“You have to be willing to see and dare to speak up.”
I had the pleasure of welcoming Alexandra Palt, president of WWF France, former member of the Executive Committee and Chief Sustainability Officer of the L’Oréal Group, and author of Corporate Activism.
An Austrian trained in law, she grew up in Vienna at a time when the country was examining its responsibility for the Holocaust. Confronted with silence and everyday complicity, she found a guiding principle that would never leave her: be willing to see and dare to speak up.
After years with NGOs — Amnesty International and HALDE — where she discovered that no one is immune to power struggles, she joined the L’Oréal Group in 2012, somewhat by chance, as Chief Sustainability Officer. She spent twelve years there driving profound change on social and environmental issues at the highest levels of the group, ultimately reaching the Executive Committee
Along the way, she came to understand something essential: the distinction between what belongs to oneself, to others and to the system — “a key to liberation”.
Alexandra also found words for something every successful woman knows: “A successful woman is always too much of something.” Too bossy, too ambitious, too direct — or “too lucky”. Until she decided that “too much” was someone else’s problem, not hers.
Since 2024, she has been president of WWF France, working to breathe new life into the environmental cause in a world filled with doubt. At the same time, she is writing a thesis on decent leadership — because, for Alexandra, courage is not won once and for all. It is a daily choice.
A powerful, clear-eyed and deeply human episode.
In this episode, Alexandra reflects on:
- Her childhood in Vienna, Austria’s reckoning with the Holocaust, and the beginnings of her commitment.
- Her law studies and her transformative experience at Amnesty International, where the Secretary General’s mentorship changed everything.
- Her time at HALDE: an experience she saw as a failure, and the profound lessons she drew from it.
- Her arrival at L’Oréal in 2012 and her unplanned path to the Executive Committee.
- The importance of the partnership between the CEO and the CSO. Transformation can only succeed if senior leadership is fully committed
- How the group navigated major crises (Me Too, Covid, Black Lives Matter).
- The L’Oréal–UNESCO partnership and its programme for women scientists in Africa.
- The questioning of multilateralism: part of a cycle or a genuine cause for concern?
- Her appointment as president of WWF France in 2024 and the initiatives she has introduced.
- AI and the environment: what does the future hold?
- The compatibility of sustainability and luxury.
- Her ongoing thesis on decent leadership.
- Her dictionary of daring: refusing to be discouraged, starting afresh each day and staying true to herself.