To celebrate Women’s Day, we wanted to highlight two personalities with a brilliant track record: Claire Juliard, Lead Connect at October and Chloé Mingant, Employee Engagement and Transformation Manager at ENGIE. Their paths crossed when the i-DEAL* platform was deployed within the ENGIE group: Claire led the project for October and Chloé was in charge of deploying the platform for ENGIE’s employees. It was a match! A real achievement for both of them and the platform is already a success: several projects have already been financed.
Although having evolved in different universes, fintech and energies, Claire and Chloé share common values. They value curiosity and learning and apply it daily in their respective missions. Each in their own field and company, they represent female leadership.
*i-DEAL is the first October Connect partnership and it is above all a tool to enhance the commitment of ENGIE’s employees, the third world largest energy group. The platform allows them to participate in the funding of internal projects and thus to invest concretely in the group’s growth.
Claire Juliard, Connect Lead at October
What do you do at October?
I am leading our Connect Activity, i.e. our neo-lending platform available to any financial institutions.
What did you do before joining October?
I studied in a French business school where I did a year abroad (on the Singapour campus) and did several internships in France and in Belgium (consulting, journalism, retail) before joining October, almost 5 years ago, as as customer success intern.
I am a “baby October” as we say internally, born and raised in our culture that fosters transparency and continuous improvements.
What aspect of your work are you most passionate about?
I am passionate about learning: new skills, new activities, new people. In my 5 years at October I have changed jobs 3 times to cover very different aspects of our business!
I love evolving in a challenging and rigorous environment: investors are demanding, regulation is key, we have to create a customer experience in an industry where tech and regulation constraints are tough.
What are the 3 skills that you definitely need in your role?
- Curiosity: I have a role where I am constantly client facing. I need to be curious on the needs of the clients, their mindset and approach to business to try to find a solution. It also applies internally, I need to know our platform by heart to make sure I explain it well to customers.
- Energy: that I know have a lot but I am not sure I am good at managing it ⚡ ! Energy is super important to always get moving, not to look backwards but focusing on driving a team with me on projects!
- Focus: I have to be super focused on my objective in order to manage priorities and thankfully at October we have well defined OKR (Objective Key Results).
What does diversity and inclusion mean to you?
It’s funny you ask the question just after the skills questions because to me it’s closely linked. Diversity means interacting with people that have a different skillset than mine, that come from a different background and have different perspective. It also means not reproducing what I know, getting out of my confort zone, taking another path.
Inclusion means making sure that we have a methodology to make diversity arise. In other words: not being biased (and that’s a tough one).
What was your first touchpoint with the digital world?
October!
How do you think the technology will impact your industry in the next years?
Our vision at October is to simplify funding for SME. Tomorrow we want entrepreneurs to be able to get a loan on their mobile at anytime from anywhere: we have never been so close to achieving that mission at October and we need to stay super focus to achieving it!
What do you do in your spare time?
I love to ski (and discovered ski-touring recently which I love even more), to kite-board, wake-board, go running, enjoy time with my friends and family and relax by reading books (mostly about WW2).
What kind of job would you do if you were not in Fintech?
Journalist (oups not such a popular job anymore, belonging to the “old world” as some may think) but I think that popularising knowledge and ensuring that people can take ownership of knowledge/science is crucial in a democracy.
Chloé Mingant, Employee Engagement and Transformation Manager at ENGIE
What do you do at Engie?
I work in the Employee Engagement Department as part of the Group Transformation Office. I am responsible to manage the implementation of the i-DEAL platform, which gives employees the opportunity to invest in internal group projects and to be involved in the life of the group. Initially deployed to 30,000 employees in 3 countries (France, Belgium and Italy), we plan to gradually open the platform to new countries.
i-DEAL’s ambition is to highlight the multiplicity of the group’s activities and to create and strengthen the link between project leaders and employees.
What did you do before joining Engie?
The environment is the common thread between all my experiences. I started my career in a very small business in the waste sector and then took the big leap by joining a CAC40 company, Suez, still in the waste sector. I then started working in the energy sector by joining ENGIE.
It is important for me to have an activity that makes sense and has a positive impact on the world we live in.
What aspect of your work are you most passionate about?
It’s exciting to showcase all the richness of ENGIE’s activities, to highlight the men and women behind all these projects, and to create a link between these project leaders and the group’s employees. Doing so via a crowdfunding platform is also very innovative.
My activity allows me to meet people from different backgrounds and to work on the collective. I love it.
What are the 3 skills that you definitely need in your role?
Curiosity, versatility and pedagogy. We must work to make this i-DEAL adventure a collective adventure. To do this, we must explain and share the meaning of this initiative while listening to the remarks and proposals for development from employees.
What does diversity and inclusion mean to you?
Diversity and inclusion means allowing everyone to be themselves within the company: we have common values and goals, but we also come with our own experience and the richness of our individuality.
What was your first touchpoint with the digital world?
Digital has always been here. The small company I worked for marketed digital content under a white label on local authority sites: we had to provide precise information on local waste sorting and prevention instructions. Then at Suez, I built a greenhouse gas assessment tool. Finally, at Engie, I set up a customer listening system and connected it to my entity’s CRM to make the information accessible to everyone in real time. Then today i-DEAL.
How do you think technology will impact the industry in the next years?
Technology impacts the offers and services we can offer our customers.
Among the projects put online on i-DEAL, we have, for example, a digital platform that allows French BtoB customers, in a very simple way and beyond the existing mechanisms, to trace very precisely the origin of the renewable energy consumed and to share the surplus of renewable energy produced. It thus improves traceability and promotes proximity.
The technology enables us to be more efficient and innovative to accelerate our customers’ energy transition.
What kind of job would you do if you were not in the Energies?
I would evolve in a position that would allow me to continue to learn, to continue to be in touch with a multiplicity of committed actors and to build something positive.
What do you do in your spare time?
I take care of my family and my children, it takes time, but it is happiness. I read a lot, I like to go to the theater and enjoy my friends. I like enjoying life after all!