I began my career as a reporter on the former Soviet Union and so for six years, I filmed in twenty or so countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The idea was to understand how they did business in those countries which were just... it was the phase just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And that was key: on the one hand because these are countries where poverty was significant, so I came face to face with people's poverty on the one hand and interviews with figures from the financial world who were extremely well-off. So there was a contrast: within the same day I'd see, well, significant contrasts. And what struck me was that whenever I went back there, what I saw on the ground was the corruption, of course, the mafia, of course, the prostitution, the never-ending rhetoric about those countries. But what I also saw were entrepreneurs... citizens who wanted to get their country back on its feet. And whenever I returned to France, almost all I saw was the negative image of those countries and I wondered how I could contribute: I thought, that won't help them, so how can I do something to help, well, in my small way, with articles explaining, well, how things work these countries, this is how they are doing things, this is how people can set up
a company. Of course, it's very hard, but you can, there are people who do so and it can work. So that was key, because I saw the imbalance between always highlighting what is not working and highlighting solutions to make things better. And, from these experiences on the ground, I decided to put the spotlight on what can be done to improve things. So these experience in the Eastern Bloc really made me want to focus on solutions, it had a clear influence on the rest of my career, because I then joined "L'Enterprise" magazine for six years, and it was the idea of emphasising practices within SMEs, and in France specifically, and in that respect it was really a very hands-on, practical approach: what can we do to make my business work, that was one phase-- and I'm still pursuing it-- and then I joined "L'Expansion" and then fairly soon afterwards "L'Express" at the same time, on issues of of social innovation, issues of human resources, really with the idea: how can I serve my readers, be a a journalist but with a an angle of serving the public, how can I help to make the the reader's life, well, more pragmatic, more constructive. That's something I'm really keen on. And so when, spurred on by this idea, I was actually able to seize the opportunity I was given within the group, four years ago, the director of the Express Roularta group, Corinne Pitavy, said to me in a meeting: "Well, the Express Roularta group could do with working on the idea of the meaning of work". As it turned out, I had just recently had a very long interview with Arnaud Mourot from the Ashoka association, who spent two hours telling me about co-creation, hybrid value chains, the inclusive economy, and well, all of these subjects, and I put two and two together. Don't ask me why: there are things that you do unconsciously. I put both things together and as a result I put myself forward to lead the whole "meaning to work" angle at L'Express, with management, so really everyone involved in the management, we got together for several weeks to put together this package together in a truly cross-media way: so Print, Web, events, and so that was it. That was the package that I was given the chance to lead and which I have been developing for four years.