Thibaud reflects on his experience at Lakaa

Thibaud, our CEO trainee, will soon finish his experience at Lakaa. In this interview, he looks back on the last six months spent within the team: his motivations, his missions, his daily life, the evolution of the start-up, his point of view on CSR and the next steps on his side.

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Thibaud, who are you?

Hello everyone, my name is Thibaud Cayol, I arrived at Lakaa for 6 months in January 2022 as part of my internship at Kedge Bordeaux. Before that, I did a preparatory class for two years at the Lycée Saliège in Balma.

Outside of my studies and internship I spend my time watching old movies, reading manga, playing sports and playing cards!

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Why did you decide to join Lakaa?

For a simple reason, I wanted to work in a company with a strong CSR dimension. I started my research in the field of consulting (specialised in CSR) and then I turned to impact start-ups and more widely to B-corp companies.

Lakaa's values matched mine perfectly and the team had everything going for it: young, welcoming and truly committed!

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What were the assignments you worked on?

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As the right-hand man to the CEO, I was able to discover the different missions of the team during the first month, whether it was project management, prospecting, communication or content creation (articles, interviews for the blog). After a few days of training and discovering the company as a whole, I was able to focus on what would become my main missions for the rest of the internship.

They were divided into three main parts:

1. Regular meetings and exchanges with the CSR managers of several multi-site companies (Leroy Merlin, Optic 2ooo, Auchan, Bureau Vallée, etc.), customers of Lakaa.
2. Supporting clients in developing their CSR strategy.
3. Monitoring CSR news and writing articles.

I was able to work almost autonomously from my second month of internship and organise my schedule according to the deliverables. I mainly worked with Jade(best project manager of the openspace 😉 ), who was in charge of the exchanges with the clients.

There is a great deal of trust between the team members, which makes for a healthy and stimulating working environment!

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Do you have a typical day?

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Every day is different within a small structure, it's really exciting, you feel every day that the company is evolving. As a trainee, you feel that Lakaa is constantly improving, you have the impression that you are directly involved in this evolution, which is gratifying and quite rare in the working world. Having said that, every week we set ourselves major priorities, so we know exactly where we're going.

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Have you seen Lakaa change in any way?

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Absolutely, between my arrival and departure the team grew from 4 to 8 people!

Four permanent employees were recruited in the space of six months, and with each new arrival, a new dynamic was created within the group. All the recruitments went very well, creating a great cohesion and a real team spirit in a very short time.

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What does CSR mean to you at Lakaa?

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CSR is an increasingly broad field that can take many forms depending on the company. At Lakaa we help companies throughout the country to manage their CSR strategy with the aim of facilitating the transition to action. In concrete terms, this means helping them to carry out ecological and social actions at all levels, whether it be in the transformation of their infrastructures, their involvement with associations, the evolution of their offer, the implementation of good practices, awareness days, etc.

As I said before, it is satisfying to see that our missions lead to a virtuous circle!

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More broadly, how do you feel about the field of CSR after this six-month internship?

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For me, CSR is the only sector in which I see myself in the future. In Paris, I discovered an ecosystem of committed companies where people know each other, exchange and help each other on many subjects. It's really comforting to arrive in such a world, especially for a first professional experience!

I feel like I can make a difference in my own way, even though it's going to be a big job, I feel like I'm surrounded by a lot of passionate people and I have confidence in our ability to make a real change.

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Thank you for your testimony, now what are the next steps for you?

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Direction Utopies for me from July 2022! I am very happy to join this consulting firm that has been specialised in CSR for almost 30 years, even if I am already nostalgic about my time at Lakaa. The months have gone by at an incredible speed!

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