After working for over 15 years in the management of the SOS Group, you set up your own consulting company. Can you tell us about your career path?

After studying economics, I worked for two years in a small private equity firm specializing in financing activities with high social and environmental added value. I was attracted by subjects such as fair trade, responsible consumption and solidarity finance. I then joined Groupe SOS, which at the time had fewer than 2,000 employees, as Deputy Managing Director of the Associations division. Quite quickly, I seized the opportunity to head up JCLT, a national child protection association with 700 employees, later renamed Groupe SOS jeunesse.

I took on this challenge without any knowledge of child protection or any real management experience, but knowing that I could draw on the advantages of a group: peers who run other activities, technical contacts, governance bodies...

In the end, I was in charge of three of the five historical sectors of the SOS Group: youth, employment and solidarity.

What personal resources do you draw on to drive your projects forward and exercise leadership?

Management and leadership can be based on very different things. When I took up my first managerial post, I got the managers together and explained that I wasn't an expert on their subject, and that it wasn't my job to tell them how to look after a teenager in a children's home. On the other hand, I was at their side in matters of management, partnerships, relations with the supervisory authorities and management.

If there's one pitfall to avoid, it's explaining to employees who know their job well how to do it when you don't know it yourself.

Although I was very young in the ecosystem of association managers, I was keen to take on responsibilities and I was very interested in human contact. I'm at ease with figures, and my ability to synthesize them has enabled me to free up more time for relationships and working in the field. I really enjoyed chairing the central works committee, talking to trade unions and spending time on negotiations...

What are your current projects and challenges?

Two years ago, I made a fairly significant change, moving from a large organization to a more solitary consultancy posture, i.e. working alongside my customers rather than directly at the helm. This was in response to a desire for flexibility and a managerial break, as well as a desire to work, for a time, on missions and projects rather than on a function.

I've never seen the idea of a career as a linear process. I believe it's possible to go back and forth, and that there's even a certain hygiene of change.

A consultant's job is first and foremost to listen to and understand the customer's issues, with the ability to analyze them from a distance, with less interference from day-to-day life. My position is ultra-operational, that of a manager who has been confronted with the same issues of governance and organization. For example, the role of volunteers, the positioning of the Board of Directors, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer pair, the pooling of resources, or organization by theme or territory. Not forgetting development and mergers. These are often approached defensively by the protagonists, who have in mind only the merger-absorption solution. However, I've had the good fortune to lead a great many mergers within the SOS Group, and to experiment with other methods.

On the contrary, closer ties can mobilize very positive levers. Today, I'm working with associations on this highly strategic subject, which I'm passionate about.

I'm also interested in social innovation. Encouraging grassroots initiatives is a very unifying area of work in terms of management, which concerns all sectors, not just the SSE.

What are the current challenges for the associative world?

Governance is undoubtedly the main challenge in an environment that has become considerably more complex, particularly in terms of regulatory issues, management and the renewal of statutory bodies made up of volunteers. Next come development, partnerships and links with the public sphere, on the one hand, and the traditional business world, on the other. Indeed, it's very useful to transcend these boundaries, which are all too often considered impassable. Similarly, the ability of associative players to attract atypical profiles and mix professional cultures is a source of great richness and should be encouraged.

What message would you like to send to future leaders and entrepreneurs?

My career path has been marked by the development of youth activities within the SOS Group. If youth is the field of all possibilities, it is also a time of fragility when future inequalities are created. That's why we need to pay particular attention to equal opportunities from the earliest age. I'm firmly convinced that every child has great potential. It's up to us to do everything we can to help them discover and develop it. In fact, the first task of an educator is to instill confidence in the child and develop his or her talent. Then everything becomes possible.

I believe that you can only do well over the long term what you love to do.
My advice is to take the risk of pushing your talent, even when the path seems narrow.
There are so many ways to succeed in life, and so many professions!

For example, in the arts and crafts sector, which boasts over 200 exceptional trades, and in sectors that make sense. Today's young people don't want to spend 10 hours a day on an activity whose impact they don't appreciate. This groundswell of interest will enable not only the SSE to develop, but also the more traditional players to transform themselves.

Admittedly, being a student in 2020/2021 isn't the easiest way to get started. However, young people have a whole life ahead of them. Of course, acute situations of poverty and loneliness must be dealt with as a matter of urgency, but young people will do what they know how to do: they will have energy and plans.