Laurence Laplane, Amundi Director of Impact Investing, Margaret Intrapreneur 2024 and JFD Club member
You have spent the last few years structuring Amundi’s impact investment offering. How do you see the role of artificial intelligence in the development of responsible finance?
AI can change the way we analyse the creation of value in all its forms – social, environmental, financial, etc. – and consequently the way it is shared between the various stakeholders.
AI will provide a more detailed understanding of savers’ and investors’ needs, desires and constraints, and, on the investment side, a more individualised approach to the impact and return on investment, particularly in the social and environmental fields.
In your opinion, how could AI better serve the objectives of the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE)?
AI could be a fantastic opportunity to reduce the digital divide by making essential services more user-friendly and easier to access.
And, symmetrically, the SSE as a whole can make a significant contribution to enriching databases where necessary, as it harbours important information that is still insufficiently or poorly known. AI could provide more targeted, and therefore better adapted, solutions to certain problems where, for example, major programmes have failed due to their overly global approach.
Finally, AI will make it possible to demonstrate the multi-dimensional return on investment of the solutions provided and change the way we look at performance, which is still too often limited to financial profitability alone. A UK study in 2011 showed that €1 invested in energy-efficient building renovation generated €0.42 in savings on healthcare costs. This kind of information is essential to guide investment programmes, explain them and get people on board.
You have been awarded with the Margaret Award 2024 in the Intrapreneur category. What does this recognition mean to you?
First of all, I would like to reiterate my admiration for Margaret Hamilton, who played a key role in the first moon landing. The Margaret Awards, under the high patronage of the President of the French Republic, are truly a fine tribute to her work, her courage in daring to impose her ultimately essential information sequencing programme and her contribution, which has gone unnoticed for too long.
For me, this prize in reference to such a pioneer is an honour; it testifies, I hope, to what I have been fortunate enough to contribute by playing my part in the development of the companies and services in which I have worked.
You have made several ambitious career moves. What was the boldest move you ever made? And what made you do it?
I would say that my career path has always been dictated by a great deal of independence and a constant desire to contribute to putting finance, and in this case market finance, back at the service of the real economy, social projects and men and women in the widest possible scope.
This statement may seem paradoxical, given my work in the financial markets, investment banking and supporting the CEO of Amundi in the creation of Europe’s leading asset management company.
My current position as head of a business line dedicated to social and environmental impact investment, with a highly committed team, is perhaps the culmination of this with the Amundi Finance et Solidarité investment fund, which is now the French leader in investment in the social and solidarity economy.
As a member of the JFD Club, what would you like to pass on to future generations of women involved in tech, finance or impact?
I would like to tell them that they have tremendous talents, and so they should not hesitate to move forward with confidence along the path they have chosen and to seize the opportunities they will create; finally, that they should be assured that their skills, combined with their open-mindedness and hard work, are essential for the world of today and tomorrow.
Laurence Laplane, Amundi Director of Impact Investing, Margaret Intrapreneur 2024 and JFD Club member
Laurence Laplane began her career in the financial markets, spending 15 years as a trader, then senior market risk analyst, then structurer in the markets division of Banque Indosuez, now CACIB (Crédit Agricole Group). She was then General Secretary of CACIB’s investment banking division for 5 years. In 2006, she joined Crédit Agricole Asset Management, the asset management arm of the Crédit Agricole Group – now Amundi – first as Head of Organisation for 5 years and then as Chief of Staff to Amundi’s Chief Executive Officer for 7 years from 2010, when Amundi was created, to 2017.
In 2018, Laurence was asked by Amundi’s CEO to launch an investment business line dedicated to financing the social and solidarity economy (SSE). Since 2018, she has been Head of Social and Environmental Impact Investment within the Amundi Group’s unlisted assets division.
The aim: within the framework of the solidarity-based employee savings scheme and ESUS approval, to make it easier for savers to access SSE projects and thus contribute to their development.
Result: the “Amundi Finance et Solidarité” fund has become the leader in SSE investment in France, with €600 million in assets under management thanks to the trust of nearly 1 million solidarity savers who entrust €7 billion in employee savings to Amundi.
It was for this achievement that she was awarded the Margaret Award in 2024, in the “Championing Women” promotion, in the Intrapreneur category.
