Cécile Duranton is the managing director of Time for the Planet, a trail-blazing non-profit citizen fund detecting and financing climate change innovations.

Before joining Time for the Planet, Cécile trained as an agronomy engineer, as she is passionate about nature, animals, agriculture and food systems.

The young French woman tells Anne how she left home at 14 to attend a specialist highschool to continue to ride and train horses, and later to intern in the UK and in Vietnam. Cécile thrived in her travels, and shares how she discovered that bonds can be formed even when one doesn’t speak the local language (though clearly she loves trying). As a business developer for different French companies, she has worked extensively across South East Asia. Living the expat lifestyle, Cécile discusses why she chose to learn new languages — to better understand the culture and build strong relationships and an international network at the same time.

Cécile explains how she chose to study in Brazil, and later in New Zealand, and how she ended up turning from the engineering side to the business development side of the industry, changing the arc of her career. She also tells Anne how she got involved in sustainability and, in particular, climate change before making it her first mission.

Cécile designs and executes the international strategy of Time for the Planet, so Anne asks her about the mission of the business, how they inspire action in citizens, how they built their model to have maximum impact, why they have a low threshold to entry (you can become a shareholder for as little as 1 euro) and how changing their communication around climate change transformed their business from doom-inaction model to one charged with hope, energy and powering individual action.

A fascinating and motivating conversation. Happy listening!

***

Selected links from episode

You can connect with Cecile via LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecile-duranton-71469b83/

Or discover the project Time for the Planet here - https://join-time.com/en

Pircicaba, Brazil where Cécile studied - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracicaba

The Patagonia letter to shareholders from September 2022 - https://www.patagoniaworks.com/press/2022/9/14/patagonias-next-chapter-earth-is-now-our-only-shareholder

Where to measure your carbon footprint - https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

Cécile's interview on the podcast 'Fille Xpats' (in French) - https://fillexpats.com/77-france/

Fair Phone - https://www.fairphone.com/

The book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

The book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Sleep

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