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Stratégie interviews Laurence Méhaignerie about her career
Stratégie, 5 June 2025 edition – A pioneer of impact funds in France, Laurence Méhaignerie has always campaigned for joining forces. An article by Emmanuel Gavard.
Driven by social questions
Laurence Méhaignerie grew up in a multicultural family near Rennes, with an American mother and a Breton father. Around the dinner table, political debates about the common good were not uncommon. Committed from the start, she moved into journalism, at Le Moniteur. She soon became a freelancer for Campana-Eleb Associés, an agency founded in 1983 out of the TV programme Grand Public. There she produced audiovisual investigations and organised public forums with citizens.
It was there that she developed a passion for social and environmental questions. In 2004, together with Yazid Sabeg, she wrote a report for the Institut Montaigne, Les Oubliés de l’égalité des chances, then used that opportunity to become an associate researcher at the Institute. She worked to turn corporate commitments on social diversity into something concrete. That opened the doors of government: until 2006, Laurence Méhaignerie worked in the office of Azouz Begag, then Minister for the Promotion of Equal Opportunities. But she came up against the difficulty of public projects… “The State is like an ocean liner with a moped engine“, she says. Yet she observed that some companies were putting their commitments into practice. She decided to bring the concept of the “impact fund” to France and founded Citizen Capital in 2008. “At the time, we were in the middle of a financial storm“, she smiles. But the project won people over. It raised €22 million, then €43 million, then €102 million, reaching €280 million under management in 2024. “After the crisis, many people started asking how to tackle environmental and societal challenges other than through philanthropy and the State“, Laurence Méhaignerie recalls. That is how Citizen Capital was able to grow companies such as Ulule and Hubcycle, or create funds dedicated to a new approach to farming.
“The current period is the moment of truth“, she says, at a time when ecology and diversity are being called into question. “We will see who was opportunistic and who was genuinely convinced.” But she remains positive. This temporary backlash does not surprise her, after years of progress.
