“I don’t believe in luck. To achieve something, you have to work hard, never give up, and eventually you get there. It was my grandfather, Eric Grand d’Hauteville, who instilled these values in me. He supported me financially during my studies, but I had to walk straight (he was a colonel!), I had no room for error. It is this attitude that has allowed me to work in the best companies of the moment throughout my career.
I was born and raised in Switzerland, but after my federal matu, I didn’t see myself entering the University, in its auditoriums with 500 people, and its classes that you could go to… or not! It was too much freedom, and I was too excited! I went to Toulouse to do a BTS in tourism, which promised a large part of practical internships. I spent three months in a small communications agency, and that’s how I fell into the world of events. We organized medical conferences, with a lot of logistics, and I loved it. I continued my studies in France and after a master’s degree in marketing, I returned to Switzerland to work in a media agency, then in a music magazine.
I worked with the young brands of the moment to organize great events, I was the perfect person, I was 23, with pink hair, it was very dynamic but not very serious.
Then I joined a new agency which supported artists expressing themselves through happenings and musicians who are not yet very well known, but it was perhaps a little too avant-garde. I then went to the opposite extreme at the Montreux Jazz Festival, like turning over a snow globe! I worked in the backstage area and rubbed shoulders with the artists, their entourage, their manager. In this context, I met the technical director of Miles Davis Hall, who had an agency in Geneva, active in luxury goods, and who hired me.
For seven years, I traveled to the four corners of the world to organize wonderful international events, particularly for watch brands. My life was busy, but my actions seemed futile. My quest for meaning turned into a midlife crisis, I quit my job to go backpacking for four months, in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, etc. What others generally do at 20, I did at 40! And when I came back, I said to myself: what am I going to do?
I had heard about the Solar Impulse project in 1999, during an exhibition by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and I wondered where they were going. We are now in 2013, aircraft No. 1 has just returned from the United States, and construction of aircraft No. 2 was about to begin. I said to myself: this is what I want to do! I didn’t have any pistons or the youth of their team, but I contacted them. I highlighted my experience, the regions of the world that I knew, my great availability.
It took me a year, but through meetings and connections, I joined this incredible human adventure with Bertrand Piccard and his team in October 2014. I still have tears in my eyes, it was so extraordinary.
In January 2015, the plane took off from Abu Dhabi, and during the two years of the project I organized events during the stopovers, with all the challenges that this represented, in China, in India and elsewhere without sometimes knowing where and when the plane was going to land. It was incredibly intense, we barely slept, we worked in extreme conditions. To get back to the snow globe, it was quite magical but also often blurry: we couldn’t see through it!
Benefit of the pandemic
What remains today is the message: this plane made the first trip around the Earth without a drop of gasoline! In 2016, after the success of the adventure, I remained in the team to organize the public life of Bertrand Piccard. After his feat, everyone wanted him, I responded to hundreds of emails a day, it was crazy. Then it calmed down, and I felt that we no longer had the same goals. I lost my faith, my soul and my heart were no longer in agreement, I experienced an immense fracture… which manifested itself in a real double fracture this time of the wrist, which kept me away from work for six months. During this period, I was no longer in the game, I was replaced, end of story. Everything stopped, first for me then very quickly for the whole world. We are at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, it is the health crisis on a global level.
Stuck at home, people started making bread, for me it was black garlic!
I wouldn’t say that black garlic saved me, but the process of reconnecting with a manual activity, of embarking on a long process, which radically transforms a product as simple as garlic into a treasure with infinite virtues, it was a revelation.
The alchemical process is incredibly nourishing to the soul. These candied pods become soft, take on flavors of licorice, plum, they can be eaten as is to get all the health benefits of garlic without having breath or digestion problems.
Like another world
Under the name “Le Ciel d’Axel”, I have created recipes for black garlic spreads: eggplant caviar, chickpea hummus that I buy from an organic producer in the region, then more recipes. colorful ones made from zucchini, peppers, lentils. And it works! The demand for my products continues to increase, which now forces me to find a laboratory to produce with more flexibility and thus fulfill new orders.
I can use my creativity, I am always experimenting to develop new variations. I discovered another world.
From suppliers to buyers, everyone is kind, I found a new path that makes me so happy. I earn significantly less, that’s for sure, but I have gained freedom, I can say no sometimes, which I couldn’t do before! I don’t regret anything about my career (I hate the word career), I loved everything I did, I never did the same thing twice. Besides, who knows, if I shake the snow globe again…”
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