insurrectos en el arte español (1870–1970)".
On display was "La Sibla", 1913, by Hermen Anglada-Camarasa. I was not familiar with this artist, but this painting had a strong impact on me: I was literally frozen and could not stop contemplating the work.
It is a large painting of an elegant, model-type lady, casually displaying a single breast while wrapped in a dark colourful dress and shawl. The background is Emerald Green, as is her face and skin, and her very dark eyes are sunken in deep shadows, looking almost psychotic. I find it electrifying and powerful. The figure hovers between sensuality and mysticism.