ADIE, Socially Responsible Organization 2013

On the occasion of the 23rd EDHEC Rendez-vous on Thursday, June 6, ADIE was rewarded for his actions against French micro enterprises since 1989. The community congratulates its founder, Maria Nowak and its director, Emmanuel Landais (GE 1989), for their commitment and energy towards entrepreneurship.

ADIE - Association pour le droit à l'initiative économique
Maria Nowak, President and Founder
Emmanuel Landais (GE 1989) - CEO

Adie helps people excluded from the labour market and the conventional banking system create their own companies and thus work for themselves through microfinance and mentoring suited to their needs. Adie has 450 employees and more than 1 200 volunteers in charge of examining loan applications, following up on projects and mentoring micro-entrepreneurs. Since its founding in 1989, Adie has enabled the creation of 86 000 companies.

It is to Maria Nowak, an economist specialising in microfinance, that we owe the founding of the Association pour le droit à l'initiative économique (ADIE, a non-profit micro-lender). In 1985, Maria Nowak met a Bangladeshi economist, Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and future winner (2006) of the Nobel Peace Prize. She decided to bring this microfinance model to France ‘to give the excluded an opportunity.’2 In 1989, she founded, with the moral support of Prof. Yunus, the Association pour le droit à l’initiative économique, which she became president of. In 1991 she was seconded to the World Bank in Washington to participate in the development of microfinance programmes in Central Europe. She also co-founded the Centre de la microfinance de l'Europe centrale et orientale (Central and Eastern Europe Microfinance Centre). From 2000 to 2002, she was special advisor to Laurent Fabius, socialist minister of finance. In 2003, she formed the Réseau européen de la microfinance (REM, European Microfinance Network), the presidency of which she held until 2008. In March 2011, she left the presidency of Adie, the board of which chose Catherine Barbaroux to succeed her. She retains the title of founding president and is still on the board. Maria Nowak is a knight in the Legion of Honour (1998) and commander in the French National Order of Merit (2011).

Emmanuel Landais, a 1989 graduate of EDHEC, began his career with various experiences in the for-profit sector. He then moved into the non-profit sector, becoming an officer at an association providing aid to people of foreign origin. In 1992 he became counsellor to Adie and then head of fundraising. He became president in 1986.

More information: www.adie.org