We recently had the privilege of speaking with tri-national mountaineer Sophie Lavaud about her remarkable achievements and inspiring life philosophy.
A mountaineer with a special interest in the Himalayas, Sophie Lavaud is in a very select group of people who have achieved the so-called ‘Himalayan Grand Slam’, that is the ascent of the world’s fourteen peaks that are higher than 8,000 metres. What makes her even more niche is the fact that, as a trinational, she is the first French person, the first Canadian person, and the first Swiss woman to do so.
With an eclectic background, Sophie has a broad spectrum of experiences to draw on as the basis for success in her latest choice of career: she started out managing sales and marketing for the Richemond hotel in Geneva, after which she moved into cosmetics with Clarins, before running an event-organising business in the financial sector with her brother.
Today, combining mountaineering with speaking engagements about it, she is also involved in charity work. Last year she was very active in a programme to improve perinatal care in rural areas. Her new projects include backing sherpa training programmes, being an ambassador for mountain rescue technology, and supporting a programme that raises school children’s awareness of issues related to water resources.
Sophie came to UBP to give a talk to staff who were keen to find out about what drives her and how she overcomes challenges. ‘It’s not a quest for performance,’ she says. ‘Rather, it’s an exploration of the self, a celebration of slowness in a fast-moving world’. The best approach for cultivating resilience, in her view, is what she calls ‘followership’ – the art of giving what you have to offer and knowing when to leave the leadership to the person who has the greatest expertise.
Watch the video from Sophie Lavaud’s visit to UBP to find out more about her and her achievements.
