Meet Thierry Roussin, coach of the Challenge and paving the way towards sustainable innovation

Meet Thierry Roussin, coach of the Challenge and paving the way towards sustainable innovation

Thierry Roussin, a Swiss-born Canadian citizen, has become a true changemaker in the world of innovation and sustainable impact.  For a long time, Thierry has accumulated various experiences as a consultant, project creator, and mediator, all for the purpose of inspiring others to have a positive impact. With his ambitious spirit, he founded his company Aguialabs, which helps generate business models that are relevant to a sustainable future, by bringing together businesses and the community. Thierry’s story with Aguialabs began seven years ago when he became convinced that companies with no societal impact would not survive in the long run. He believed that it was due time for businesses to embrace the ‘for good’ paradigm. Therefore, he left a successful management consulting partnership he had co-founded to walk the talk: he became fully dedicated to helping organizations focus on their core purpose and embrace their sustainable economic value and societal impact. 

Organised today as a networked consultancy with global reach, Aguialabs enables people to envision, design, prototype, engage, build and scale impactful and disruptive business models.  They also coach on a pro bono basis social entrepreneurs in Europe and Africa, and are involved in higher education programs that raise awareness on the notion of Impact.  Since their inception, they have seeded more than 15 systems change projects, mobilised hundreds of leaders to embrace impact-driven mindsets, created an amazing cooperative network of multinational talents, and helped countless stakeholders engage in genuine human connections in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.  They also became a certified B Corporation in 2016, and are engaged in impact finance as a member of the European Venture Philanthropy Association.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic froze most of their activity last March, it proved to be an amazing opportunity to reflect and revisit their purpose, rethink the way they work, and invest quality time in the design of new approaches. This did not stop them from working with changemakers in 16 African countries on disruptive innovation, and from creating conversations with leaders to transform the pandemic into inclusive innovation opportunities and adapt their modus operandi to the context. With this, they witnessed first-hand the emergence of global awareness on the notions of interdependence and impact.  

It is in this encouraging mindset that Thierry Roussin will be sharing his experiences and aspirations during the Nudge Global Impact Challenge 2020. Being one of the coaches, he feels, is another enriching opportunity for himself and the participants.

“Looking ahead, I believe that one of our roles is to ensure that people reveal and share their learnings from this global trauma caused by the pandemic, and translate them into impactful innovations.”