Rachel Delacour is founder of climate tech firm Sweep, which works with brands including L’Oreal (LOR.F) and Lacoste to help them streamline their carbon and ESG data. She sold her first company, BIME Analytics, to Zendesk for $45m in 2015.
David Thibault, who was director of cost control for all the Carrefour (CA.PA) hypermarkets, was an inspiring first boss in the way he kept pushing the limit of my expertise in finance.
I was a cost controller at the French multinational retailer and what I loved most working for him was the ability to understand that you can’t go far if you don’t have the right team.
He always said that ‘to be successful in the task I am giving you, you need the soft skills to convince the other departments’. He told me that I didn’t have the right to come back saying that I couldn’t perform because of other departments. It was my job to convince and there was no excuse.
Read More: ‘Leading a company is like trying to master judo’
It taught me later when I entered the entrepreneurial world that I could go fast alone but I wouldn’t be able to go far alone.
Maybe that’s why I am not ashamed to say today that I am working in my second tech company and as a CEO I still don’t know how to code. I’m not an engineer and that’s fine with me. I have the right team and it’s my job to make sure they are all working together.
In my mid twenties, I was inspired by Carrefour’s internal culture which made me think this way. It was okay to fail by not knowing and it wasn’t the crisis which was important, but how we were able to manage it.
I also saw people start in the warehouse and become directors. That loyalty is key to growing the right company. It was an environment which trusted skill sets, that you needed to keep the right people and with iteration you could build the right service for your customers and be consistent over time.
I started with David as an intern before moving to Moscow and then returning to a full-time job at Carrefour. I wanted to follow and come back as I was learning from David every month.
We could see that he was fine with recreating smarter people than himself. He did it for the good of the business.
Read More: How my IBM boss taught me to navigate a complex organisation
It also taught me the power of being tolerant. We are in a big machine and can’t control the minds of everyone. It’s about managing, convincing and making sure people are working together.
After selling BIME Analytics, I took a year off to spend time with my children. I also attended a course at the International Space University in Strasbourg.
I considered training as an astronaut, but realised space does not make sense through its total hostility. We need to fix the earth first and it was one of the reasons for founding Sweep.
I do, however, have a $75,000 ticket for a space balloon flight. The company is still working on the journey to send human travellers and I hope that I will be able to travel.
I believe all politicians should be made to go up into space to force them to see the beauty of Earth, and understand why it’s so important for us to take action to protect it.
I was invited to COP28 with France’s president Macron and have seen for myself how much power our leaders have to create the regulations and structures to make this happen.
Read More: ‘My global mission was to provide mechanical sails for large ships’
Until four years ago I was still flying to San Francisco for two days and I had no clue about my carbon consumption. It’s not that I didn’t care, more the fact that I didn’t know.
I started to ramp up my knowledge as my kids knew more than me and what science was saying. It was my climate moment and I knew I was too old to reinvent.
I knew digital better and asked the companies I worked with what they were doing about climate change. They didn’t know where to start but they wanted to act on carbon emissions.
Every five years or so David sends me an encouraging message. It shows what a mentor he was, but also that it was fun working with him. Kindness can go a long way in the workplace and I try to show that today.
Watch: Is it financially worth going to university?
Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
