Contact Me
contact@email.com
Get in touch with me to discuss collaborations, projects, or any other inquiries.
Contact Me
contact@email.com
Get in touch with me to discuss collaborations, projects, or any other inquiries.
Expert Architecture Services
Our experienced architects provide personalized design solutions that turn your dreams into reality.
Innovative Architecture Solutions
We craft unique and innovative designs, working closely with our clients to bring their visions to life.
Timeless Space Creation
Our architecture services prioritize function and form to create spaces that stand the test of time.
My services
Startup advisory & strategy
brouillon
1
Consulting Services
Providing strategic consulting services to purpose-driven entrepreneurs, helping them navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship and achieve their goals.
2
Startup Advisory
Offering startup advisory services to early-stage companies, providing guidance and support in areas such as business development, fundraising, and market positioning.
3
Entrepreneurship Workshops
Conducting workshops and training sessions on entrepreneurship, sharing insights and practical knowledge to inspire and empower aspiring entrepreneurs.
Impact Sherpa : I guide purpose-driven entrepreneurs on their journey
Offer to guide entrepreneurs on their scaling journey as a trusted advisor who understands the terrain of purpose-driven growth, helping them navigate the challenges while staying true to their mission.
Years of experience
10
24
Projects
3
Awards
About Me
Learn more about Guillaume Figard-Usannaz, an entrepreneur and ChangeMaker committed to making the world a better place.
Activities
1
Consulting Services
Providing strategic consulting services to purpose-driven entrepreneurs, helping them navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship and achieve their goals.
2
Startup Advisory
Offering startup advisory services to early-stage companies, providing guidance and support in areas such as business development, fundraising, and market positioning.
3
Entrepreneurship Workshops
Conducting workshops and training sessions on entrepreneurship, sharing insights and practical knowledge to inspire and empower aspiring entrepreneurs.
Some key periods in my life
Consulting & training Services
To bootstrap the development of CM Family, I became the first freelancer of the platform. Crafting social media & digital strategy for +30 companies, from bars, restaurants, and local stores to insuretech & international accounting group. I also became a speaker and trainer on digital marketing, personal branding & social selling.
CM Family
In 2015, CM Family was my first ambitious venture. I had the vision to federate a big family of Community Managers and social media experts, a platform where digital native kids like me and experienced marketers would team up to provide affordable, quality services to the 2,1 M SMBs in France. The idea was not just to help local businesses in their digital transition, but to promote a vision of a more open and collaborative economy, where businesses would co-create with their community. This idealism led me to not be focus enough on the day to day execution. It's important to dream big, but essential to stay grounded and focused. I made a lot of mistakes... But I also learned a great deal about startups, entrepreneurship, co-founders relationships... and myself !
Startup Advisory & pay it forward
After joining startups accelerators Astarté Paris & Start Innov' by SPN, spending a lot of time at TheFamily, and being a member of the Social Good Accelerator and of LiveForGood's community of "Entrepreneurs for good" I developped a strong network of startup entreneurs & founders in Paris and France in general. I learned a lot at the contact of my peers and felt like I was part of something bigger, a movement of innovators, disrupting big companies and giving back value and power to the people. Full of energy and optimism, I became passionate about helping other early-stage entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of building and scaling their businesses.
While going back to school, at SciencesPo, to get my master degree in "communication, media & creative industries", I kept exploring the idea of "InfluencersForGood". In a media landscape highly reliant on advertising, concentrated in the hands of a few billionaires and saturated by corporate interests and consumerism , it became obvious to me that the fastest way to raise awareness and mobilize masses to take action and change the system is to leverage the platform and power of influence of artists, athletes, celebrities and content creators, from micro-influencers to global stars.
Why do some use their platform? Why others don't ? How are they doing it ? What are the results ? Is there a better way, a more efficient way ? How to mobilize more creators to be a force for change ? Different communities, different niches, different interests, different causes they care about, different motivations, different level of radicality, different level of freedom and dependency to brand deals, a lot of factors are important to take into account.
But imagine if it was made easy and effortless for a creator/celebrity to take action. Imagine if once a week, or even just once a month, opinion leaders, "influencers", would team up in a campaign to promote a specific charity, a fundraising, a petition, an action, a behavior, or simply to raise awareness on a specific issue ?
Millions of people would be reached and mobilized, and the transition to a more just and sustainable world would be greatly accelerated.
How to make this happen ?
With a platform/app connecting creators/celebrities and charities/NGOs, making it easy for creators to join campaigns that match their interests and limits. The idea is to take people where they are and to offer them different ways to have an impact, starting with an easy, effortless action like sharing the post of an existing campaign to give it visibility. Once they start to use their platform for change, creators can more easily be convinced to invest more time and efforts, from creating their own content to raise awareness to becoming a charity ambassador or taking part to IRL actions.
The second essential tool to make this happen is to tie this platform to a "CreatorsForChange" label, at the crossroads of certifications like B-corp and 1% for the Planet, a way for creators to signal and certify to both their audience and the brands they work with that they use their platform for good. This could be a mix between a minimum number of posts/stories per month for charities/awareness campaigns and a donation of a percentage of their yearly income, to "walk the talk" and set an example to their community.
Burnout, depression & inner collapse : a spiritual journey
After several years of the intense journey that is entrepreneurship, I jumped directly into activism and became obsessed with the climate crisis and the collapse to come. The more I learned, the more bad news I discovered and the more trapped into climate-doomism filter bubbles I was, growing further and further apart from my friends, family and the general public. I was living with a deep fear of the future and a lot of doubts that were making me question everything. It was a real existential crisis that I tried to channel into action and meaningful projects. I put so much pressure on myself, wanting to "save the planet" and "change the system" that I neglected my health, my sleep, my relationships, my stability. And at some point, my mind and body just forced me to stop. I was both physically and mentally exhausted. More than a burnout, I was in depression. An existential depression. I couldn't accept nor understand the state of the world, and it made me question the very meaning of life, and existence. (great article here on activism/depression) Feeling like nothing mattered anymore, diving deeper and deeper in a form of nihilism and a loss of identity, not having any desire to live anymore. I also discovered a lot of unresolved trauma and suppressed emotions. The more I acknowledge them, the more I was able to move on and start living again.
It took time, but with the help of my family, friends, therapists, tools like meditation, breathing techniques and books like the power of now, I slowly came back to life. I'm still struggling with anxiety but overall happy to be alive, in a messy and complex world. Adopting a form of optimistic nihilism, I learned to change my perspective, to focus on what I can control and to accept what is. To live more in the present and to let my intuition and inner joy guide me. To accept that suffering & death, and even exctinction, are part of life, but nevertheless to live more intentionnaly, to find meaning in my actions, to contribute to what feels right, even if it might seem too late. I now understand myself better as well as human psychology, and I think I also became a better person.
If you are going through something similar, please reach out ! You are far from alone and one of the best antidote is community!
Climate & social justice activism
CreatorsForChange
At the contact of ChangeMakers like Cyril Dion, Magali Payen, Mathilde Imer or Camille Etienne I became convinced of the importance of crafting new narratives and offering a desirable vision of the future. After meeting celebrities like Marion Cotillard or Frah from Shaka Ponk and ending up on stage with them in front of 100 000 person, I also became convinced of the power of music and artists to amplify the movement. I started working on a platform-movement, Music4Climate and explored this idea with my friend and mentor Alexandre Jubien, who later developed the non-profit Music4Planet. I also met Jonathan Belolo, co-owner of record label Scorpio Music and founder of Rainbows, a next-gen social media platform empowering activists. Together, with Martial Breton, leader of YouthForClimate France, and a team of live production experts, we started working on organizing a big live event in front of the Eiffel Tower, with the vision and ambition of reaching a huge TV & streaming audience like the iconic Live-Aid, with less corporate sponsors and a more radical message supported by grassroots activists. More than a one-time advocacy event, it was part of the launch strategy of a new social media platform, gathering activists, non-profits, purpose-driven companies and citizens to take daily actions at the individual and collective level and shift our attention, our behaviors and our consumption.
The event, initially planned for May 24, 2019, the day before the European elections, had to be postponed to 2020.. The initial project was put on hold, and we started working on the building blocks of Climate Live, a series of international concerts organized by a coalition of young climate activists. I didn't join this new project, partly because of a difference of vision and strategy but mainly because my body made me stop.
Music4Climate, Rainbows & Climate live
Despite growing up in the mountains and being close to nature, it's only in september 2018 that I realized the full scale of the climate & ecological crisis. The more I learned about the urgency of the situation and the risk of collapse of our civilization, the less motivated I became to pursue the vision of CM Family. I felt like it was not enough, that we needed urgently a global and radical shift of our whole system. Being already connected to politics with my background from SciencesPo, I naturally joined the climate movement, offering my help to activists and organizers. I became a member of Youth For Climate, the French branch of Greta Thunberg's movement and I worked on the communication strategy and organization of marches.
At the same time, a unique self-organized movement was happening in France, with the "Yellow Vests" challenging the government and asking for more social justice & democracy. They were mainly people from the lower-middle class living in rural and peri-urban areas (like where I grew up near Besançon) who could see their economic conditions going down and were afraid of social downgrading. They felt generally misunderstood and even despised by a very Parisian, political, media and financial elite. Several members of my family and childhood friends & neighbors were actively protesting. Understanding that the same unjust system was responsible for the exploitation of both people and the planet, I worked on connecting both movement.