Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet once famously said, `Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail'. Pauline Laravoire's (Co-Founder & CEO of Y-East) career & leadership journey truly personifies this phrase. The astute leader did not merely choose a career path to do something big for herself; instead, she chose her journey to help the world and society on a large scale. Her objective has been to bring about positive and sustainable change within the lives of others.

Born in Paris, brought up in Versailles, a western-suburbs of the French capital, Pauline lived a diligent life growing up and was nurtured amidst her parental family values. It is her tenacity to live a meaningful life devoted towards social and environmental utility that led her to establish Y-East. T

The Kolkata-based venture, powered and supported by Techno India Group, one of the largest educational groups in the country, functions as a platform that connects various individual and organizational stakeholders from the sustainability and social sectors in the East & North-East India. The organization is working towards creating an impact especially through networking opportunities for community members, awareness and educational programmes especially focused on sustainability (notably environment & climate), field campaigns and projects, and impact research studies.

The Women Entrepreneur Magazine team conducted an in-depth conversation with Pauline where she spoke to us about her professional journey & the company Y-East.

Take Us Through The Early Years Of Your Life And Educational Journey. What Compelled You To Venture Into The Social And Environmental Impact Sector?

Born and brought up in the region of Paris, I have spent 25 years of my life there. After going through a Catholic middle school and high school, and after 2 years of preparatory class to get ready to competitive entrance exams, I got the opportunity to join one of the best Business Universities, HEC Paris, for graduation and post-graduation.

It was very clear to me from the very beginning of my higher education that I needed to find a career that was meaningful, purposeful, and would hold social & environmental utility. People often pick their careers after deliberating on the financial viability of their professions, however, I emphasized more on assessing the tangible impact that my work would have on the world while choosing my career path and I feel privileged to be able to pursue my passion through my career.

In order to ensure that I could make my career purposeful, I took every opportunity to learn and develop specific skills about it through reading, researching, and getting involved in courses, electives, events and experiences related to the impact space, especially social entrepreneurship, social business and Social Solidarity Economy. I also took a gap year in between my 2 years of Master's and on this occasion, I co-founded an association called AQWA through which we conducted a series of Social Impact Assessment studies for non-profits around the world that included African countries, India, Cambodia, and a few South American countries as well. Post my return to France, I opted for Sustainability and Social Innovation as my Master's degree's specialization. It provided me with the requisite theoretical and practical tools to be able to better understand the big & complex challenges that come under the scope of sustainability.

What Led You To The Formation Of Y-East? Delineate The Underlying Philosophy Behind Its Inception.

Prior to Y-East, I had worked on a couple of unrelated positions such as in consulting or strategy marketing. I enjoyed these opportunities, as they sharpened my skills to a great extent, but I felt compelled to pursue something that created a tangible, direct & daily impact. By the time I moved to Kolkata in 2018, I already knew that I wanted to work in the education space, since this sector is about shaping up the minds of young generations who, in turn, will be able to hopefully aspire to choose an impactful career.

The basic idea behind Y-East originated from a concrete problematic observation which was calling for a solution. In Kolkata, like in a lot of other regions across the world, I observed that the social & environmental space was largely fragmented into a variety of small-scale players such as NGOs, social enterprises, schools, consultancy boutique firms, working brilliantly in their own domains of expertise yet not collaborating nor able to implement their work at a large scale. Secondly, I observed that the Eastern and Northeastern parts of India weren't as dynamic as other parts of the country - in reality and collective perception. A culmination of these observations led to the foundation of Y-East which is dedicated to building communities towards sustainability.

Today, I am proud to be sitting at the crossroads of education & sustainability and helping people move towards sustainable development, personally and through their career. We collaborate with a plethora of impact-focused organizations such as Learning Planet, ENGAGE (Paris-based organizations), NetNada (company based in Australia), the Youth for Sustainability India Alliance, Earthday.org, Ashoka (global network of entrepreneurs), UCapture (green tech platform based in New York) to name just a few. The Techno India Group ecosystem has also been extremely supportive and enabling, from the faculty and students who have been very receptive to the locally novel concept of sustainability, to Offbeat CCU, a forward-looking interdisciplinary space based in the City of Joy in which Y-East was invited to set up its headquarters.

Tell Us About The Causes That The Organization Supports And The Impact That Y-East Is Looking To Create. Also, Throw Light On The Various Steps That The Y-East Team Undertakes To Achieve Its Objectives.

Our mandate is to facilitate the transition towards sustainable development in the East & North-East India. In order to achieve the same Y-East stands tall on four pillars, i.e. Networking, Education & Awareness, Projects & Campaigns, and Research & Impact Studies.

One of the most critical components of our work is networking, through which we ensure to create opportunities and spaces for people to meet on a monthly basis (on the occasion of what we call `Y-East Mixers') for holding action-oriented discussions and building collaborations focused on sustainability.

Adding business development capacities to Y-East Members through networking, guiding educational institutions towards sustainability-inclusive curricula, creating & curating educational programs, advising companies on their sustainability & CSR agenda and roadmap, conducting impact studies together ensure Y-East's financial sustainability. 

Y-East indeed strives to embody this model of an impact enterprise that is able to auto-generate revenue that allows it to run impactful, not-for-profit projects. This is what we could call cross-subsidization: a few for-profit verticals financially cover for running the non-for-profit verticals, and all these activities are explicitly directed towards impact maximization instead of profit maximization. This is the beauty of impact entrepreneurship

We are building a fertile ecosystem, a community of like-minded organizations. Today, more than 150 organizations that are based or active in the East and Northeast India are part of the Y-East network, and are all focused on either one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Y-East focuses on all SDGs but education and livelihoods, and environment and climate hold a priority position in its agenda. One of our main mandates is to further include and embed sustainability into the curricula of the schools and colleges we work with (starting with Techno India Group's institutions), as well as into the operations and decision-making processes of corporations we collaborate with.

“We are building a fertile ecosystem, a community of like-minded organizations. Today, more than 150 organizations that are based or active in the east and northeast India are part of the y-east network, and are all focused on either one or more of the 17 sustainable development goals”

In terms of impact on the ground, we collaborate with organizations to conduct flagship projects and campaigns. One of them is called the #WarmTheStreets campaign, a large-scale clothes collecting and distributing drive, through which we distribute the collected clothes to the beneficiaries of partner NGO Seva Kendra Calcutta, and partner with Twirl.store to upcycle the clothes that are too damaged to be donated. The River Rangers is another project under our aegis and in collaboration with Australian organization NetNada aiming at raising awareness against river and ocean pollution, and cleaning up riverbanks. A group of volunteers goes to Mullick Ghat, Kolkata every Sunday and takes the matter into their own hands by collecting waste from the muddy bank and raising awareness within the local community! And the Ungender Social is another example of one of our signature events which we collaboratively organize every year on the occasion of International Women's Day.

Under the fourth pillar, research & impact studies, we work with companies that are in the need of an external party to assess the impact that some of their projects have generated on the ground. It requires extensive data collection through personal interviews, data analysis and final reporting, for which the Y-East team has developed expertise in this field over the years.

Spearheading Such A Critical Venture Can Be Very Challenging At Times. How Have You Been Managing To Strike A Balance Between Your Personal Life And Work Life Performing Your Roles Here? Also, Are There Activities Or Hobbies You Indulge In, In Your Free Time?

First, I would say that when you're so passionate and so certain about what you're doing and happy about the sector you're working in, there is no real justification for the work-life differentiation. What you professionally work on is your personal passion, and you don't count your hours when you do what you love. But I try as much as possible to set myself a few rules to make sure that I invest some time and effort building my mental resilience and other knowledge and skills as well. I also indulge in some amount of physical exercise every day, especially yoga and stretching, even if it's just for a few minutes. To release pressure, I also love singing French songs out loud and learning popular Bengali songs. Actually, my partner Meghdut Roy Chowdhury and I started the Indo-French Singing Sundays Series during lockdown, through which we sing, record and share these Bengali songs - him playing the guitar, and myself singing. Lastly, I've recently started investing a little bit of my daily time taking courses and discovering concepts of personal growth, doing a bit of meditation, and trying to get into some techniques of creative visualization.

Any Advice You Would Want To Give To Young Women Leaders & Entrepreneurs?

I would advise young women to follow their passion through their career itself. There are several ways in which one can aim for an impactful and meaningful career. It is important to find one's own unique way(s) to bring social, societal or environmental value.

Speaking in terms of gender perspective, women face several internal mental barriers, which add up to the tangible limitations put upon them through external factors such as societal norms etc. Hence, whatever career you choose, be sure to stand by your own values and what you believe is the right thing for you to do, no matter the layer of perception and judgment society has coated it with. Give more importance to your own voice and thoughts than to external voices, be proud of your impact, and only consider the success factors that you've chosen for yourself!

Pauline Laravoire, Sustainability Director, Techno India Group / Co-Founder & CEO, Y-East

Having developed an expertise and passion for building communities towards sustainability, she is notably associated with the following community-based ventures: Y-East, Youth for Sustainability India Alliance and Learning Planet by CRI, France.