Born into a family of bricklayers and farmers, I grew up in the Fronsadais region of the Gironde, a beautiful hilly area covered in vines and dotted with woods, small ponds and streams. At the end of my mechanical engineering studies at university, I decided to embark on a start-up with a captain who wanted to move towards a 100% renewable world.

It's a rare occurrence that the aforementioned start-up, Valorem, has grown, developed and become one of the market leaders in wind power and photovoltaics in France. After 27 years in-house at VALOREM (research manager, project manager, agency manager, development director and business unit director), I decided to jump ship, where the agility of the early days had given way to a centralized organization that didn't suit my personality.

After a 3-month break, during which I had the chance to sail and learn a few sailing notions, I seized the opportunity to take charge of a new team with a view to helping it grow. EURASOLIS, a subsidiary of EURALIS, is an agricultural cooperative based in the south-west of France, with a presence in 16 countries and an exceptional capacity for agility and innovation. Its project corresponded perfectly to what I wanted to do: develop photovoltaics with and for farmers.

My technical and academic background has enabled me to grasp a wide range of project development issues. In the field, I learned to convince and deploy the persuasive force needed to conquer new areas.

As my team grew, I gained the experience I needed to guide my colleagues, motivate them and help them grow.

The Executive MBA seemed a natural choice to structure my empirical experience, identify the origins of certain malfunctions in my practices and act more effectively.

Companies are facing a world of accelerating volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. This awareness, which is a prerequisite for action, was triggered for me by all the professors whose contributions helped me to better understand the transitions underway. Exchanges with other students, faced with constant changes in their own environment, were also very instructive.

As soon as you become aware of the origins of change, it becomes more natural to try to anticipate solutions adapted to each activity.

As soon as we identify the changes we need to make in our organizations to anticipate transitions, we need to mobilize the men and women who make up our organizations. Emotional intelligence not being my main strength, the courses devoted to business organization, management and leadership enabled me to learn how to structure my actions to bring about change.

The Executive MBA gave me the ability to grasp many of the challenges that leaders have to face: understanding market trends and anticipating change, developing a vision and defining strategies, communicating them and getting teams on board, mobilizing human and financial resources, and managing change.

Since completing the Global EMBA, I've become a different person: serene and confident in my ability to act, while retaining my humanity and humility.