Why do I work for Beyond?
The story of a 21-year-old student who is on the right track to finding her purpose in life.
To answer this question, it is necessary to understand who I am and what I aspire to.
I was born and raised in the south of France, in the middle of the countryside, which I think allowed me to develop a special bond and sensitivity with nature.
After high school, I was accepted at EDHEC Business School, to do a 4-year BBA. At first, I didn’t yet know in which sector I wanted to work, but I knew that I wanted my work to be “sustainable” and purpose-driven. The events of the past year and the prospects that lie ahead have only reinforced my wish to set my life and my professional choices to a standard that respects the ideals of responsible consumption and business.
Having chosen to specialize in Marketing, I have always concentrated my search for internships on companies that are in touch with these values, be it a means or an end. In my third year, after a six-month exchange in Rotterdam, Holland, I met Arnaud Blandin, one of the two founders of Beyond. At the time, I was supposed to go to the United States for a 3-month internship but with the arrival of covid-19, my plans fell through. Wanting to deepen my knowledge during the summer of 2020, I asked Arnaud if I could participate in his project.
He agreed and so the Beyond experience began for me. My attraction to this sector was quickly confirmed through this wonderful adventure with the impact consultancy firm, Beyond Builders. The firm’s mission is to identify and highlight beneficent priorities, exploring and redefining principles of success, directed towards restoring the interaction between humanity’s activities and fundamental environments.
In the space of a few months, this experience allowed me to understand the subject, to familiarize myself with its vocabulary and its actors, to accumulate valuable knowledge and master the notion of impact.
Very quickly, I understood that Beyond Builders was much more than a simple consultancy firm. Beyond is also a movement, a collective, a way of thinking and a need to act for the common good. Beyond is composed of several entities, the first one, as you may have guessed, the consultancy firm. The second is Beyond Institute, an institute that conducts expert research on several key topics to support the ecosystem’s efforts and feed a robust measurement methodology. The third one is Beyond Exchange, a technology platform that brings transparency and visibility to sustainable projects by measuring the real impact of each project’s externalities.
I decided to do my last internship at Beyond because I learned a lot more about myself and what I wanted to do in my life in a few months than in several years of taking courses that, for the most part, did not suit me at a renowned school.
Arnaud and Julien integrated me into their team very quickly and made me understand that they did not consider me as a simple trainee but as a full employee. They trusted me and gave me a lot of responsibilities. I find it very gratifying and pleasant to be considered and not just seen as a simple intern who will only be part of the team for 6 months.
For me, Beyond is above all a human, dynamic and competent team that advocates the right balance between professional and personal life. I think it’s a chance to evolve in such a warm ecosystem with a caring team that helps me to blossom fully.
In addition to all the benefits mentioned above, at Beyond we often ask ourselves the question why? Why do we get up in the morning? Why do we do this work? Why do we want to transform society? Why do we want to have a real positive impact on the world around us?
I think it’s important, especially at this stage of my life, to ask myself these kinds of questions.
At the moment, for example, I’m working on a questionnaire that we’re going to send out around the world on the definition of success. Having co-written this questionnaire, I naturally wondered about this and tried to define my own vision of success. After thinking about it for a long time, for me, success means happiness. So, I asked myself what activities would give more joy and meaning to my life and what I should do with my time and abilities to make myself happy and at the same time useful and make a difference. Being still very young (21, almost 22), I don’t think I have found the perfect answer to these questions. However, I think my experience at Beyond has put me on the right track and allowed me to mature and finally understand my definition of success more quickly. I don’t know exactly where I will be in 10 or 20 years. But I do know that what will make me want to get up every morning in the next few years is to contribute to changing our society towards a more just and responsible world.
And I thank the Beyond team for making me realize this. Beyond has strengthened my convictions and I am convinced that together we can make a difference and have a positive impact on our world.
