Isadora BIGOURDAN

She designed and structured the Social & Inclusive Business camp (SIBC) in 2016. The aim of this program is to support innovative ecologically-minded African entrepreneurs, who are looking to develop both financially profitable and socially beneficial businesses, by enabling them to share their knowledge, expertise and experience with each other. 

Isadora Bigourdan strongly advocates the need to roll out programs based on the idea of collective intelligence, developed among peers to scale up the impact of social innovation projects.

Previously, Isadora Bigourdan spent 15 years honing her expertise in the structuring, financing and monitoring of social innovation projects in emerging countries (particularly in Africa and Latin America), and more specifically in the fields of education and innovative financing. As a business lawyer and then international lawyer for the Veolia group, Isadora oversaw external growth operations of around 20 international subsidiaries, as well as the structuring of public-private partnership operations.
She took a keen interest in the implementation of shared governance within these subsidiaries. While working in the Education Department of the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIP) and then at Sciences Po Paris, she also helped to create training facilities and active teaching pathways in collaboration with companies looking for specific technical and management skills. 

In 2008, Isadora Bigourdan joined AFD as legal advisor for non-sovereign financing operations. She then became a senior business manager for the Financial Institutions and Business Support Department where she was responsible for financial innovation. Having seen how central human capital is to the quality of the projects implemented, Isadora decided to join AFD Campus in 2016, to develop fast track and peer-to-peer training programs using digital tools. In particular, she designed and structured the Social & Inclusive Business camp.