Stanislas Gruau (EDHEC Grande École 2009), candidate for the EDHEC Start-Up Founder of the Year award - Explora Project

Candidate for the EDHEC Start-up Founder of the Year award.

After completing an MSc in Financial Markets and chairing the Course Croisière EDHEC (41st edition in 2009), I started a career in trading in raw materials as part of a graduate programme run by Cargill. After a record-breaking run across France in 2011, when I ran 1150 km in 15 days non-stop (record that has yet to be broken!) from the campus in Lille to the one in Nice – it started on the first day of the academic year, a big moment! –, I realised the extent to which unique and extreme experiences inspire people. I was able to talk to a number of people about life experiences that most of us can only dream of. On that day, at the back of my mind I had the idea of creating an agency to help people achieve their dreams of faraway lands and exploration.

Skip ahead a few years: at the age of 30, my daughter was born, and after securing my final promotion to Trading Desk Head EMEA at Cargill, I realised that the time for a career change had come. It was time to fulfil my dream – that task I had set myself to help ordinary men and women achieve extraordinary things.

And so the Explora Project agency was born. It was based at the Annecy Base Camp incubator and partly financed by EDHEC graduates. February 2018.
EDHEC was there for me during every intense period in my life and I do everything I can to give something back ????

Find out more: www.explora-project.com/en