Reading Time: 9 minutes
CEO Schoolab San Francisco
Mathieu Aguesse is a 2015 graduate of ICAM School of engineering and Audencia’s specialised master in Marketing, Design and Creation (MS MDC). From his offices in San Francisco, he runs the US version of Schoolab, an innovation studio that trains, advises and supports its clients in responsible innovation. Mathieu also teaches design fiction and ethical and collaborative innovation at UC Berkeley. ‘Deplastify the Planet’ is one of his flagship programmes.
Mathieu’s story is that of a boy with a passport full of stamps, who, from South Africa to Nigeria, has developed a taste for travel, discovery and relationships, which he carries with him everywhere he goes.
Our conversation takes place across an ocean and several time zones and we pick up the thread of our discussion that started two months earlier.
Mathieu has just returned to San Francisco after a stay in Vietnam to support the development of the local Schoolab subsidiary. As always, he has taken advantage of these few days to learn, enrich his already wide experience of the world and store up different ideas and viewpoints that will help him move his own projects forwards.
When asked if he is in San Francisco for the duration, he smiles as if the binary format of the question still puzzles him. For Mathieu, “Staying in the USA or returning to France” is an incongruous choice as the world is full of so many other possibilities too. Mathieu is giving himself time to choose but also time to welcome his third child in the coming days.
When asked if he is in San Francisco for the duration, he smiles as if the binary format of the question still puzzles him. For Mathieu, “Staying in the USA or returning to France” is an incongruous choice as the world is full of so many other possibilities too. Mathieu is giving himself time to choose but also time to welcome his third child in the coming days.
Mathieu sees life as a permanent and collaborative learning process in which everything always ends up making sense and aligning when you know how to listen and observe. Discreet and curious, Mathieu doesn't like to talk much about himself: he prefers to talk about his encounters, discoveries and projects. In short, anything that will enhance his perception of the world he lives in with eyes and ears wide open.
Tell us where your wanderlust comes from
I grew up in Africa, between South Africa where I arrived two weeks after my birth and Nigeria. My parents were diplomats, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They moved around a lot and I guess they passed on to me their thirst for curiosity, discovery and meeting people.
My family returned to France when I was 12 and then, when I was 16, my parents headed abroad again without me. In most families, it’s the children who leave the nest, in mine it’s the other way round. That changes your perspective on life.
So an international career was always on the cards…
Subconsciously, yes.
Between my return from Nigeria and my studies at ICAM and Audencia, I spent ten years in Nantes. Even though I loved my time there, I felt a bit stifled. Deep down, I knew I needed to go further afield.
I have visited about sixty countries in my life, so living outside France was never a case of if but when. I had been ready for a long time when the opportunity arose; I would even say that I’d been waiting for it to happen. Sometimes life creates beautiful coincidences: when I left for San Francisco, my first child was the same age I was when my parents took me to South Africa.
In fact, I would have liked to start Schoolab in South Africa to bring an innovation model to which I’d had access to a country that, in my opinion, represents the future of the world. However, for a company like Schoolab, it made sense to start our international development in Silicon Valley, the most dynamic and powerful entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world. It was a big gamble for us to see if we could exist in San Francisco with our values and differentiation, the ethical side of innovation.
So even though it wasn’t Africa, I seized the opportunity without question and with enthusiasm.
At the beginning, however, your path didn’t look like that of an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
I had already sown seeds and they were just waiting to germinate and grow. At ICAM, I had taken part in an entrepreneurship competition around the digitalisation of AMAPs , a very rich experience even if it didn’t go all the way.
However, thanks to the alumni network, after graduating I made a “safe” choice by joining the construction sector, perhaps because I had not yet become aware of my true needs and values: discovery and ethics. Very quickly, however, this conflict of values blew up in my face: I was uncomfortable with the male-dominated environment where the balance of power was profoundly unequal to the detriment of the artisans, the “small guys”. This did not suit me at all and I wanted out.
I wanted to do something radically different and headed to the luxury sector, where, on the contrary, artisanship is a highly valued cornerstone of the industry. However, it’s a difficult environment to get into and no-one wanted to hire me. The result was that, with a partner, I created a start-up for bespoke leather goods.
We had a promising concept, good suppliers and funds raised from the BPI. Unfortunately, like so many start-ups, the ride was not a smooth one. Our project was used as a case study in the HEC Entrepreneurs course and integrating the conclusions proved hugely complicated. Instead of being strengthened, our confidence, in ourselves, our project and each other, was put to the test. What bound us together at the beginning then seemed to divide us, so we decided to stop.
Was abandoning your start-up the hardest choice you ever made?
There’s no doubt that the decision was a tough one at the time, but I also knew that we couldn’t continue as we were and that our chances of success would be compromised if we couldn’t align our visions. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t so much a choice as a necessary step that had to be accepted and digested.
The decision I had to make directly afterwards proved to be more difficult.
What was that?
After ending my start-up adventure, I received a very nice job offer from a fabulous brand of leather goods. It was the kind of offer that I couldn’t refuse and that would allow me to achieve my dream of working in the luxury sector.
I was very excited and happy about the offer, but deep down I had a feeling that I was missing a few strings to my bow, especially in design. This was a thought that had been floating around since creating my start-up and I’d started investigating solutions, including returning to the classroom.
Then I received two acceptance letters on the same day: one from my dream employer and one from the MDC recruitment team at Audencia. I ummed and aahed but chose Audencia. This led to some interesting conversations with my parents who, although they didn’t really get the no-brainer of paying to go back to school instead of accepting a well-paid opportunity, were always supportive.
It was a choice of intuition over reason and I don’t regret it.
So that’s how you joined Audencia?
Yes, for the specialised master in Marketing, Design and Creation, but also for the programme director, Nicolas Minvielle, whom I had met and asked a billion questions about the course, the school, future prospects and more. The role and practices of designers fascinated me.
After my baccalaureate, I had considered studying at the School of Design in Nantes, so I was already gravitating towards that environment: the little seeds I was talking about earlier were planted but I didn’t want to water them too soon, probably for fear of the lack of opportunities but also perhaps because I was too young. At 18, I think I was too young to have been exposed to the realities of life and to be able to make enlightened decisions. I guess my first degree was a precautionary choice, perhaps also by default.
On the other hand, joining the MS MDC programme was a very well thought-out choice, and paying for the course myself, instead of earning a good living elsewhere, gave an extra dimension to the challenge. I knew I had to make the most of the experience.
Looking back, I think that it is very difficult today to do this type of course without a bit of experience under your belt. That’s why I always involve companies in my teaching at Berkeley, so that the students are immediately faced with the realities of systems and organisations. I also believe that my mission as a professor is to accompany students on this path of continuous learning and teaching them how to learn, i.e., giving them the tools to challenge the status quo and think for themselves.
What memories do you have of Audencia?
I’m sure my background has made my memories quite different from those of the rest of the class. Even though I wasn’t yet 30, I’d already experienced entrepreneurship, business and working in the real world.
I think the French education system should value courses like the MDC and Specialised Masters in general. These courses are goldmines that can be an enormous lever for transformation. We should be making so many more bridges between education and work, to allow more people to come back to study at 25, 35 or 45.
When I arrived at Audencia, I quickly realised that entrepreneurs and designers are made of the same stuff! They think with their guts and with their emotions. That’s how you can recognise them: there’s a rather interesting form of collective hysteria in the MDC classroom because the course is creative and gets people moving. The profiles are very (very) hybrid and able to juggle subjects and disciplines. This suited me well because I like the idea of not being confined to a specific box.
Is being unconfined your career secret?
Maybe it is! I think I’ve always regretted my default choices more than the risks I took that didn’t pay off.
Today I see things differently: I accept what life throws at me and then I observe and try to understand the systems in which we evolve and endeavour to remain proactive in order to align these systems with my desires – or the opposite.
For example, in four years in San Francisco, we never bought a car, which is very uncommon here. However, on countless occasions, our friends and acquaintances offered to lend us their cars, vans and even houses. Simply because we didn’t rush into anything, knew how to align our desires with the needs and capacities of our close ecosystem at the right time. The same thing happened to us when we were looking for a house: instead of rushing to make an appointment with a real estate agency, we talked about our search within our circle and went to meet the people we were introduced to. We listened and were open and very quickly found a great place.
It’s the same professionally: you have to be patient and know how to seize opportunities when they arise. To do this, you need two essential qualities: knowing how to conceptualise and express what you do or want, so that you can easily talk about it around you, and knowing how to give back whenever you can, in one form or another.
Is sharing the key to today’s world?
Perhaps more globally, awareness but also permanent transformation. I give this impetus to Schoolab, activating transitions with a rationale of continuous, controlled and flexible, proactive and positive movement.
The people I joined Schoolab with have all left. I stayed. Why did I stay? Because I managed to develop my job and my professional practices, and therefore my impact on the world around me. I regenerated the meaning I gave to my projects throughout my time in the company.
This is what I try to teach my students and the companies I work with. I share my own experiences to help them adopt a positive and sustainable approach to transition. Individuals who start to change will continue changing and, through a form of osmosis, this will continue to have an impact on their activities.
Change is an attitude that feeds on learning, observation and freedom of choice. In order to take power and act on what we want to transform, we must understand the world, not just submit to it. You have to develop critical thinking, which means challenging different points of view. I try to put this into practice in my courses, by inviting pro-plastic lobbyists to my ‘Deplastify the Planet’ programme, for example. We all need to find some depth of thought and reinvest in freedom of choice.
How do you see the future?
That’s a difficult question!
Today, everything is going well professionally. I have just received an award for best teacher at Berkeley. Schoolab is growing, even though we are focusing on slow, organic and qualitative growth rather than scale. By the end of the year there should be ten of us, compared to only two during the COVID-19 period and our programmes are very successful. I have just published an article on Design Fiction in the prestigious Harvard Business Review. However, the future is not just about that. I have two children, and soon three. In ten or even twenty years from now, I want to be able to look them in the eye with pride. Not for my professional success, but for having understood the issues of our time and being part of the solution.
Having children puts things in an interesting time scale and gives depth to my daily action. For me, defining a company’s vision means making sure that the activities to which I devote most of my time contribute to creating a positive impact on the world we will inhabit tomorrow.
I often say, “You can’t go wrong with sustainability.” In fact, you can go wrong, but in the method not the commitment. I am very interested in regenerative agriculture: we are involved in maintaining the community garden and beehive, which I find fascinating. When you look closely at bees, you understand both the way honey is made and the concept of social inequality. You think about healthy eating and climate justice.
When I look back, I have no regrets: I made mistakes, I made choices by default, but I learned. I understood that freedom of choice was the condition for the future, the key to true success, the one that lets you think you are in the right place, at the right time, with the right people and the right impact.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Owner & Baker L’Imprimerie
As Emmanuel, he graduated from Audencia’s Grande Ecole Master in Management programme and pursued a career in investment banking. As Gus, he learned to bake at the French Culinary Institute before opening his own bakery, L’Imprimerie, in Brooklyn, New York. If you can’t make it to the Big Apple, check out his Instagram account here: https://www.instagram.com/limprimerie/
His bearded outline and his part cranky, part rebellious attitude fascinate. Gus Reckel’s outspokenness is a cocktail of Gallic diehard and Wall Street wolf that is necessarily explosive and necessarily intriguing. The result is inimitable and delicious. In the microcosm of “converts”, i.e., those bakers who came to the profession late in life, Gus, the former trader, is a bit of a hero and role model, even if he denies it, preferring his freedom and the right to follow his own path.
L’Imprimerie (The Print Shop) is the name of his bakery nestled in the heart of Bushwick, on the edge of Brooklyn. Gus makes the best pain au chocolat in New York, but he’s not after trophies or fame: Gus has a taste for a job well done. Period!
The class of ’97 may remember a certain Emmanuel Reckel, what happened to him?
He stayed in the City. When you reinvent yourself, sometimes you have to go all the way and slough off your old identity.
What happened on that Monday in September 2008?
That Monday in September 2008? I don’t remember really, it’s become blurred over time. It was a long time ago, but, at the same time, it feels like it was yesterday.
I was the Sales Director of a London-based trading room. I remember going away for the weekend like all my colleagues, and reassuring my clients before I left, telling them that everything would be fine, that there was nothing to worry about. That the management had a plan, of course, and that they would reveal it to us very soon. That we would come back stronger than ever, certainly with a new name.
I think everyone at Lehman Brothers spent that weekend glued to their screens, whether it was the news channels or their Blackberries – yes, we hipsters weren’t yet hooked on iPhones. We were waiting for a message from top management, a reassuring word, a hint of what was to come. Monday arrived and we still didn’t have any news. When we got to the office, they asked us to be gone by noon, taking our personal belongings with but leaving our jobs behind. That was it. Lehman had collapsed.
Is that when you changed jobs?
No. I continued in finance, at Nomura Securities, the Japanese brokerage firm that took over part of Lehman Brothers’ activities in Europe. I stayed in London until I was offered a a two-year expatriate contract as Sales Director in New York.
I went for it and I loved New York. Immediately. I felt like I belonged there. When my contract came to an end and I should have been heading back to London, I didn’t want to leave. I don’t like going back: you rarely find what you’re looking for.
OK, but the route from trader to baker isn’t a direct one…
No.
Well, the first step is still an investment. In my mind, I was thinking of a café, a grocery shop, a place to gather in my neighbourhood. I was looking to buy a building because I didn’t want to be dependent on a volatile real estate market or a landlord who could grant or deny my business its breath of life.
When I discovered this place, a 50-year old printing house with a press that was still in working order, I borrowed the money and went for it. But really, at the beginning it was mainly a café project: I wanted to make bread on the side, rather than buying it from a baker and selling it on.
So what made you decide to become a baker?
It was a personal and professional business strategy as well as the lack of market supply. A combination of all of these, I think.
First, I’ve always been an early riser, so you could say I’m predisposed to baking. However, it was mainly when I realised how good bread was so hard to find in New York that I thought about training and going for it.
I wanted to do the Compagnons du Devoir but I was too old. So I looked at the French Culinary Institute in New York. They have a big programme for pastry and another for cooking. They also have a less well-known bread programme, which is very hands-on and in line with my needs and expectations. Above all, it was intensive: in ten weeks, you learn all about French baking techniques, bread but also viennoiseries and everything that uses leavened dough.
That’s all I use today at L’Imprimerie. We’re very transparent with our customers: we have this very authentic side that ties in well with my French origins, the tastes that I loved when I was a kid and that I share today, so yes, we’re the French Bakery of the neighbourhood and we offer what our customers expect to find in a French bakery.
However, since we’re in New York, we’re free to introduce a few little twists because we have a wide community that goes beyond our French customers. We do chocolate with jalapenos, cinnamon rolls with croissant dough. You could say we have something of a Dolly Parton aesthetic: a bit cheap, but very, very authentic.
Is artisanship in your DNA?
Being a baker is probably more important to me than being French, even if I am what I am. I can handle that and I play on my origins, that’s for sure. Nevertheless, what interests me is to be true and honest and make my business work.
We have a quality approach: each morning, everything is freshly prepared by us and cooked on the spot. I don’t see the point of making a strawberry tart out of season just to make our offer more French. This is not our promise.
I offer a different vision of food in my neighbourhood, this idea of slow food and high quality. But also a presence and a place to live in the heart of the community. I’m neither a co-op nor a neighbourhood association, but during COVID-19, for example, we were there every day and for many people we were a landmark.
Our customers are hipsters, Bobos, guys who work in the City, but also people of more modest means, who work at the hospital just down the street. The idea of quality food should not be the reserve of just a few. I’m trying to develop a business that is sustainable, i.e., economically viable, but that fits in well with its community. I pay my staff on time and my suppliers too. But make no mistake, we work hard, we don’t bunk off.
Being a baker is a tough job in a difficult context
Yes, it’s clearly a difficult job.
During the pandemic, a lot of people started making bread at home. And that’s great because it did them a lot of good, especially for their wellbeing. The kneading itself is quite a meditative experience and then there’s the smell of the dough, the contact, the texture. Frankly, bringing a loaf of bread to life is an incredible sensation.
However, there is a huge difference between fantasising about changing jobs while you’re making your bread at home and actually doing it. The reality of the job is that you have to be there every day, every night, preparing your recipes, shaping your breads, baking them, etc. You carry heavy bags, you stay in the kitchen andit’s hard work. When you are standing all day, you get this feeling of producing, producing, without looking up, even in a craft environment. Some people find it too hard in the end.
Our job is a physical, technical and scientific one because dough is a living material. Depending on the heat, the cold, the hygrometry, it doesn’t react in the same way and you have to adapt.
And of course, being a baker also means being a company director, with all the different hats that you have to wear in today’s world: communicating, selling, managing, recruiting. So yes, you have to keep your feet on the ground. Because I haven’t been a baker all my life, I often feel like an imposter compared to other bakers. However, I think that I may be a little ahead of the game when it comes to managing a business. Having had a previous career has turned out to be very helpful.
You also have a bit of a militant side, don’t you?
No! I’m not here to give lessons to anyone. Not about bread, not about anything. When we launched L’Imprimerie, we could have made a big fuss in the press, made ourselves known in the City, played that card, but I didn’t feel justified going down that route. I’m not one of those bakers who’s been in the business forever, because I didn’t take a specific trade qualification like all the others, and maybe also because today I use my American passport more than my French one.
So yes, there are things that make us happy, like when we were voted best pain au chocolat in New York: we feel that people recognise that we do the job properly. But that’s where it ends. There’s only one thing I want to do and that’s my job, properly!
I want to be at the heart of people’s lives, to create this place where they are happy to come, where they feel good. I want them to recognise us for the quality of what we sell them. Our customers decide what label they put on us.
Do they call us the neighbourhood’s super French bakery or the super queer bakery? That’s fine, just as long as we can see the word “super” in front. I’m not an activist, I’m here to keep my customers coming and coming back, to pay my bills at the end of the month, and to have fun in what I do every day.
What does the future look like for you, Gus?
I don’t know. Who can predict the future?
Is L’Imprimerie doing well? That’s good. We’ll keep working hard, like we have for six years now and taking it one day at a time. I don’t have any plans to expand, if that’s what you mean.
Nor a return to France?
Not back to France, no. I’m at home in New York now.
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Programme Manager Flix
Esha grew up in a small Nepalese town on the eastern hills of the Himalayas. Her parents – who owned a bed and breakfast, were able and willing to offer her a private education. Esha is acutely aware of her privileged upbringing. In Nepal, private schooling is often the only way to access good standards of education, learn English, and develop the mind set required to forge a better life abroad. She insists that compared to many of her compatriots, she didn’t endure tremendous financial hardship. However, she did have to keep hammering away to get herself to where she is today.
As a child, she proved to have a sharp eye for how things operate and a natural interest towards optimisation and efficiency.
A natural problem solver, she has been lending a hand at her parents’ business for as long as she can remember. “I must point out that I got involved out of interest and never felt forced”. Her journey took her to west Bengal in India where she studied engineering, Bangalore for her first quality analyst job, then Nantes and Milan where she followed a master’s degree in Supply Chain and Purchasing Management at Audencia. She moved to Paris where she learnt her trade at Nissan’s European headquarters. She has recently settled in Berlin after joining Flix, a leading German company offering intercity bus services in Europe, North America and Brazil. Having developed a long-standing fascination for Germany’s legendary efficiency, this last move was also an opportunity for her to experience the system from within.
A board game collector, a goal planner, and a rational thinker who clearly likes all her ducks in a row, it would be easy to label Esha as a strategy geek. But a different side of her is unveiled when she shares her interest in self-development books and her spiritual quest for freedom. A sign that one can be curious about the ``what`` and the ``how`` in their worldly activity, whilst also questioning the ``why``.
Tell us about your childhood in Nepal. Did you spend it climbing mountains… or is this assumption a terrible cliché?!
It is a bit of a stereotype indeed…, not all Nepalese are sherpas (laugh)! The small town I grew up in is located on the foothills of the lower Himalayan range. With green hills on three sides, it is a land of enthralling natural beauty. But I was too busy studying and working to indulge in too many outdoorsy recreational activities, and I was more drawn towards arts and crafts activities.
My parents own a bed and breakfast. It’s a small family-run establishment that has always been buzzing with customers checking in and out, many of them pilgrims. From a young age, I was interested in the daily run of its operations and felt fully invested in it. I started by supporting my parents with basic logistics and assisting customers at the front desk. My analytical instincts kicked in early and at 15, I asked to have a look at the accounts to figure out how to optimise our processes.
Was education important for your parents?
It was paramount. My mother played an important role in impressing upon my older brother and I the importance of academic learning and financial independence. Where I come from, girls are not necessarily given equal rights to education. But my mum – a strong headed woman, made a point of treating my brother and I equally. My parents worked hard to give us both access to private schooling. I felt a responsibility to perform at school, but it wasn’t like a burden. I saw it as teamwork, where the whole objective was for our generation to become better off than our parents. So I typically woke up at 5am to study before going to school at 7am. I was back home at 3pm and when I finished my homework, I helped my parents with the family business. But it was not the ascetic childhood it might sound like. I was happy and having parents that encouraged to study was a privilege. Apart from a couple of rebellious years when I reached 15, I was a good kid.
Why did you leave Nepal?
The university provision in Nepal isn’t all that good and pupils whose parents can afford it go and study abroad. I left home at 18 to enrol in a university in India. Engineering felt like an obvious discipline choice because I had this thirst for problem solving. Academically, it was a big step up for me, so I had to work harder than I ever had. When you grow up with power cuts that last for the best part of a day, you develop resilience! This experience was also a mental challenge as I had never ventured far beyond my hometown. I was living in a student dorm in a country where I didn’t know anyone, and I felt homesick for months. I’m sure that having interacted with tourists from a young age helped me develop interpersonal skills and build confidence.
Tell us about your first steps in the professional world
Once I graduated, I got a job in Bangalore in the southern India, as a quality analyst for Sapient, an American company now part of Publicis. My role – at the crossroads between operations and technology, consisted in testing the quality of the software that we were building for different banks and hedge funds. I had always had my eyes on a master’s so after 3 years there I left. I realised that I wanted to know how supply chain and operations worked end to end, as opposed to specialising in one particular sector. In 2015, I applied for Audencia’s Master in Supply Chain and Purchasing Management. The dual degree programme in partnership with Politecnico di Milano made it particularly appealing.
Joining the programme in Nantes must have been another daunting step?
Moving countries at 18 had already made me feel like I had crossed a mountain so this intercontinental move was a little less overwhelming. Making new connections was not the most difficult part. No, it was… getting accustomed to the foreign cuisine. I mean… the uncooked sea food… and don’t get me started on snails! But hey, just like everything else, with an open mind and a dose of courage, you adapt. I loved the interactivity of the lessons, and the project-based group work. There was a bar by the river in Nantes, which became our hangout. By the time the whole class moved to Milan, we had become close, and we had so much fun. As for Italian food… for me it definitely beats French cuisine. No offense! (laugh). Our Whatsapp group is still alive and we have regular video chats. That felt particularly comforting during lockdown.
Tell us about your experience at Nissan’s European headquarters in Paris
I secured an internship in Paris and managed to convert it into a permanent job. It was exactly what I had hoped and more As a supply chain project officer, I gained both business acumen and tech skills. Later, I moved into a reporting role preparing analyses to improve sales decisions. This gave me valuable exposure to senior management. I enjoyed the corporate culture there. Its diversity and mixture of nationalities reminded me of the atmosphere at Audencia. It was a male-dominated environment, but female employees felt empowered. I certainly never felt that I was treated unequally.
Why did you move to Germany?
I had been there a few times to visit my brother who was living there at the time, and I had fallen in love with the country. I was fascinated by this sense that every system is efficiently run. I wanted to experience this way of living from the inside, as a daily user. And also my boyfriend – now husband – was living there.
How did you end up with a boyfriend in another country?
He is Nepalese; we went to the same school back in my hometown. He is just one year older than me and we have known each other for twenty years. Our paths crossed again in India when we both got scholarships to the same university. After he graduated, he moved to Mumbai to study a master’s in computer science. He is a pure tech guy. I moved to Bangalore then Nantes before we reunited for good in Germany. We survived the long-term long-distance relationship.
Flixbus has an inspiring vision of making sustainable travel both comfortable and affordable. What does your role there entail?
I made a conscious decision to join a smaller, agile company, where I could apply what I had learned at Nissan and gain more ownership and freedom. I have been at Flixbus for 6 months and I am really enjoying it so far. The company has a unique concept, combining tech and transportation and it has propelled the bus industry into the digital era. As a project manager and senior business analyst, my job is to optimise all the processes, products and tools that we launch for our operations teams and partners. Ultimately, I help to add growth for the company and improve mobility for our users. Flixbus has recently acquired Greyhound, which is the biggest and oldest bus company in the US and we have gone live in Brazil this month. It’s exciting to know that we are touching all continents.
I admire how the company lives and breathes its corporate values and first and foremost its attachment to sustainability. It is such a warm feeling at the end of a long day to know that you bring a positive contribution to the world.
What is the most gratifying aspect of your role?
I have the opportunity of making an impact and coming out proud, which is exactly what I always look for in a job. Through all this daily data crunching, reports writing, and project greenlighting, I am improving the customer experience of our passengers and co-workers. I launch systems that are used by a lot of people and are making their work and life easier. I can see myself staying with Flixbus for a while.
Does your inclination for tidiness and optimisation also transpire into your daily personal life?
I like to keep my home space and my finances neat and organised indeed. My personal “COVID lockdown project” was creating an Excel finance dashboard. I realise it’s not everybody’s idea of entertainment, but it gave me a sense of joy and accomplishment! I am also a planner when it comes to my personal goals: I write them down every year, come up with an action plan and a project list, and review them regularly. The end of year is a period of deep introspection for me. I am not particularly passionate or impulsive, so whenever I have an important choice, such as a career move, I always research thoroughly. However, once my mind is set on a goal, I am decisive and consciously dedicate all my energy towards it with the intention to come out as a winner.
Please tell me that you don’t spend all your free time on Excel?!
Ha, ha, no, far from it. I like to paint. And I collect board games. My current favourites are Azul, Patchwork and Ticket to ride. I also enjoy a good game of poker. Not surprisingly, I enjoy mostly strategy and planning games (laugh)! I am openly competitive, and I hate losing!
I am also an avid reader of personal development books. I am influenced by the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle, and the teachings of Joe Dispenza on our ability to free ourselves from limitations. I enjoyed “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz; it’s a “practical guide to freedom” that has stayed with me.
Your favourite activity in Berlin?
I enjoy strolling around in East Berlin, which is packed with historical landmarks. I am not an expert in the Second World War, but I can’t help but feeling moved by what I see. I also like the feel-good atmosphere of the Weissensee Lake, and the East Side Gallery: once the Berlin Wall and now the longest open-air gallery in the world.
Looking back … Do you think you have achieved success?
For me success is a process and I want my life to be a constant learning curve. I fear that If I ever consider myself successful, I will take my accomplishments for granted and see the curve slow down.
Your professional and life accomplishments must make your parents very proud of you
Yes, I think they are proud of me. And of my brother too – he has a PhD in strategic management and is doing a post doctorate at ETH Zurich. But it’s not my parents’ culture to express it to us very often. What they would say is that they feel at peace with the way they have raised me, and the place that I have secured for myself in the world. Even though they could safely retire and finally enjoy life, they can’t imagine a life without working. I haven’t seen them much since I left home. I last saw them for our wedding.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?
I hope that I will have grown. For me it’s not a question of promotion, job title or salary. It’s about self-development and my ability to constantly increase the scale of the impact that I am creating. This goal might lead me back to Nepal, where I can see myself as an entrepreneur. I would use my expertise in launching high quality operations projects and focus on accelerating the digital transformation of the country. Again, if I make that step, it will be a thoroughly researched and analysed decision!
Are you proud of your heritage?
Nepalese people are warm and welcoming. I am very fond of my country, and anyone who goes there will agree that its natural treasures are breathtaking. I just wish that people would look beyond the stereotypes. The mountains that surround us are superb and majestic but the topography makes life harsh for many Nepalese. However, I think we get our resilience from withstanding years of political instability and financial hardship.
Reading Time: 11 minutes
CFO Airbus for the Southern Cone
It is with an open smile and a lilting accent betraying her Southern France origins that Jessica Giuliani greets us for this interview.
Hers is a story of a youngster from Toulouse whose head was always turned upwards to the sky; such was her fascination for aeroplanes. Her mother was convinced that she would one day join Airbus, the city’s iconic multinational corporation. However, Jessica’s dream of becoming a pilot crash-landed when she was told -wrongly- that her eyesight would prevent her from flying. Smart, curious, and ever full of joie de vivre, she went on to graduate from Audencia’s Grande Ecole programme in 2013. At 33, her CV could make many fifty-year-olds pale with envy. In just a few years, Jessica has embraced a successful career in finance becoming CFO of Airbus in Santiago di Chile in 2020.
Armed with the confidence that 20/20 vision isn’t a prerequisite for flying, she signed up for her first lesson last year. The flying school is just a few minutes from her office, which she takes as a sign that the time has come to fulfil her life’s dream.
Thus summarised, Jessica’s trajectory seems almost predestined. When she signed her contract with Airbus, her mother said “See! I’ve always known you’d end up there. Didn’t I tell you so many times?” But Jessica insists on setting the record straight. It’s not about destiny so much as hard work, ambition and an appetite to jump on opportunities that has got her where she is today.
Thus summarised, Jessica’s trajectory seems almost predestined. When she signed her contract with Airbus, her mother said “See! I’ve always known you’d end up there. Didn’t I tell you so many times?” But Jessica insists on setting the record straight. It’s not about destiny so much as hard work, ambition and an appetite to jump on opportunities that has got her where she is today.
Let’s meet a fearless woman who has managed to get hold of what matters to her most in life, by keeping her feet on the ground and her head in the sky.
Tell us a little bit about your background. What steered you towards a career in finance?
Until 2007, when I came to Audencia, I lived in Toulouse. My parents are from quite a humble background; my father left school at 13, working as a mechanic before managing a Renault dealership. My mother was his secretary then joint manager. My parents’ lack of academic background had a significant impact on me because I grew up hearing the “You must get a good education!” mantra. They wanted me to be in a position to choose from a wide range of careers. Their dream was that one day I would join Airbus, which to them is the best firm in the world, offering opportunities, great working conditions, a career for life, and all this close to home in Toulouse!
What were you like as a child?
People always found me sociable and easy-going. I enjoyed interacting with adults and was excited when my parents had guests because I loved eavesdropping on grown-up conversations. I fed off the life experiences I was hearing and developed a certain maturity and curiosity.
What were your biggest wishes then?
I was desperate to travel the world. My parents didn’t have the time or the money for foreign holidays. But when I was 11, we went on a family trip to Reunion Island and that’s where I caught the travel bug. From the age of 13, I took it into my own hands to sign up for any holiday camp that we could afford.
My other big dream was to become an airline pilot. I was inspired by Hollywood movies, and I loved spending time in aviation museums. I always believed that a job as a pilot would be fulfilling on many levels: my inexplicable dream of flying, my fascination with engineering, the possibility to connect people, a thirst for reaching faraway lands and admiring landscapes from 40,000 feet above…
Were you serious about pursuing a career as a pilot?
I was totally determined. At the age of 12, I attended a career fair to figure out the best way to get there. I met with staff from the Air Force and from several French airlines. Several advisors spotted my glasses and told me that a flying career needed perfect vision. It turns out that they were wrong. I will never know would have happened had I investigated further. My mother always wanted me to work at Airbus; maybe she thought it would be the next best thing for me…
With such a stellar career in finance, is it safe to say you were a mathematical whizz kid?
I was a good all-rounder. My favourite subjects were maths and Spanish. I even helped my older sister to revise for her exams. Nevertheless, I also valued my social life and made time to go out and have fun. I would have liked to do some sport but my parents never had the time to sign me up and to take me to practices.
After her baccalaureate, my sister did a two-year course. She was my only role model, so I was naturally planning to follow a similar route. However, I met a career advisor in high school who, after looking at my grades, insisted that I needed to consider applying for preparatory classes, the two years that prepare you for the national competitive entrance exams to the best French business schools. I wasn’t even aware that the possibility even existed, as my parents didn’t have the academic codes to guide me through the system. I am so grateful to the lady who detected my potential and pushed me towards a different path.
What options did you choose at Audencia?
In my first year, I chose the sustainability track with specialised classes on sustainable economics and micro-credit, for example, and I dived into it with a passion. I chose finance as a major – to me, the most challenging choice but also one that would equip me with the skills that would be trickier to acquire later on the job. I did a one-year work placement with KPMG in Toulouse, during which I audited banks and industrial firms. It encouraged me to study a double major audit and corporate finance.
What were the highlights of your time at Audencia?
Throughout my first year, we worked on a project for an organic Mexican fair-trade coffee brand that aimed to export to Europe. I was by far the most enthusiastic member of my working group and I was the only one to speak Spanish fluently. So, I got to travel to Mexico for 2 weeks, visiting the cooperative, the trading port in Vera Cruz, and setting up all the costs. What an incredible experience when I think back about it!
I joined “Access Sud”, the micro-credit club. It was gratifying to be part of a community of students who were motivated by the same interests and values. The issues we were trying to tackle really awoke something in me. I must also mention the parties that were a great way to build up my social skills!
Did you ever feel self-conscious about your background?
When I first visited Audencia for the entrance exams, everyone I met was very friendly and I immediately felt at home. It felt a bit like landing in a fairytale world! My social background has never been an issue because I have always been comfortable and even proud of my roots. I know what my family values are and the hard work it takes to earn money when you don’t start out with much.
But yes, there were a few individuals who drew attention to what made me different. Some asserted that I would never get a job in Paris with my strong southern accent. When we attended the first Audencia party in Paris, others were shocked when I admitted that it was my first time in the capital. I just decided to leave the comments slide and to adopt a “we shall see” attitude. I knew that with resilience, I could build a path that would reveal my true personality, regardless of my background. These were isolated incidents and what I remember best is the school’s capacity to connect us with people from other horizons.
We noticed on your CV that you worked briefly as a flight attendant… tell us more, we’re intrigued!
I needed to earn some money during my last year at Audencia. Believe or not, I spotted the ad for an Air France flight attendant on the school’s job board. They need to fill these jobs every year, so I would encourage every student who fancies being paid to travel to check it out! I criss-crossed the globe and even got to sit in the cockpit during take-off and landing. Air France offered me a permanent position but I was wise enough to understand the value that an Audencia diploma represented. Besides, my true dream was to be in the pilot’s seat…
How did you land in Brazil, when you didn’t even speak the language?
After graduating, I did a 6-month contract in the internal audit department of Lagardere in Paris before returning to KPMG. Three years later, I realised that I didn’t want to stay in a company for a couple of weeks to simply assess the risks and deliver certifications. As a doer myself, I was itching to make an impact in a particular sector, be part of a team and implement a strategy.
From the age of 18, I dreamed of working in Latin America, especially after all the Spanish lessons I had during my preparatory classes. At 26, I decided it was time. The only paid job that I found was in Sao Paolo and I accepted a pay cut, but I figured that the opportunity was worth it. As LatAm financial controller for JC Decaux, I was in charge of branches in Brazil, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. 3 months after I joined, my boss resigned, so I quickly took on greater responsibilities… and learnt Portuguese! At first, I was talking “Portuñol” but after 3 months of lunchtime tuition and interacting with my flatmates, I experienced a sort of light bulb moment and I separated the two languages. It goes to show that with a good dose of determination, a foreign language isn’t a barrier to career progression.
What motivated your move to Chile?
In 2017, after deciding the corporate culture wasn’t me, I resigned and went travelling. My plan was to go backpack round Latin America for six months. Just a few weeks in, my manager from KPMG contacted me to say that there was an opportunity for me in Chile at NewRest, a catering company whose headquarters are in Toulouse. In between excursions, I logged in from various youth hostels and internet cafés in Colombia and Ecuador, and, after a long series of interviews, I got the job of Financial Director. I love how life can throw the best surprises at you. I wasn’t looking to move to Chile, and I wasn’t even looking for a job at the time… let alone this amazing opportunity for someone of my age!
I discovered the easy-going expat lifestyle, complete with company car, apartment and social connections. But I was working crazy hours as I had so much to learn and was managing 4 people in their 50’s who were not driven by the sort of motivation that I had taken for granted at KPMG. I stayed there for 3 years.
CFO at Airbus sounds like a huge step up. How did you manage to land such a senior role?
In June 2020, in the middle of a strict lockdown in Santiago, and the unsettling context of mass redundancy at the catering firm I was working at, I received a call from one of my ex-managers who encouraged me to apply for a CFO role at Airbus. If I have learnt one thing, it’s that it clearly helps to cultivate great relationships with your ex bosses! The Managing Director of the Chile branch was looking for someone based in Santiago to report to him as well as the LatAm CFO. The role entailed overseeing teams in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay as well as the client portfolio across the whole “ConSur”. The turnover was much larger than anything I had ever managed before. The challenges were exciting, having to negotiate contracts with governmental institutions and VIP clients.
I knew I would need broad shoulders, but reminded myself that I already had an experience in a senior role that I could leverage. So I decided to go for it and entered a 2 month-long recruitment process during which I had 5 interviews with 5 different people. During one of the interviews I had to deal with a few snarky comments, such as “We sell helicopters… not sure you know anything about those?!” Perhaps the interviewer was biased against my age, gender or the fact that I didn’t have any professional experience in aeronautics. But I didn’t let the questions stump me. I argued that in finance you don’t need to be have technical product expertise… but as it turned out, I happened to cultivate a passion for the sector, with a lifelong dream of becoming a pilot!
This seems to have done the trick and in 2020, I joined Airbus.
What’s a typical working day for you?
The tasks are too varied to fit into a daily template. Essentially, I try to prioritise making myself available for the team of 12 people that I manage. There’s a tendency to get wrapped up in Airbus meetings with my branch directors, my counterparts in other branches or colleagues from head office to discuss strategic projects such as regionalising the business which will result in moving functions to LatAm.
I have learnt to carve out time for myself to progress on my projects when I have realised that others’ priorities are not necessarily mine. Otherwise, I would be stuck in meetings until 6pm… and I confess that my vision is not to work until midnight!
Are you as organised in your personal life?
I wish! The day that I found myself stuck in Lima unable to pay for my hotel room or the bus because I had forgotten to activate my credit card … I realised how chaotically I can let my life run! Fortunately, the Peruvian friend of a friend generously lent me some money and saved my trip. I laugh now at the irony of how powerless a CFO feels with no access to a means of payment!
Which country would you recommend relocating to – Brazil or Chile?
I loved my time in Brazil because there I found everything that I imagined Latin American culture to be: music and dance everywhere, and the special warmth and joie de vivre of the people. In that respect, moving to Chile was a culture shock because I harboured the same expectations. In Santiago in particular, people are quite closed-off, far from the typical image of Latino. However, they are also the most loyal friends you could ever wish to have, once you have gained their trust. Here, when people invite you at their home, they introduce you to their family; that’s an honour. The attitude is closer to what we see in Europe… with the added benefit of an amazing living environment. It is safe enough that I can walk the streets at night. Being such a long country, it is a land of contrasts, with the Atakama in the North – the world’s most arid desert, a string of fjords and snow-capped volcanoes, and the glacier-carved lakes of Patagonia in the South. I have never seen anything like it. Chile gets my vote!
Have you given up on your flying dreams?
Never! My office is located on an aerodrome with a flying club. A year ago, I started taking flying lessons three times a week, from 7 to 10pm. I’ve been learning about aircraft aerodynamics and how the engine works. I’ve passed the theory, and I am now working on the practice. I have 22 hours of flying under my belt, and I need 40-60 hours to get my licence. So just a few more hours before I can fulfil my childhood dream!
I now realise that on commercial flights, you don’t actually pilot the plane that much. I get much more joy from flying in a small 2 person aircraft. You get to be responsible for all aspects of the flight. We don’t train on simulators, but we are thrown straight into a real cockpit. Last time my instructor simulated an emergency situation and turned off the engine to test my reaction. That was fun!
I always walk back on the tarmac with a huge smile on my face. I am proud that for the first time I have managed to be disciplined enough to carve out time for an activity that makes my life so fulfilling.
I am also fortunate, because even though it’s not going not going to help us win contracts, my boss encourages all employees to embrace their passion for aviation, in whatever form.
It sounds like you have achieved your main life goals already. What’s next for you?
This year will be decisive. I will either stay in a CFO role, possibly in another country. Or I might move on to an operational or sales role, which interest me as well. I confess that I would love to go travelling again… but I can’t be too greedy. For now, I am looking forward to getting my pilot licence and show my boyfriend, friends and family the stunning views of my adopted country, from above.
Stop press!
Since the time of writing, Jessica has indeed stretched her wings! She has her pilot’s licence and is now hoping to skydive -safely- into entrepreneurship. The Audencia community wishes her all the best and looks forward to seeing where she will fly to next.
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Assistant Vice President Citi
When she was growing up in Bogotá, Annie Rojas was fascinated by the night sky and its many wonders. As a teenager, she gave up on her long-time dream of becoming an astronaut and chose a career in finance. Pragmatic but ambitious, she figured that if international business wouldn’t send her to the moon, it could at least take her to the other side of the world.
Annie’s story could serve as an advertisement for international mobility. Moving to Nantes in 2011 to join the Audencia IMM programme, she learnt to speak French, made lifelong friends, and got her foot into Citi’s door where she is leading a successful career in supply chain finance.
When an opportunity to transfer to the Dublin office presented itself, she didn’t know much about “the Emerald Isle” beyond its widely celebrated St Patrick’s traditions, but she leapt at the chance. There, she further expanded her worldview across a broader set of trade methods, gained exposure to a new working culture, met her soon to be husband, and developed a liking for one of the most revered Irish institutions: the pub.
Not everyone is tempted to move halfway across the globe and start life again in a foreign country with all the personal and emotional stresses this entails. But it certainly was a decision that paid off for Annie.
Not everyone is tempted to move halfway across the globe and start life again in a foreign country with all the personal and emotional stresses this entails. But it certainly was a decision that paid off for Annie.
Let’s meet the international executive who tells us about her journey and why her granny-style trolley, her swimsuit and a healthy dose of adventurous spirit are some of its special features.
Did you grow up in a traditional or liberal family?
I was born and raised in a close-knit family in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. My two younger brothers and I were inseparable. My father has a degree in business and worked for Volkswagen pretty much all his life; my mother is a psychologist. My parents have always been proud of their Colombian roots but they also wanted us to develop an open-minded attitude. They often referred to our family members who moved to the US as inspirational. They enrolled us in a bilingual school knowing that speaking English would open doors to their children.
What sort of child were you?
I was quite shy and did not hang out with the cool kids. My boyfriend insists that I’m still uncool (laugh)… but I am definitely more open these days. The experiences I had abroad that forced me to throw myself into the unknown have helped shake off the shyness. I still have a tendency to get nervous. I got nervous ahead of this interview actually! But it’s getting better with time.
I think I performed well at school I because my parents had paid for our private education and I felt I had to honour their investment. For some reason, they thought that no proper education would be complete without years of swimming lessons, so I clocked up more laps in the pool than I can count.
What were your dreams back then?
I was fascinated by outer space. I watched tons of space movies, and after a visit to the NASA centre in Florida I even wanted to become an astronaut. I gave up that dream when I was a teenager, but with hindsight, I realise that I still ended up choosing a path that led to far away adventures. This is how, at 16, I ended up on a bachelor programme in finance and international business at Bogotá University.
Living in France was another dream of mine. I loved the language and everything else I discovered about the culture through the many French movies I watched. I fantasised about becoming the “Colombian Amélie” and retracing her steps through the winding alleys of Montmartre. At uni, I met some exchange students from Audencia. I was impressed that they all had exciting international profiles already. They sold Audencia and the city of Nantes to me and I enrolled in Audencia’s international master in management (MSc IM) programme.
Was your experience of Audencia as life changing as you had anticipated?
It was! Until then, I had only left the country to visit my family in the US, so this was my first time in Europe. At 20, it was also my first solo trip and first steps away from my family. That was 10 years ago, and I have been living abroad ever since. Overcoming the language barrier was more challenging than I had predicted. I’d studied French for 4 years at university and thought I’d do OK until the day I found myself in the Nantes airport shuttle, praying I would find my way to the “Commerce” station… I stuck close to the driver until he promised me that I had made it to the right place. That was quite a stressful jump in at the deep end.
In a single year at Audencia, my classmates – many of whom I still count as close friends, and I built so many memories. We travelled to Barcelona to visit a partner school, and a few of us celebrated New Year in Switzerland. The opportunity to continue onto a yearlong internship was also immensely valuable. In Colombia, when young graduates leave university, they feel much more vulnerable without this prior work experience.
How easy was it adapting to French culture?
What really helped was living with a French family. We would have long dinners together and they introduced me to the local cuisine (ah! Le plateau de fromages!), and many other traditions. They moved house while I was there (and I went with them!), and they put up little signs with the family members’ names on the doors of each bedroom. I will never forget seeing mine was marked “La Chambre d’Annie”. They told me they kept the sign up a long time after I moved away, which I found so touching. To this day, I call them my “French mum and dad”.
The main cultural difference I had to adapt to was around friendship. For the first few months, when I engaged in a conversation I naturally expected the person to be my friend or at least be willing to build a friendship. Sometimes I would bump into people the following day and they would not remember me, a reaction which takes some getting used to! Then, when I started to experience the office culture, I understood that the French tend to keep their work and personal relationships separate. It gets better when you accept that and don’t take it personally. French people are more private than Colombians are and some need time to warm up to new acquaintances. On the plus side, once you have formed strong bonds with someone, they will treat you like family.
How did you climb the steps at Citi?
For me it’s always been about seizing opportunities as they present themselves. As the expiry date on my student visa got closer, I tried to remain philosophical about the dozens and dozens of internship applications and rejections. I set myself a deadline and decided that if I hadn’t secured an internship two weeks beforehand, I would pack up and go travelling. On the day I was getting ready to pack my suitcase, my luck turned and I received an offer from Citi.
In 2011, I joined one of the bank’s branches in Paris, close to the Champs Elysées for a one-year internship that was later converted into a permanent role. I started in the trade and treasury solutions department, and my job involved going through export documentation and finding financial solutions for exporting from France. After being promoted to trade sales associate, I got to work with a broader selection of products such as supply finances, letters of credit and guarantees. My clients were using our services to ensure that the risk associated with the transactions in terms of documentation and payment was covered for both parties. Suppliers and buyers relied on me to make their interactions easier. My job was client-oriented from the start, and my manager, a great mentor, encouraged me to learn on the job.
Did you go on an Amélie pilgrimage to Montmartre when you arrived in Paris?
You may laugh but this is exactly what I did on my very first day! When I lived in Paris, I spent so much time in this quaint neighbourhood. As I said, I love swimming as it has a sort of meditative effect on me, so another way I spent my free time was to try out as many swimming pools as I could find… and there are lots! I was on a sort of mission, or “swimming pool crawl” (laugh). My top pick is the Molitor; I love its avant-garde atmosphere.
Why did you decide to move to Dublin?
In 2014, employees with a bit of trade experience and language skills were encouraged to apply for a position that had opened there. It was a promotion and, with Dublin being on of Citi’s biggest European hubs, it would give me exposure. Frankly, after only three years in France, it had not crossed my mind to relocate, but the opportunity was too good to miss. I accepted the offer without having ever set a foot in Ireland. I didn’t know a soul there, and the only taste for the Irish life I had was through the fun and colourful tales of former Irish colleagues. I packed my suitcase and went!
What does your current role entail?
My remit grew when I took charge of all European clients and started to control a larger scope of products. I am now Assistant Vice President, or AVP, and I work with another area of trade, which is supply chain finance. I engage with my clients’ suppliers who want to participate in our programme. It helps them receive early payment and improve their cash flow. Recently I have also started managing our documentation team who helps with onboarding clients. It’s a team of 8, based in India, with a varied skillset. Some of them have been in supply finance for longer than I have and it has been a rewarding experience so far.
What makes it exciting to work in your sector?
It’s a dynamic sector with ever-changing legislation so trying to keep up makes it an exciting challenge. It suits people who get a kick out of working in a multicultural environment and across different time zones. It also feels good to know that my work leads to practical applications for end users as we enable the trade of thousands of everyday goods.
What are your predictions for the global supply chain?
Clients ask me this question a lot and it’s a tough one! I think that following the pandemic, trade will move from a crisis mode to a more normal mode of operating. 2022 was the year when we learnt some lessons from the chaos we faced, and we will accept that some processes will never return to the pre-pandemic times. Still, silver linings such as the possibility of working from home emerged in the aftermath of the pandemic.
What is the corporate culture like in Dublin? Do people still hit the pub at 5pm every day?
Not every day… but most days! In Paris, social interactions between colleagues amounted to the occasional “after work apéro en terrasse”. In Dublin, workers routinely finish their day in the pub. The camaraderie of the Irish workplace makes it easier to make friends and pubs help this, mixing people of all generations and backgrounds, finding it an easy way to share their life stories over a pint… or two.
What is it like being a Colombian in Dublin?
There aren’t many Colombians here. Until recently, we didn’t have access to an embassy, but only a consulate that we could reach once a year. The European media mainly tends to portray Colombia through the lens of its criminality issues and sadly, negative stereotypes still persist and can be exhausting to address. However, references that are more positive are now emerging. People’s curiosity about my country can be amusing: I was once asked if I was related to Gloria from the Modern Family sitcom (I’m not), or how I cope with the weather in Ireland, even though Bogotá is in the coldest and rainiest region of Colombia, so getting used to Dublin’s meteorological conditions hasn’t been at all hard. In any case, as the saying goes here: “the weather here might be cold, but the people are warm”. I have always felt truly welcome here.
Do you feel settled in Dublin now?
It’s interesting that I have never felt so Colombian since living abroad. After 8 years in Ireland, this is home. I applied for and obtained Irish citizenship as a way of showing my gratitude for the opportunities that the country has given me. I also wanted to be able to participate in society and exercise my right to vote. Ireland has held various referendums lately, where citizens have expressed their wish for change on important societal issues such as divorce and abortion. It was inspiring to feel that I could contribute. It’s funny how life plays out: Ireland wasn’t on my radar until a few years ago, and now here I am, a proud Irish citizen! I hold dual citizenship because I will never forget my Colombian roots.
Can we please go back to your boyfriend claiming you are “uncool”?!
Well, he claims that I’m like someone in her seventies (laugh). I admit that I listen to classical music, I bake, I go for walks, I do my grocery shopping with a trolley like a granny. But I have adopted many local traditions, and popping down the pub for a good time is top of my list, so I can’t be that uncool! (laugh).
Any plans for the weekend?
Big plans! Tomorrow I’ll be flying to Colombia with my fiancé for Christmas. I haven’t been in over two years, and I am beyond excited despite the 20-hour flight. Christmas in my country is such a special time. Celebrations start from the 1st December! I am looking forward to some serious wedding planning talks and to watching the Encanto movie… multiple times!
Meeting my soon to be husband here in Ireland has also played a big part in settling in. He is Danish and works in digital advertising. You could say that we represent the two sectors that Ireland is a renowned hub for: finance and tech. My dad is taking English lessons so that’s definitely a sign that he and my mother have come to terms with the fact that I’m not relocating to Colombia any time soon. I imagine that at some point we might move home – to Denmark or Colombia – unless we head to somewhere new that is neutral to both of us. I love the idea that our options are open.
Reading Time: 10 minutes
CEO War Child
In 2021, Ramin Shahzamani was appointed CEO of War Child, an Amsterdam-based NGO that supports children affected by conflict around the world. Ramin, who has spent most of his career in the humanitarian sector, brings with him years of experience in international cooperation and fieldwork. He has been on the front line in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Colombia, Peru and Zambia.
Ramin was born in Iran, which he left at the age of 10, then spent a year in Britain and the rest of his childhood in Canada. He speaks English, Spanish and Persian, to which he adds some Italian and French.
In this brief presentation of Ramin Shahzamani, we mention no less than eleven countries. How else to describe the incredible international journey of a man whose career is driven by the desire to help the most disadvantaged?
In this brief presentation of Ramin Shahzamani, we mention no less than eleven countries. How else to describe the incredible international journey of a man whose career is driven by the desire to help the most disadvantaged?
Although he is realistic about the scale of the task - some 220 million children are affected by conflict around the world - Ramin is nonetheless fundamentally optimistic, an essential trait for working in the humanitarian sector.
You were born in 1970 in Iran; can you tell us about your childhood there?
The first eight years of my childhood in Iran were very normal and happy. I was a playful child sometimes getting into trouble but certainly enjoying life with my parents, brother and sister. My father was head of accounting and finance for Iran Oil, and my mother worked at home taking care of us.
From 1978, things started to change with the Iranian revolution. At first, it was quite fun because we didn’t always go to school and kids always like that! Then it became a bit more complicated because it was not a totally peaceful revolution. Our parents tried to protect us as much as possible and they did the best they could in a context where the changes soon had a radical impact on our lives.
How did you deal with leaving Iran at the age of 10?
Iran Oil’s offices were closed during the revolution. In 1979, the company asked my father to go to the UK to reopen the London office and we joined him there a year later. Then things got complicated for my family, and, without being too cryptic, my parents decided not to return to Iran but to head for Canada. I was eleven years old.
Arriving in London was tough as neither my brother nor I spoke English. We had to learn the language and adapt to a new culture in a difficult context: Iranian immigrants were stigmatised because of the Islamic revolution and the American hostage crisis. At the age of 11, you can already feel the discrimination. Children can be quite mean to each other and sometimes adults as well.
These events and major changes in a child’s life can shape their character, for better or for worse. Those years were important to me and certainly played a role in the decisions I made later on, giving me the desire to do something for the improvement of society.
What were the first years in Canada like and when did you consider that you had become Canadian?
For my parents at least, there was a lot of pressure. My father had a very good job at Iran Oil, and after he left, our lifestyle became more modest. Technically, we were not refugees, we had immigrant status, but in reality, the difficulties were much the same. However, my parents always placed an emphasis on education as the path to personal and professional success. As an immigrant, there was always a sense of having an additional obligation to succeed.
To be honest, the first three or four years in Canada were complicated, but things became easier once I mastered the language skills. I became more confident, developed friendships and started to feel like I belonged. Canada is a fascinating country for this. I always say I’m Iranian-Canadian and the beauty of it is that nobody questions it. I’m as Canadian there as anyone else and everyone considers me as such.
What kind of student were you, and what were your first jobs?
I think I was a pretty good student, but not outstanding. Like many teenagers, I struggled to find the link between subjects I enjoyed and what I wanted to do later. I really liked biology and microbiology, and later computer science, all of which were useful for my general knowledge but not directly for my choice of career.
After my first degree, I started an irrigation business with a friend I met at university. It was quite successful, but I realised that I needed other kinds of stimulation than the company was able to provide. My job lacked meaning and I struggled with this for several years before returning to university to get a degree in computer science. When I graduated, I could have gone to work in the private sector, but I had the opportunity to join a local NGO in India, as part of a Canadian government cooperation programme. That placement was my first experience of working outside Canada and it made me realise that social justice issues were at the top of my professional agenda.
So your time in India revealed your desire to be involved in the humanitarian sector
Absolutely. In fact, I have always been concerned with social justice and issues of peace and war in general. However, it was in India that I was first able to work in a structured way on social justice issues from a civil society perspective. After that, I applied for a job with the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP), a New York NGO. WFM-IGP is committed to the realisation of global peace and justice through the development of democratic institutions and the application of international law. I started out using technology for the communication purposes of the organization before getting involved in programmes, which clearly reinforced my calling to work in the humanitarian field.
I moved to the D.R. Congo to be the Country Director of the NGO War Child and my work shifted from human rights to humanitarian and development work, but of course, they are closely related. War Child’s mission is to provide support to children affected by conflict. In the D.R. Congo, I remained in the field of human rights, children’s rights to be more exact with practical programmes. For me, it was a great opportunity to work on projects that were making a real difference to people’s lives.
You have managed local War Child branches around the world. To what extent did you see suffering and how did you deal with it?
Suffering was certainly omnipresent and I saw it directly because I was living there. However, going sometimes without electricity or not having access to clean water are comparatively small hardships. You do observe true suffering and feel close to it but are not experiencing it directly. We are in these countries as foreigners and we work for organisations that have certain safety standards and take care of their teams. However, it is not unusual to be confronted with difficult security situations. I have been in some. In some countries, you are somehow close to the fighting that breaks out. You hear it and sometimes you see it. When I was in Afghanistan, the country was volatile and unstable. Some of our friends were killed. There were a lot of precautions to take. So you try to have mechanisms to deal with the pressure and the stress. For some people it’s doing sports for example. In D.R. Congo we could go swimming in the lake which was probably as safe a place as anywhere. That was not the case in Afghanistan, but we could still take a week off every now and then to get together with colleagues outside the country, to rest before coming back to our work. This was not the case for our local colleagues.
You changed countries several times. Is international mobility inherent to the humanitarian sector?
I spent almost three years in the D.R.Congo, two in Afghanistan and four in Colombia with War Child, then five years in Peru and two in Zambia for the NGO, Plan International before becoming CEO of War Child at the organisation’s headquarters in Amsterdam. It is common practice in the humanitarian sector to change countries often, at least for people who have careers in the field and who need to be close to the support programmes.
Contracts generally last between two and five years depending on the organisation and the security conditions of the country. This allows individuals to gain both personal and professional experience. The rotations allow organisations to bring in new ways of thinking and approaches to the field.
When you are in the field, you usually hear about upcoming opportunities before your contract ends. You can then express your interest to the NGO’s management, who will decide whether you are the right candidate when a new position and destination become available. Career development is based on opportunities and the match with your skills.
What made you decide to enrol in the EuroMBA programme?
Even though non-governmental organisations are not based on profit, their set-up is very similar to any other business. You have to generate income and develop products and services. You build teams, have a strategy and all the departments that any other company has. At War Child, we have a marketing department, for example. I’ve always thought it important to bring a business mentality and approach to the places I have worked. Doing an MBA helped me gain useful business skills. Most of the courses on the EuroMBA programme were taught remotely but we also spent a residential week in each of the participating schools of the consortium, including Audencia. I was in Afghanistan then and it was very intense, but I was able to devote time to coursework because it wasn’t like I had much of a social life there! Due to time and life constraints, I was late in handing in my dissertation, but I graduated – finally – in 2022.
What does your position as CEO of War Child mean in practice? What are your priorities?
We have been working on two major transformational and strategic changes for War Child. The first is to our structure where our guiding principle is to transform into becoming a network expert organisation. We want to move from a European-based organisation to a global, decentralised organisation where power will be shared between the different locations where we operate. Decentralising expertise, so to speak. This means giving more decision-making power to the local offices where the impact of our work is strongest. This transformation reflects an underlying trend in the humanitarian sector, where issues of equity and equality are prominent.
The second is to scale up our work and reach more children that need our services. War Child has developed real expertise in certain areas such as education, mental health, psychosocial support and the protection of children affected by conflict. Currently, our programmes have an impact on around 300,000 children per year, but according to the latest UN statistics, around 220 million children worldwide are affected by conflict. There is a big disparity between our impact and actual needs. To undergo this transformation, we need to develop more scientific, rigorous methodologies, not only to implement them in our own programmes but also to make them available to other organisations.
My main job as CEO is to drive the levers that will make these strategic priorities a reality. I have a great team pushing in the same direction and moving forward. Of course, we have to be realistic about the huge challenges we face because of the suffering of so many people in the world, but that doesn’t stop us from being optimistic that we can make an impact with War Child. My team and I are convinced of this.
How has War Child been able to respond to the needs of children in Ukraine?
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, more than 7 million children have had their lives – including their education – irreversibly disrupted. Displaced from their schools, homes and, in many cases, their country, children are experiencing unthinkable compounded learning loss; first from the COVID-19 pandemic and now from war.
In May 2022, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MESU) and the largest education non-profit in Ukraine, Osvitoria, approached War Child Holland to find a solution to reach and teach mathematics and reading to some of their youngest learners – children in grades 1-4.
War Child Holland took on this challenge and began the process of rapidly adapting its already proven Education-in-Emergencies programme, Can’t Wait to Learn, to meet these new demands for greater scale. This required a re-programming of the app to make it available – for the first time – on personal IOS and Android devices, along with its standard practice of co-creation and curriculum alignment with the government. Each version of the app is also uniquely designed with local children, educators and artists to reflect the culture, language and look of the country to make the learning experience for children feel familiar as well as fun.
In addition we are working with local partners to provide mental health and psychosocial support in protected spaces for children. These methodologies have also been scientifically proven to reach positive outcome for children.
What are you most proud of at War Child?
I’m really proud of the direction we’ve taken at War Child and the fact that we’ve put two big transformational changes on track. Of course, we’re still a long way off, and I’ll be even prouder when we’ve achieved those two goals. After all, we could have just carried on working the way we already do, but instead, we’re taking a pretty bold path to challenge ourselves and make these transformations: sharing our power and looking at what it really takes to expand our impact and reach millions of children.
Do you have children of your own?
I have a stepdaughter who is 22 now. She was with us in Colombia and Peru before heading to France to become a pastry chef.
What and where would you like to be in ten years?
I must admit that I don’t look that far ahead. Professionally, my goal is to complete my task as CEO of War Child.
What are you going to do with your weekend?
This weekend is my partner’s birthday. One of the things we’re planning is to go and see an art exhibition that’s on in Amsterdam at the moment.
I read that music is important in your life. Can you tell us what it does for you?
Music does play a big role in my life. Of course, I have my preferences, but I like all kinds of music. Each one touches me in some way. It can be a rhythm I like or certain lyrics I can relate to. Music is also very important for War Child, which is supported by many musicians and has been built using creative methodologies to support children’s mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. Therefore, I have a personal connection and a kind of organisational connection to music. I listen to everything. This morning, for example, I listened to Lennon Stella.
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Deputy Director of the MBA Programme, Cambridge Judge Business School
In 2009, Thomas Roulet graduated from Sciences Po and Audencia’s Grande École Master in Management programme. Today he is an Associate Professor at Cambridge University, Deputy Director of the MBA at Judge Business School and co-director of the incubator at King’s College Cambridge. He contributes to numerous magazines and publications, such as Forbes and Harvard Business Review.
He is teased about his accent and his friends ask him to choose the wine at mealtimes. Professor Roulet’s French touch is like a signature that he wears happily, especially on the day after France’s football team defeats England. He even claims to bake his own galette des Rois because “you can’t find any good ones in Cambridge”.
Thomas enjoys this French impertinence, which gives a special touch to his journey from a finance student at Audencia to an associate professor in organisational theory at Cambridge. With enduring ties to France, Thomas delights in a job in England that, in his Harry Potter gown and in 800-year-old buildings, plunges him into the heart of society’s greatest debates on one of the most renowned campuses in the world.
Thomas, tell us about your journey to Cambridge
It’s a long and winding story which started fairly characteristically during my preparatory classes. When I started at Audencia, like lots of others, I thought I would do marketing. In the end, I went into finance and did my year-long internship in investment banking in London.
I enjoyed this first experience but found it disappointing. I wanted to delve deeper and understand what was going on behind the curtain of our social interactions. At the same time, I’d always had this taste for teaching. I imagined what went on behind the scenes, when professors were not in front of their students, preparing classes, correcting assignments, carrying out research, etc. When I came back from London, I returned to the classroom to try and find out more about what was going on behind the scenes.
By then, I’d decided to double up my final year finance course with a Research Master at Sciences Po. In fact, my research internship at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) counted towards both Masters.
I really liked the stimulus of the research Master’s degree, so I started a PhD at HEC. Again, I really enjoyed it. In my second and final year, I was teaching at Sciences Po and Audencia. Once a week, I taught strategy to international students, an experience that I really enjoyed.
When did you decide to export your academic career?
Halfway through my PhD, I had the opportunity of being a Visiting Scholar at Colombia University in New York. I loved it, especially because Audencia had cultivated my taste for the United States.
Then, after my thesis, I needed to choose between Vanderbilt in the United States and Oxford in England, I chose Oxford for its geography, which suited me better from a family point of view at that time in my life.
Oxford was very different to London. The culture there is deeply British and much less international than in London. And the college world is fascinating, with its old buildings that house candlelit dinners and a real English-style academic aristocracy. The codes are very particular. It was then I then decided to pursue an academic career in England rather than in France or elsewhere.
Tell us about the British universities
Academia in France is divided into business schools and technical or generalist grandes écoles, whereas the UK has a real university culture. Business schools are integrated into much larger faculties, with, in my opinion, much more interdisciplinarity.
British universities are divided into departments, like in France, and into colleges, which were originally student residences like the ones you see in films. Today, it is much more than that; everything, including the social life, educational experience, culture and symbolism of an 800-year-old college, takes place there.
For a professor in Britain, taking on responsibility in a college is usual – it is very much about individualised support and tutoring students. Compared to other professorial activities, this part of the job isn’t particularly well paid, but it is highly valued and very interesting.
For my part, I co-direct the incubator at King’s College Cambridge, the former college of John Maynard Keynes and Alan Turing. I really enjoy this aspect of my job, as it is extremely diverse. One of the biggest challenges, by the way, is the funding we get from major donors. Our budget is partly covered by the sponsorship of David Sainsbury’s Gatsby Foundation. This involvement of patrons, particularly alumni, is another marker of difference.
How did your career path take shape between Oxford and Cambridge?
After Oxford, I went to Bath, in Somerset, a medium-sized city with a well-known university. I stayed there for a year before heading for King’s College, the London one – the British like to call places King’s or Queen’s Something. For three years, I ran the Master in International Management there.
In 2018, when the opportunity to join Cambridge arose, I took it and I have since been an Associate Professor of Organisational Theory and Deputy Director of the MBA there. My research work focuses on the sociological and psychological approach to organisations.
You said that you enjoy the backstage work of professors. Can you explain what this consists of?
There’s this idea that professors only work when they’re in a classroom with their students and that the rest of the time they don’t do much. This is not true, of course! I work much harder as a professor here in Cambridge than I did when I was working in finance in London (laughs).
Most of my time is taken up with resarch: collecting data, writing, editing and publishing research papers, supervising PhD students and post-docs. In theory, this represents more than 60% of my time. I also participate in four or five editorial boards of journals where I review papers and do some editing work.
I see research as a basis for engaging in the debates that are shaking up society. For me, research is not about producing concepts in an ivory tower but about asking questions that matter to people and producing ideas that find their way into managerial and societal practice. In the coming years, one of the topics I would very much like to have an impact on is the issue of mental health, from a skills perspective but also with regard to hybrid work, comparing remote and face-to-face.
Teaching is the other main part of my work, which I really enjoy. At Cambridge, we do a lot of tutoring, which gives me the opportunity to teach small groups of three or four students, with a very different relationship to the one you find in a lecture hall.
I teach courses at the faculty of business and the faculty of sociology. Each year I teach leadership and organisational behaviour to over 200 students on my MBA programme. The content is all extremely topical and changes constantly. In the past few years, I have totally adapted my course to the topics of the moment to include themes of hybrid work, silent quitting, Diversity & Inclusion issues, etc. After COVID-19, we rethought the whole teaching structure, keeping some courses online and promoting small agile groups on topical issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement or leadership biases.
Sector bias, gender bias, disability bias, ethnicity bias, etc., contribute to the funnel effect, i.e., the success of a Diversity & Inclusion policy at the bottom of the organisation but its failure at the top. I also do a lot of work on invisible stigma, such as invisible disability or sexual orientation, and how certain categories of people are exhausted by working on raising awareness, the ‘diversity work’ that is asked of them and the risks of burnout and performing badly.
Tell us about your experience at Audencia
It seems like ages ago but sometimes as if it was only yesterday. I think I’ve kept more in touch with the faculty than with my classmates but this is probably due to the career I’ve chosen.
When I wanted to pursue an academic career, I got in touch with a few alumni who had followed a similar route. I was impressed to see that several alumni are quite well known in this field. I am thinking of David Dubois, now Professor of Marketing at INSEAD, who gave me some great advice back then and Fabrice Lumineau, Professor of Strategy in Hong Kong.
As for most people, my student journey itself was a multi-faceted experience. I became who I am now in the classrooms of Audencia, which is undoubtedly why I have kept in touch with quite a few figureheads. I was also president of Réseaudencia Junior, the forerunner of the school’s young alumni association. However, there were also more complicated moments to handle, like losing the student campaign for the BDA (Bureau des Arts). I realise now that at the time it affected my relationship with the school. You don’t always realise how difficult it is for young people just out of preparatory classes to cope with things like that.
If I had to do it all again, I don’t think there’s much I would change. I really enjoyed my AIPM internship year and the international flavour of the school. I felt very French when I started Audencia, before discovering wider horizons during my studies.
My internship year nurtured my desire to live abroad but also to do things to the fullest. This I owe in part to an alum who worked on the desk that recruited me. He was instrumental in giving a chance to a student from the same school as him. The alumni network is one of the assets of this school.
Today, you still have close ties to Audencia
Yes I do; through my teaching activities and as an affiliate professor. At the beginning of my career, I used to come once a week to teach strategy. Now I don’t come as often but as an international affiliate faculty member, I still come over for a few days each year to partner with Audencia professors on their publication process.
More importantly, I’ve been lucky to work closely with some of the faculty, including Sandrine Frémeaux, who was one of my favourite professors when I was a student. She is a wonderful, fascinating person who manages to make law exciting. Today, I have the pleasure of working with her on a paper due to be published soon. It’s a privilege I would never have thought possible back when she was my professor!
How do you see the next stages of your career?
I’m already lucky to be a tenured professor at Cambridge, so I have some control over my choices between research, teaching, student support and influencing public policy. However, the holy grail would of course be to get a professorship.
I am eligible but the application process is long and tedious, as one would expect in such a venerable institution. I filled out a fifty-page application with letters of recommendation and convincing arguments.
However, being a tenured professor gives me the opportunity to do other things besides research, hence my investment in the incubator and in the life of King’s College. I really enjoy this entrepreneurial aspect of my job.
And more generally, how do you see the future?
I live in a country that is going simultaneously through the consequences of Brexit, the pandemic and a global energy and economic crisis. We’ve recently lost a lot of European friends because of Brexit and I’d certainly love to see people return as there are still great opportunities, not just in finance.
I would like alumni to continue to look at Britain as an attractive choice to live and work. For me, expatriation is a great experience, a real asset. I love being French outside France.
We are often caricatured, and in fact, at the university, we French colleagues are seen as the grumblers. In meetings, we’re the ones who argue or get upset and our hierarchy doesn’t always like it. However, I like the idea that in France, we don’t have problems challenging what we think is questionable.
Beyond that, expatriation is an adventure and filled with shared experiences. When I watch football with my brother-in-law, I’m torn between the two sides but I get to win each time! In many ways I feel British today, but for them I am French first and foremost. Maybe it’s my accent (laughs).
My advice to students today is to go for the expatriation adventure, even if it’s just for a few months or even a few years. It’s worth it.
What can we wish you for the coming year Thomas?
A successful application for the professorship, no doubt. Also to have time to spend with my friends, here and in France, and with my parents too.
I don’t have much downtime. I manage to fit in a morning bike ride. I don’t have any wild wishes for 2023, maybe just to feel that the link with Europe is not broken forever.
Reading Time: 12 minutes
CEO of De Beers Jewellers and De Beers Forevermark
How did the daughter of a construction contractor with no connections, who grew up in a rural area of south-western France surrounded by cows, ever become the first female CEO of one of the most prestigious jewellery brands in the world? This is the remarkable trajectory of Céline Assimon. In 2001, she started in marketing with Piaget in NYC, then in 2011 for Louis Vuitton in NYC followed by Paris in 2015 as the worldwide head of high jewellery & high watchmaking sales, before re-joining Piaget in Geneva as its international high jewellery director. In 2018, at 41, she landed her first CEO position with Swiss de Grisogono. Today she holds no less than two CEO roles, as the head of De Beers Jewellers and De Beers Forevermark. She takes pride in the mining giant for its engagement in tracing every diamond it discovers and sells, and for raising high business, environmental and social standards for its own operations and the industry as a whole. Céline’s mission is to engage her consumers in both the beauty of the crafted diamonds as well as the beauty of their story, so that these precious symbols of connection and celebration can be worn with pride.
When we explain to Céline that this portrait series aims to reveal the human nature behind Audencia’s iconic alumni, she is immediately up for it. She tells of her regret that she didn’t identify inspiring leaders she could relate to when she was studying at Audencia 20 years ago. At the time, “They all seemed to have this cookie-cutter life, the suit and the wife at home. I wish I’d had access to CEOs who shared their personal stories, successes, mistakes and the fact that you can thrive if you learn from them.”
When looking back at her career to date, Céline makes a point of emphasising the hurdles she had to overcome. She is convinced that she wouldn’t have reached her current position if there hadn’t been a few difficulties and failures along the way. She highlights three in particular: her father’s struggles with running his business, her own countless rejections in the search for her first internship, and the experience of taking de Grisogono through bankruptcy.
Céline has long established her reputation in this coveted industry, but she doesn’t take success for granted. “I am trying to look to the future with a cool head and a dose of humility. Careers nowadays are very fluid, and I might not have my CEO title in a few years from now.” It is with the same refreshing candour that this self-described chameleon, petrol head and bon vivant reveals her immersion into the African American culture, her best red-carpet moments and her signature dish.
You and I are from the same year group and oddly, the first thing I could recollect is that you come from Corrèze. What else can you tell us about your upbringing?
Well remembered! Yes, I did grow up in that rural and remote region of France. This is evidence that distinctive assets are not just useful for brands, but they serve people too!
I am an only child but in a sense, I had a sister in the form of my dad’s business. He owned a construction company, and he was really hands on, working seven days a week. My mum did the accounts for my dad and also worked full time in a small accountancy firm. I followed every step of the journey of our family business. From a young age, I had a good idea of what it takes to run a business and realised early on that hard work doesn’t always pay off. The older I get, the more I look to the past and appreciate that when it comes to my work ethic, the biggest source of inspiration was very close to home.
Have you always wanted to work in the luxury sector?
I was an avid and competitive horse rider and for a long time I wanted to make a career of it. But when I accepted that most professional riders are born into riding families which wasn’t my case, I switched gears. In the small town where I went to school, there weren’t any careers counsellors or anyone to encourage me to sketch out bold dreams for my future. So my journey didn’t start with a vision, but instead with the realisation that I should choose a path that would offer me the widest range of possibilities, even if it meant a scientific baccalaureate with a lot of maths. I always dreaded maths…, which I find quite ironic now that I run big P&Ls …
My first job aged 15 helped me to start working out what would fulfil me in life. I was working in a summer camp, teaching riding to under-privileged 6 to 8 year olds, some from foster care, who lived in rundown housing around Paris (although this wasn’t true for all of them). My family was not wealthy, but they offered me a happy and safe childhood. There was a real “epiphany” moment when I realised that I needed to incorporate an element of gratitude into whatever I was going to pursue, no matter the difficulties and frustrations I would encounter. With my first pay cheque, I bought a ring and that was another revelation. I understood then and there that I was fascinated by craftsmanship; not just for fine jewellery but for any object that has been lovingly and expertly designed. I’ve always been curious about how things are made, by whom and for what occasion. I like the storytelling aspect and decided to find a role that would fulfil me creatively but also provide me the financial means to continue riding. Funnily enough, now that I have the means, I don’t have the time to ride!
While I was figuring it all out, there was one message that my friends – from primary school right up to Audencia – kept telling me: “Don’t worry about the future. You are independent, driven, outspoken, and resilient. You will always fall on your feet, and you know where you want to go.”
You studied a masters’ at Audencia from 1997 to 2001. What are your best memories from that time?
To be honest, I remember less about the curriculum at Audencia than the social life! I was part of the team that organised the triathlon. It was my first experience of project management and I remember the frantic chase to get sponsors. Solène and Hélène, amongst many in the team, were great leaders and partners and team effort was key: if you didn’t pull together, you failed. What an emotional rush it was when a whole year’s work, sweat (and tears) culminated in one huge weekend event!
The semester abroad at the University of Cincinnati (UC) was another highlight. Audencia nominated me for a special international marketing programme. There was only one place and I jumped at the opportunity. What I didn’t know was that it would send me to a different area of the campus, completely separate from fellow Audencians but also from all the other international students. Settling in was tough. With 60,000 students, the campus itself was bigger than my hometown! I was one of the few Caucasians in my dorm and it was a challenge to decipher the working-class African American & Latino culture around me. Although I was out of my comfort zone, I gradually made friends who introduced me to their fraternities. I discovered the realities of students who were juggling multiple jobs in grocery stores, being raised by single mums who in turn were juggling multiple jobs to send their kids to university, in a city where drugs and crime were rife. That was another moment of realisation and gratitude.
You don’t come from a family with connections to the luxury sector. How did you land your first internship?
I was well aware of my disadvantage, so I doubled down on resilience. I recently stumbled on a notepad on which I had listed all the brands I wanted to work for. I had written almost 100 applications and despite being like a dog with a bone, I was turned down by every single company. I was very disappointed, but I switched to my plan B. As a girl raised in the countryside, I enjoyed motorcycling; in fact, I am still a petrol head and fast cars are one of my favourite topics of conversation! This field proved easier for me to crack, but a few weeks before I was due to start an internship with Renault, I received a phone call from Cartier to invite me to an interview. It was for a role in the in-store visual merchandising team and I was so puzzled that I asked the interviewer why they thought I might be the right candidate. She told me that the person they had secured had bailed out on them – a Parisian with connections so the interviewer decided to give the underdog a chance. As it turned out, she was from the Dordogne, noticed my home postcode and was curious! In a nutshell, that’s how I got started. I got my final internship with Piaget in NYC by harassing the VP of marketing with daily phone calls. You can’t guarantee the outcome, but typically a lot of hard work and focus should allow you to get that hoped for result.
How do you explain your skyrocketing career?
In 2001, after finishing my internship in New York, I returned to Nantes to graduate. Everyone was planning their summer vacation and pushing back their job hunt to September. For me, the insecurity of not knowing when my first pay cheque would come in made me anxious: I could not relax on a beach while being uncertain about my professional future! So I was focused on getting into the saddle as quickly as possible. My one-year internship shaped my ambition and I was determined to pursue a career in the luxury industry. In a lucky break, the head of marketing I reported to at Piaget got promoted and I was offered her role. Initially they thought the job was too big for me but I impressed them during the interview and I started on September 3rd in NYC. I think my progression has something to do with my willingness to seize opportunities as they came along.
After 5 years at Piaget, there was nowhere higher for me to go as I was reporting to the CEO and at 27, I was obviously too young & still inexperienced to take his job. So I started looking around for positions in Europe but with an American corporate mindset. Over there, recruiters expect you to do vertical or lateral moves every three years or so. In France on the other hand, I was told repeatedly to stay put and favour stability, something I refused to do. I had my sights set on LVMH and, even if it took me a few years, I got there in the end. What I have always avoided is complacency. The moment I am in a role where I just need to steer the ship, I get less excited. I am a builder; I like to create from scratch, develop my toolbox, and define my management style along the way. At least that’s how it works for me at the moment; maybe in 5 years’s time I will have less energy for that.
Sometimes, however, the opportunities I seized led to difficult situations. For example, I had to take a company through bankruptcy after the loss of shareholder support. Some people would have just left and let the liquidators handle it, but I decided to be there and support the team as much as I could. Emotionally, it was very hard but the way I manage my teams, P&L and cash flow today is definitely coloured by this experience. I never want to go through that again.
When I look back, the risks I took in different companies, sizes and cultures have paid off. I know I have big areas for improvement, but I also know that I am a bit of a chameleon, and that adaptability is an asset of mine.
Do you feel that being a woman has ever brought extra challenges?
20 years ago, when I started in the industry, it felt like I had stepped into a gentleman’s club. The environment was very masculine, paternalistic even, with clients being invited to sign deals over a cigar or on the golf course. Early on, I had to learn to stand up for myself and push back when I was put into situations that didn’t align with my values. Fortunately, the world has moved on and it was worth hanging in there because at one point or another, organisations bid farewell to those toxic personalities.
I have been lucky to report to many powerful women – in particular at Cartier and Vuitton, who displayed exemplary managerial behaviour with kindness and fairness. Many of the men in leadership positions in the luxury industry had limited field experience. To stand out from the crowd, I was keen to demonstrate my ability to roll up my sleeves and pull together with the teams who were dealing with clients on a day-to-day basis. It gave me credibility, which made me a better manager: my teams know they can come to me and I’ll have their back. What I was lacked in connections and in masculinity, I made up for with business acumen and kinship with the people who deliver the business.
Tell us more about your current double CEO role
De Beers is a widely known brand because one third of the natural diamonds that are recovered globally come from a De Beers mine in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana or Canada. In September 2020, the group CEO invited me to join a junior division – the brand and consumer market unit, and take over the De Beers Jewellers brand. Then, in September 2021, I was also tasked with leading the De Beers Forevermark brand, so we can approach the market with a differentiated offer. Forevermark caters to a more premium clientele and every one of its diamond comes with the promise that it is beautiful, rare and responsibly sourced. Less than 1% of the world’s natural diamonds are eligible for selection as a De Beers Jewellers and De Beers Forevermark.
You mentioned traceability. The mining industry has a legacy of social and environmental controversies until more recent transformations. How is CSR part of your role?
In 2006, after the Blood Diamond movie was released, De Beers implemented brand new processes to secure its supply chain and was instrumental in setting up a standard for the industry to ensure that the diamonds sold are conflict free. When I joined De Beers, the processes were being strengthened further, and we realised that we could only thrive by transforming into a purpose-led company. De Beers is strongly invested in leading ethical practices, protecting the natural world, and partnering local communities. For example, we have recently celebrated 11 years during which, thanks to the healthcare provided, no employees’ babies were born with HIV. This was very uplifting for me even if consumers were not aware of what goes on behind the scenes. For my first year I had two key objectives: the first was to put creativity back into the brand, pushing the limits in terms of aesthetic and research. The second was to translate the values that we live by and the positive impact we are making into a clear narrative for consumers.
In the countries where we operate, there are no alternative resources to natural diamonds; the gems allow boys -and girls- to go to school, get healthcare and get a leg up in life. I know it might be laughable to think that luxury and social purpose can go together but it comforts me to know that in a way, I’m not just helping one more woman to look pretty, but I am also contributing to doing some good in the world.
Now for an essential question: we assume that your role also involves engaging with your brands’ celebrity ambassadors and glamming them up for their red-carpet appearances. Are there any big names you’d like to drop for us?
Ah ha! Well, I have met many stunning and smart celebrities along the way. From my recent encounters, I would say that Cindy Bruna is wise beyond her years and as sharp and kind as she is beautiful. I have met Alec Baldwin – recently in the news for the tragic reasons I won’t mention. I hosted him and his wife Hilaria at a New York event a couple of years ago; it was quite refreshing and fun to discuss politics and current affairs with him.
Is there a particular city that your business travels have led you to and that you’d like to single out?
China is a priority for our network development over the coming year. Our latest store opened in Chengdu at the IFS Mall. Chengdu is one of my favourite cities in China: it’s very sophisticated yet anchored in unique surroundings (and home of the panda!). In normal times, I’d typically go there a couple of times a year.
What do you do in your spare time? Do you manage to leave your work behind?
I have a daughter who is 10 and her father and I are divorced. He is a diplomat currently based in Qatar and before that he was in Afghanistan, so my daughter is with me full time. I want to be there for her, so it often means that I forego my own needs and I just grab little moments for myself whenever I can. I know it’s going to sound shallow, but I love having my hair done! It’s my treat. Joking apart, I don’t hike, paraglide or climb mountains, that’s not me. But I am a pretty good cook and my kitchen is my happy place. “Confit de canard aux pommes de terre sarladaises”* was already a signature dish of mine during my years at Audencia! I love hosting meals and mixing people; this is what I miss the most from my pre-Covid world. There’s nothing like a fabulous meal with different people to reinvent the world.
Overall, I find it hard to unplug – I guess because I never saw my family doing so, but also because it’s a privilege to feel so passionately about my job. I am conscious of how my behaviour influences others, especially my daughter. I want her to have a career as fulfilling as mine, but I am also aware that we shouldn’t be so caught up in it that we forget to manage time for ourselves. Retirement might well be a disaster for me!
*a speciality from Céline’s native region in southwestern France; duck confit served with potatoes cooked in goose fat, garlic and parsley.
Reading Time: 11 minutes
Country Director for Southern Africa at The World Bank
Marie Françoise Marie-Nelly’s life is showered with a series of events that, in hindsight, could be good premonitions. At her boarding school for girls, she used to stand on the balcony admiring the sunset over the bay of Fort de France in her native Martinique. She longed to know where the cruise ships were heading and dreamt of faraway destinations. Later, she crossed the Atlantic Ocean for her post-high school preparatory classes at Lycée Clémenceau in Nantes, France. On her first day, she noticed a memorial plaque inscribed with the following words by the French statesman, Georges Clémenceau, “Without waiting for the future and the fortune of your efforts, roll up your sleeves resolutely, and create your destiny.” This message inspired her entire career. In 1986, when she was studying for her master’s degree at Bowling Green State University – Ohio, USA, she visited Washington DC and, by chance, walked past the headquarters of the World Bank. In a moment of deep awareness, she knew intuitively that one day she would work for this institution.
Throughout her life, Marie Françoise has been mindful to perceive, respond and give expression to the signals and opportunities in life, with these signals indeed guiding her deepest motivations and objectives. Her perceptiveness, combined with a sharp mind and tremendous dedication, are probably what helped her achieve her successes and reach the position she is holding today. She has lived by the motto that nothing is impossible when you put your mind and tons of hard work into it.
Today, at the head of a large team, Marie-Françoise leads the World Bank’s strategic and operational interventions in Southern Africa, including South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, identifying innovative development solutions and mobilising funding for their implementation. Her accomplishments are impressive, including restructuring and privatising public enterprises in Western Africa, liberalising air transport and telecom sectors across the continent, designing the World Bank’s approach to regional integration for sub-Saharan Africa, identifying complex infrastructure projects, leading the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project, and structuring the World Bank’s interventions to support the economic transition across the Maghreb countries.
Her commitment to development throughout her career has commanded the respect of government representatives, citizens, colleagues, and friends wherever she has worked. Whether through her official positions by fostering economic progress in developing nations, or in her private life, she has always been motivated by a desire to give back and build a better future. Where does she get this unwavering drive and optimism? This optimism is anchored in strong family values given by her parents. Marie Françoise also deeply believes that world progress will be achieved by giving young people a fair opportunity to unleash their potential. Let’s meet a woman with exemplary human qualities, who is equally at ease in advising some of the world’s most powerful leaders as chatting with youngsters from the townships.
Tell us about your childhood in Martinique
I had a very happy childhood in a large close-knit family with six brothers and four sisters. My mother devoted her life to her 11 children and I never heard her complain once. My father played a key role in the agriculture sector. As an executive for the Chamber of Agriculture, he led the implementation of agrarian reforms that allowed farmers to access to farmland ownership, diversify their crops and improve their farming practices. Thanks to this programme, most Martinicans now possess productive assets which were inexistent when Martinique was still a French colony.
I remember having a great sense of freedom during my childhood. Our lives were marked by the calendar of cultural events and religious festivities throughout the year. Our parents instilled in us a sense of determination, hard work, compassion, and search for excellence in everything we endeavoured. The Catholic faith, generosity and solidarity were some of the foundations of our upbringing. Interestingly, as the eighth child growing up between two boys, I developed a healthy sense of competition very early on.
Are you a born leader?
From a young age, I strove for high standards and leadership roles came naturally. I was regularly chosen as the class leader, and I thrived in the Girls Scouts. While I did not have a specific dream job in mind, I knew that I wanted to play an important leadership role. I also knew that I did not want to assume leadership for personal advancement, but rather as a unique opportunity to contribute significantly to society.
Looking through the Audencia 1978 yearbook, there was a balanced gender mix, but black students were an exception at the time. Did you suffer any prejudice?
Being uprooted at the age of 17 to join a preparatory class in mainland France was understandably unsettling, but fortunately some of my older siblings were already studying medicine and computer science in Nantes. Having them nearby was reassuring and I have fond memories of us getting together every Sunday at my sister’s house. Later at Audencia, there were only two non-white students in class – me and a male student from Madagascar. Being a high performer probably helped me to fit in more easily – during the first year I was top of the class. I never felt discriminated against. On the contrary, I was made to feel most welcome and received regular invitations to spend weekends at my classmates’ families which also helped me discover Brittany and Pays de la Loire regions.
Tell us about your career before joining the World Bank
In 1977, for my final year, my dad secured an internship for me at the Club Med resort in Martinique. Instead, I chose a different opportunity in Gabon and am eternally grateful for this choice because the experience shaped my career and nurtured my keen interest in working in development, particularly in Africa. Three years later, at the age of 23, I had my first international contract, in the Ivory Coast as a management consultant for the French Management Consulting Group CEGOS. This was during the rise of the Ivorian miracle. President Houphouët Boigny had planned the construction of 12 sugar complexes at a time when sugar prices had skyrocketed. Eventually, only six complexes were built by international firms under turnkey contracts, but the President decided to transfer the management to nationals, and I found myself being the only woman in a team of five experts to put the company’s management systems in place. This first significant position in a prominent West African country served as my gateway to the continent.
I then returned to France to complete my Certified Public Accountant diploma and secured a job at “La Villette”, one of the “Grands Travaux” of the newly elected President François Mitterrand. My task was to estimate the future operating costs of what became later the City of Science and Industry, the National Science and Industry Museum. I was surrounded by eminent French scientists who were not focused on cost but on innovative ideas! I met influential people, some of whom were in the presidential circle, and this sparked the beginning of my understanding of decision-making processes. In 1984, I obtained a scholarship from the Rotary Foundation, which financed my MBA studies at Bowling Green University while being a goodwill ambassador representing the West Indies.
Following my graduate studies, I was offered the opportunity to help establish a management institute in Burundi, as the country’s educated élite had been decimated by genocide in the early 1970s. I was thrown in at the deep end when the project director backed out just before my arrival and I was asked to lead the project. During the day, I was setting up the institute from scratch and in the evenings I was teaching management and accounting to adult students from the government and private sectors. Subsequently, as advisor to the Minister of Public Enterprises and Privatisation in Burundi and then in Togo, I worked on some sensitive cases, which really enhanced my expertise and honed my understanding of leadership challenges. By the end of this assignment, I had helped several countries tackle one of the biggest economic challenges they faced after independence, namely,promoting the creation of a domestic private sector. In 1993, I applied to the World Bank in Washington thinking I would stay there about a year to build up a strong network and, 28 years later, I am still ‘here’, having worked in different parts of the institution and countries from West to Central, North, and now South of the African continent!
You have worked as task manager, programme manager, senior programme manager and now regional director at the World Bank. What were the defining factors in the progression of your career?
I started to work as a task team leader on the privatisation of a diverse set of state-owned companies with mandates ranging from production sectors such as cement factories, agro-industries, petroleum refineries, to service sectors such as banks and telecom services. Building on my pre-Bank experience, I learned how to see the strategic, big picture, while also being able to understand the implementation challenges which can make projects unsuccessful. In fact, the ability to integrate technical aspects was one of the key learnings from my time at Audencia. Leading the very controversial Chad-Cameroon pipeline project allowed me to appreciate the importance of the political economy in whatever we do. All in all, what has helped me grow was not a career plan as such but a capacity to lead my professional journey in the way you would build a jigsaw puzzle, integrating elements, skills and experiences that initially do not appear to be connected. This is a recommendation I always offer to young people.
Some critics accuse the World Bank of being an ivory tower with staff who are out of touch with the reality on the ground, thus generating bureaucracy instead of alleviating poverty. What are your thoughts on this?
At one point, this perception was probably somewhat justified. However, from 1995 to 2005, we were lucky to have had a visionary President, James Wolfensohn. The transformative initiatives he implemented earned him the nickname of “Renaissance Banker”. He realised the importance of a diverse workforce, recruiting local talent, and decentralising decision-making power. The institution is now much more open, attentive to the needs of its clients and agile in its response.
When I joined the World Bank at the age of 35, my early experience in the field had already shaped my commitment to development. Our direct clients are the governments of the respective countries we are serving, although I am fully aware of the importance of civil society involvement as the people of a country are the ultimate beneficiaries of our work.
When I assumed my current position in South Africa, I vowed to visit a township every month and I always find this reality check particularly enlightening. Just yesterday I was chairing a meeting on the design of an education project in Eswatini (formerly called Swaziland), and I insisted that we engage with the beneficiaries, because ultimately, they are the ones who can judge the effectiveness of a programme.
Has being a woman meant you have faced any extra challenges?
When I joined the World Bank, being a woman of colour from France was not necessarily an asset. The discrimination I suffered was mainly insidious. Sometimes, it resulted in not getting the positions I aspired to, explained away by deceptive reasons. This simply motivated me to redouble my efforts and strive to remain professional and dignified at all times, including during difficult handovers. And, just like when I was a girl, I kept my gaze laser-focused on the horizon. This is another piece of advice that I share with young people: resilience, courage, and convictions do pay off in the long run.
However, I also acknowledge that the institution has made a lot of progress. President Wolfensohn was proactive in opening the Bank to a more diverse staff, women, people from minority groups, which unleashed a lot of new energy. And, like many organisations, it has had to face challenges around racism. In the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, a taskforce was set up to analyse how accusations of racism are and could be better dealt with internally.
What brings purpose and meaning to your everyday life?
I cannot imagine life without being involved in social responsibility initiatives. I have led social initiatives in each of my positions. In DR Congo, I funded projects to help get children off the streets and provide vocational rehabilitation for young people with disabilities. I organised similar projects in Nigeria focusing on war widows. In Morocco, I led a project supporting migrants arriving from sub-Saharan Africa. I have always been active on a personal level as well. I set up a foundation to help AIDS orphans and we were active in four countries. I have been sponsoring two young Nigerian orphans. In South Africa, during the immediate Covid-19 period, I campaigned for funding to feed hundreds of vulnerable migrants whom at that stage were not supported by the government’s social safety nets.
For me, there’s nothing more rewarding than empowering people who have a strong potential but are challenged because of difficult circumstances such as conflict or lack of economic opportunities.
I have read that you are a bit of a workaholic; do you confirm this?
Yes, I believe it is true! I can still see myself at my desk, for yet another late evening at the World Bank headquarters in DC. The night guards were patrolling the huge offices and one stopped by my desk to inform me: “Mam’! Not sure you’re aware of this but you are the only employee left in the building!” It was Christmas Eve. I was leaving the following day for Martinique to be with my family, and being the conscientious woman that I am, I wanted to go through all my files and tie up any loose ends before I left. However, I was so embarrassed that I packed up and went home immediately!
This determination goes back to my childhood. I guess it is a continuous quest for excellence and to some extent I can’t help it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have any other interests! I know when I need to take a breather and process my thoughts. I love being surrounded by young people. I like sports and I am currently working on a new challenge, moving from tennis to golf, which will be gentler on my knees. In addition, I try to make the most of my international business trips to understand other cultures better.
What strategies do you think Audencia should pursue to continue to catalyse positive change?
The international outlook, which has been Audencia’s signature for decades, is a fantastic asset that should be cultivated. Secondly, I like that the school has opened over time. I am a pure product of the French public school system. My parents made it a point to find ways for me to access quality education. The school should focus further on recruiting students from more varied social backgrounds because diversity drives innovation. This is precisely the reason why I contribute to the Audencia Foundation. Thirdly, the school should continue to strive for academic excellence because this is the best arm against prejudice.
Is there anything that you are particularly looking forward to in the coming weeks?
Yes, there is! Here in South Africa, we have a long weekend coming up for the celebration of Heritage Day. I will be heading to a wellness centre I go to when I need to take some time for myself. It’s on a farm, an hour from Pretoria. I will go on hiking at sunset, again at dawn, and enjoy some hydrotherapy in between. I am going on my own and am unlikely to bump into anyone from work!
It is tempting nowadays to get bogged down with what seems like an insurmountable accumulation of crises. Do you sometimes despair about the future of humanity?
I am an unwavering optimist. Look at the journey that humanity has taken: it has always been fraught with crises, but we have always recovered. To take the Covid-19 crisis example; I am convinced that it will spark some profoundly positive changes, one of which is our ability to reclaim something valuable which is time for ourselves, and to be better prepared to face such global health crises. When you step back to analyse long-term trends, you note that civilisation has made tremendous progress. In recent history, when African countries obtained independence, only 20% of young people had access to university, but today, there are many outstanding scholars in key positions all over the world!
I have one major concern though, and that is the climate crisis. I see its devastating effects first-hand, with longer, more frequent droughts and heavier rainfall that destroy crops. This is going to be the issue of our time in the years to come: how do we rethink the balance on Earth so there is space for everyone, less inequality, for the younger generation to thrive and remain hopeful.
Finally, young people make me optimistic. I get this from my mother whose motto has always been “The only secret to remaining young is to surround yourself with young people.” I believe that the only way forward is to involve young people in decision-making processes. Therefore, in each of my roles as director, I have established a youth platform. Every time I meet young people, I am amazed by their resourcefulness for innovation, confirming my hopes for a better, albeit a different, future.
Reading Time: 10 minutes
Life coach and reiki master
When we reached out to Henar Cabrera, she was living in Dublin and working as an International Customer Service Representative for Blue Nile, an American online jewellery retailer. Fast forward to our interview only two weeks later, and she had relocated to San Sebastian in Spain, and was proudly calling herself a life coach and reiki master. We got swept away by one of those conversations that seemed to take on a life of its own. Full of twists and turns, just like Henar’s life, in fact.
Growing up, Henar didn’t venture much further than her native Madrid, but her life changed gear the moment she understood she had to scratch that travel bug itch.
Audencia’s EIBM programme allowed her to lay the first stone of her international career. From Spain, to France, to Germany, to China, to Ireland and back to Spain, Henar’s journey is a travelogue as much as a story of professional transition and spiritual quest. A quest for healing from childhood trauma, for independence, for Mr. Right, for a purposeful job, and, above all, for finding her true self. Henar has come full circle and returned to her home country; along the way, she has found her mission, to motivate and heal others so they can live their best life. Full of wisdom, Henar’s words encourage us to soothe our mind and to trust and listen to our heart, the essence of our being and a reservoir of joy. They will inspire anyone who finds themselves questioning their life choices.
Tell me a little bit about your childhood in Madrid
It wasn’t all that straightforward, dealing with my childhood wounds; it took me years of therapy to accept that parents bring their own childhood traumas to the way they raise their kids, and that they did the best they could with the resources they had. As a child, I was an introvert, with dreams of a fulfilling life, imagining the full package: a successful career, a loving husband, and a house full of children. Now I suspect that those desires were in fact other people’s projections, rather than my own dreams.
Was the international career part of your plan?
The urge to venture outside my home country came to me quite late, with parents who were civil servants, I was raised in a very Spanish or local mind-set. The international seed started to grow after I went to study on a university exchange programme in Utrecht in The Netherlands. When I returned to Madrid, I got a job in TV news production for three years. I am aware of how glamorous that sounds, and I was grateful for the experience but at the same time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t my calling. I knew that something was missing, I craved adventure, I wanted to learn new languages and immerse myself in different cultures.
I was insecure about this dream for a long time so I decided to go abroad again to study, thinking it would give me the confidence and the foundations I needed for an international career. When I discovered Audencia’s European and International Business Management programme, it felt like the absolute right path to take.
What appealed to you about the EIBM programme?
The programme consisted of a rotation every three months in three different countries: Spain (Bilbao), France (Nantes) and the UK (Bradford), which I found particularly exciting. It focused on international business with a solid curriculum in international law, finance and human resources. However, to be honest, I picked this programme primarily for the international opportunities it offered.
Unlike many students, I had no preconceived plan when I enrolled. I admired and, at times, envied those rational and determined people, and blamed myself for my lack of direction and confidence. I am much gentler with myself now, because I recognise how much of a leap of faith this move had been for me. Today I know myself better and I accept that intuition and spirituality drive me more than rationality.
Did the programme fulfil its promise?
The curriculum was heavy on numbers, which overwhelmed me for the first few months, especially as I was studying in a different language. However, I surprised myself with my ability to hang in there despite the difficulties. I felt encouraged by a strong force, which I can only attribute to God. I was not at ease with the networking aspect either, but I knew that it was an essential part of the experience. I pushed myself to connect with the other students and gradually it felt more natural. In France and Spain, my timetable was quite dense. At Bradford, the schedule was lighter with more assignments than contact hours so this gave me more time to socialise. This was how I met the man who took me to China…
Tell us about your professional peregrinations
I found a job in Paris; which I don’t think I would have managed without my experience in Nantes. It was a blissful time, working for Windrose, selling documentaries and other TV content all over the world. It was the perfect way to combine my media background with my international business skills. The French community accepted me as one of their own. I was lucky to attend high profile events such as the Cannes International TV market and it was gratifying to realise that I had become comfortable with networking. It goes to show that you can always develop your ideal personality type. I recall one evening in Cannes, when we celebrated a friend’s birthday: she was Russian – we’d met in Spain – and we partied with interesting people from all over the world. I felt in total harmony in this international environment, as if the stars had aligned for me.
When my boss took on a role in Germany, she suggested I go with her and I accepted in a heartbeat, excited to step into yet another universe. However, after a few months, the workload and the stress had become so unbearable that I one day I suffered a panic attack in in the office. My inner awareness kicked in again and pushed me to extract myself from this unhealthy situation. I realised that my curiosity was tempting me to explore even further. By a strange twist of fate, my boyfriend at the time – with whom I’d had a long-distance relationship for several years, had just decided to return to Taiwan where he was from so I upped sticks and went with him. The administrative formalities to obtain a visa were frankly a hassle but then Swedbrand, an international packaging company, recruited and sponsored me. I enjoyed some business trips in Europe, however I pushed myself to reach my sales target at the cost of my own wellbeing again. Then in 2016, I got a job as a customer service representative at Blue Nile, an online jewellery company, and that position was such a blessing.
So what led you to coaching?
After suffering from work-related anxiety for many years, I finally found working environments in China that made me feel at peace. I was in the right state of mind for some introspective work, and this is how I discovered my interest in coaching. I realised that my friends often came to me to share whatever challenge there were going through, and I was naturally a good listener. I started to believe that I could leverage this trustworthiness and make a career out of it so I enrolled on evening classes in coaching and stepped into a close-knit community. This was a wonderful and balanced phase in my life: my daytime job provided me with an international outlook and stability and in the evenings, I was exploring this new activity that made me feel so alive. I started organising motivational and self-development workshops as a freelance coach. I was amazed to have found a path that I could build with my own hands and which gave me so much joy.
Why did you move back to Europe then?
The relationship with my now ex-boyfriend didn’t work out. With hindsight, I could have predicted that before moving to the other side of the world with him, but I don’t have any regrets. I had to go through those experiences to gain self-awareness. So, I found myself single in China where I felt settled, with a job that I liked, a supportive friendship network and this fulfilling passion project with coaching. Nevertheless, I was craving a relationship; I continued dating, but I had a feeling that I would find love in Europe. I remember going to Spain for the summer holidays and realising how lovely life was in Europe. I decided that a new lifestyle was within my reach and that I should move while I was still young and unattached. My employer, Blue Nile, had a European base in Ireland, and they were happy to transfer me there.
So was Ireland the place that finally ticked all the boxes?
Not quite, but here’s a scoop! I found my true love and life partner in Ireland, and we are engaged to be married! I also certified as a life coach, which is a proud achievement. My corporate life, however, felt unsettling again. My sales targets had increased, along with my stress levels so one week ago, I resigned from secure employment to embrace my soul mission. I hadn’t imagined that my transition towards coaching would be so radical and sudden. My initial plan was to build a secure client base before moving into coaching full time, but there was a point when I felt totally bogged down. Carrying out both activities in parallel became difficult because my corporate job was demanding for my brain, and when I coached it became difficult to shift my focus to my heart and guts. I am grateful to my employer for their trust, but I have accepted that for me there is something more to life than a 9 to 5 corporate job, which suffocates my soul. Today I am ready to spend more time being closer to the unknown and the uncomfortable, until I figure out the next stage of my life.
Congratulations on the upcoming wedding! Where is your fiancé from? Ireland? China?
Ha ha! He’s Australian actually! He teaches English and we share the same passion for discovering other cultures. If we add up the countries that we have each lived in, it comes to 13! We met in Ireland and he’s the one who felt the urge to relocate. He was craving the sun and the sea and he found a job in San Sebastian. He has offered to support me while I set up my business and I trust him in his knowledge of what is best for the two of us. So I have moved back to Spain out of love for him and this is how I have reconnected with my homeland after 12 years away.
So have you managed to align with your life purpose?
I am definitely on the right track! I coach people in finding and planning for what they truly desire. I am also a reiki master; the objective is therapeutic, it’s about helping people to heal from past trauma, so they feel in harmony with the present and themselves. And since I am passionate about relationships and dating, I also offer what I call “Eat, Pray, Love” coaching. Some women -including me, have been struggling with toxic and even abusive relationships. They get caught up in the same pattern, which often also affects their professional relationships. I am here to support women navigating through a breakup, healing a broken heart, returning to the dating arena, and forming a sacred union. All these disciplines can be powerful tools to make the most of this one short life we have.
Do you regret your past educational and career choices or even see them as a waste of time?
I have no regrets whatsoever, I have been figuring out my life as it’s been unfolding. It took me these long exploratory phases to accept that corporate life is not for everyone, despite the remarkable comfort and security it brings. My parents still struggle to understand my choices but I know that the pressure that they still put on me to achieve their version of success comes from a good place. I value their opinions, but I am now much better at following my own desires.
Are there any recommendations you would like to share with Audencia students and alumni who are currently trying to figure out their own personal journeys?
As a life coach, I don’t like to give advice. I know that people have to figure out their own journey. What I am certain about is that fulfilment starts with being aware of the expectations that others have for us – our parents, friends, teachers, etc. Then it’s about connecting with our heart; our heart is wiser than the rational model we have been taught to follow. My recommendation is to listen to what you truly desire beyond all those social projections. A heart-centred and joyful life is much more empowering than the false sense of security provided by the logical and capitalistic world we live in. I know that the process can be terrifying, but trust me, once you take that leap of faith, the doors open.
You have mentioned God several times. Have you always been guided by spirituality?
I was raised a Catholic but as an adult I disconnected from my faith. I remember, aged 28, when I was living in Germany and had just returned from visiting my now ex-boyfriend in the UK. It was freezing cold, I was walking along the street, my arms loaded with grocery bags, and I was missing my boyfriend. Sometimes living abroad can feel very lonely. I came across a church and I will never forget the feeling when I stepped inside of being hugged by God. Reconnecting with my religion has helped me tremendously in overcoming all sorts of challenges. On days when my sales results were miles away off target and my stress levels were through the roof, I would find comfort in the Bible. Did you know that in the Bible, the phrase “Don’t worry” features 365 times? I now ask God for guidance at each important step.
It might be a difficult question because you are in the middle of another transition, as you have just moved to a new city, are about to get married and set up your business, but, do you have any idea where you would like to be in 5 or 10 years’ time? What do you wish for yourself?
What I truly desire is to be able to earn a living in a way that is in synch with my soul, using my talents for a higher purpose, to serve the community, to touch others, to be independent and to create wealth from within.
Is there anything that you are looking forward to doing this week?
I have been away from my fiancé for a couple of months so I can’t wait to see him. I am also looking forward to my regular running session along the esplanade. Running gives me the opportunity to leave my problems behind for an hour, and feed my soul and body with mindfulness and endorphins. Watching the sun come up while you are jogging is a beautiful way to show gratitude for the gift of life and to start the day with intention!