VIVRE SA VILLE

Here on the Riviera the young generation of Féminin Pluriel Côte d’Azur women is shaking up old work habits, guided by the principle of mutual support.

These women born in the late 80s are the last Generation X arrivals, just ahead of the Ys and Zs waiting in the wings. And they are giving the very executives with whom they grew up a run for their money! Their first shared trait is to be among the youngest members of the Féminin Pluriel global network of strong-headed, big-hearted, pro-active women, which was started 25 years ago in Paris and now has clubs in Nice, Montpellier, Berlin, Amsterdam, Moscow, Abu Dhabi... the list goes on. The Côte d’Azur club includes Audrey Carsalade, Aurélia Lanson and Marie Boniteau, three dynamic entrepreneurs who, each in their own profession, are effecting a quiet revolution by placing human concerns at the hub of their lives and work. “From the beginning our network focused on collaboration and solidarity rather than competition and rivalry. At that time such values were ground-breaking, today they’re really taking hold in the corporate world,” states Rachel Desbordes (photo), the 39-year-old mother-of-three who is president of the Riviera club. As an interior designer she works in an essentially masculine milieu. “It’s a profession in which you have to get to grips with the problematics of clients’ lives, so you can unravel the functional aspects of their living environment. You have to be a good listener and open to others.” The Féminin Pluriel network regularly organises lunches for its members to meet with inspiring women proposing new ideas, has set up a global women’s news watch on its Facebook page, and introduced a mentoring system to help young members start their own businesses, encouraged by their elders. Intergenerational solidarity at its best.

Audrey Carsalade
The naturopath route
“I worked 13 years in the event organisation department of a big luxury brand, putting everything into my work and nothing into me. I needed to come up for air,” says Audrey Carsalade. So she moved down to the Riviera and: “I took six months to decide what I wanted to do.” Now she practises a profession she is passionate about, helping others to take care of themselves and find an equilibrium that suits them. “Naturopathy is three-pronged: food that provides your body with good energy, managing stress, one of the great scourges of our time, and exercising. In addition to advice on these,
I offer complementary holistic coaching to introduce new habits.” When she goes on to point out: “Our parents spent their working lives in the same company, today I’m in contact with bloggers who work six months of the year from Bali!” you realise that Audrey is every bit as dynamic as youngsters of 25 or 30, the generation that texts with both thumbs, has the world for horizon, accesses information direct, doesn’t identify with the old structures, and sees the future as still to be made. Audrey gives consultations on Skype and at the Hôtel Juana or in Paris, publishes videos that go viral on Instagram, facilitates wellness weekends and detox workshops, and is publishing her own book on naturopathy in February 2019.

Aurélia Lanson
The benefits of meditation
“I used to have an art gallery in the Marais. In six years I had made myself known to the press and was on the starting blocks with investors, but I had the feeling its wasn’t the life I wanted,” Aurélia Lanson remembers. One day, a friend who taught atom physics at Cambridge returned very serene from a week’s meditation retreat. Aurélia, who had learnt this practice from her grandmother, a professional pianist, asked herself a fundamental question: am I happy in my work? “The answer was a resounding “No”. When you listen to your inner self, ignoring what you think are your certainties, it becomes obvious.” So she did an American course in meditation training and began teaching introductory sessions in schools, for employees in the workplace and for the general public at the Hôtel Belles Rives in Juan-les-Pins and the Tigre Yoga Club in Paris. “The teachers I learnt with were near Stanford and Harvard; many neuroscientific studies have shown the benefits of meditation: improved concentration, better management of emotions, plus increased productivity and creativity too.” Just back from Nepal, Aurélia is now launching a meditation kit for sale in shops and on the internet soon, with cushions made by hand in an all-women Nepalese workshop. “In Silicon Valley they’ve been talking about post-capitalism for a long time now; they’re all dreaming of a B Corp. Our model has demonstrated its limits, for humans and the planet; we have to start over.”

Marie Boniteau
Happy at work
“I wanted to give my staff and our clients a unique place that would stimulate exchanges and creativity,” sums up the woman at the head of E-Ressources, an off-beat human-resources and executive-recruitment consultancy based in Lyon and Sophia-Antipolis. E-Ressources came third in the 2018 HappyAtWork index and second in its Top Agile class, which speaks volumes about this inventive woman who knew at 20 that she would be an entrepreneur. “I learnt diligence, process and the power of work in big international firms, but I wanted to create something else, something bolder.” Her premises strewn with children’s drawings and art objects make you feel at home; clients are asked to bring a little gift to their first appointment, which stays here. Marie Boniteau employs unusual means to get under her clients’ skin and so be able to find the right people to work for them: the client attends an olfactory workshop, prepares lunch and talks about how they live their lives, then E-ressources makes an in-depth visit to their work place so as to understand how the firm functions. “We are artisans of interaction, we have to ensure the human, emotional and cultural alchemy between people, more than their skills set.” Buoyed up by its success, her company is soon to launch a new brand offering business leaders a “360 In House” overview involving experts in financial consultancy, human capital and digital transformation.

Par Tanja Stojanov