Management

Fabrice LE SACHÉ

Fabrice is Aera’s Co-Founder and Executive Chairman. He leads the overall carbon credits book from the origination process to the transaction activities on the buy & sell side. Fabrice structured and closed spot and forward contracts for a total market value of €500+ million. He established Aera’s commercial presence in 20+ African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, DR-Congo, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, Mauritius, Burundi, Morocco…) and trading lines with 150+ counterparties including world leading oil & gas companies, banks, commodity traders and investment firms in Europe, North America & Asia.

As Executive Chairman, Fabrice represents the company in the industry and interacts with Aera’s stakeholders. He is a regular host of media and one of the leading voices in the Voluntary Carbon Market.

As co-founder, Fabrice has contributed to build Aera’s strategy and growth since inception and is having a strong footprint in the company structuration.
 
Beyond Aera, Fabrice serves several non-for-profit positions. He is Vice-Chair and spokesperson for the largest French Business Union Association (“Mouvement des Entreprises de France – MEDEF”). He is member of MEDEF national Executive Committee. Other related mandates include: Board Member of “MEDEFI” the international branch of MEDEF; Chair of the SME & Entrepreneurship Committee of Business Europe, the largest European Business Union; Chair of Immobilière 3F, the leading social housing entity in France covering 300,000 workers & households.

Fabrice holds a LL.M. in International Comparative Laws from the University of San Diego School of Law, a master’s degree in international public law from Paris-II Panthéon-Assas and a Diploma in International Relations from the Institute for Higher International Studies of Paris La Sorbonne University.

Aurélie LEPAGE

Aurélie is CEO & Co-Founder of Aera. She is in direct charge of all related administration and back-office activities of the company. As such she oversees the financial department and internal reporting, she supervises human resources and skills, she ensures the company’s overall compliance and interacts with governmental agencies or authorities. Aurélie undertakes quality control and pilots the cybersecurity policy as well the internal information systems with a continuous drive on process improvements.

Aurélie contributed significantly to the overall development and growth of Aera since inception. She was instrumental in building the technical expertise that now brings to Aera the largest carbon track record in Africa with multiple pioneers’ certification and the largest number of carbon credits issuances across the continent.

Aurélie has been the one behind the concept of Aera full flex and remote office, building a suite of solutions and products for a complete digitalized office. The system had multiple impacts on Aera’s performance : decentralization of decisions, autonomy of workers on the business execution, diversity in recruitment embracing all the territory.

Aurélie also supervises on day-to-day basis the interactions with all suppliers and partners from accounting and statutory auditors to rating agencies, cyber and software companies, banking pool, HR professionals or legal counsel.  She also represents Aera to the different French authorities and coordinates the legal, tax and HR compliance of Aera.

Aurélie holds numerous engagements beyond Aera. She is a dynamic entrepreneur. She developed in Brittany her own biogas production plant treating 10,000 tons of agricultural residues for organic compost per year. Biomethane produced in the process supplies the surrounding city gas network of Iffendic (BIOGAZ-IFF). She also invested through Harmattan personal holding in a dozen of companies around climate transition, water protection and pesticides reduction.

Aurélie holds a degree in life sciences from the University of Rennes I and an engineering degree in environmental industrial engineering from UniLaSalle-Rennes.

Nicolas HYACINTHE

Nicolas Hyacinthe joined Aera in November 2021 as Deputy CEO. In charge of business development and large-scale projects, he contributes to the company’s growth strategy. With a solid legal and management background, Nicolas oversees the overall sale process, from the commercial lead identification to the contractual negotiation. His missions include the back-office commercial tools structuration, market intelligence reporting, participation in industry events (I4C, SP Platts, Carbon Forward) and corporate roadshows (UK, Swiss, Germany). He participates to the commercial client offers, the contractual terms negotiation and follows up back-office trading support functions (registries, deliveries, information system). He also takes a strong lead in the portfolio management and risks assessment.
 
As head of large-scale strategic projects, Nicolas holds a specific overview on €5M+ value projects. He makes sure that execution is on track for these key Aera accounts.
 
As Deputy CEO, Nicolas inputs the growth strategy and participates to the company overall structuration.
 
Nicolas has held various corporate and legal senior functions in the mining industry in Africa, working for world-class assets with multi-billion dollars values, and beforehand in international law firms in France. He has worked for multinational corporations such as Glencore (+$200b revenues), Norton Rose (50+ offices worldwide) and Eurasian Resources Group (75k employees in 15 countries).
 
In this latter, Nicolas was the General Counsel for the Africa Region with a 15+ legal team, member of its Executive Committee and directors in 10+ operating and corporate subsidiaries across the continent (DR-Congo, Zambia, South Africa, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia…). He also managed the DR-Congo Head Office, having up to 100 employees.
 
Nicolas is graduated from the Institute of Business Law of Aix-Marseille University, holds a Master’s degree from HEC Business School and was admitted to the Paris Bar.

Alexandre DUNOD

Alexandre is Aera’s Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO). He manages our carbon certification support team and drives the advisory activity (technical due diligence, projects’ assessment, carbon footprints,..).

Alexandre overviews the day-to-day operations of our seasoned team of engineers composed of carbon analysts and project managers. He makes sure that assignments are conducted on time with the highest degree of quality. Among his missions, key outputs are a constant client’s care, a continuous internal system reporting and an enhanced scientific integrity in all the work done.

Alexandre represents Aera in all technical interactions with the international certification standards (VCS Verra, Gold Standard, UNFCCC, GCC, I-REC,..). He participates in the main market’s events (COP, Africa Climate Week, I4C World Bank/IETA, Green Climate Fund,..) and is a regular panelist for the carbon industry round tables and workshops. Alexandre bears Aera’s technical positions and views in the dedicated professional association for which we are part of (Project Developer Forum – PD Forum).

Alexandre graduated from Ecole Centrale Paris (France) as an engineer and holds a M.Sc. Management of Technology from the National University of Singapore (Singapore). He is a CFA charter-holder (Chartered Financial Analyst Institute) and a volunteer mountain rescue & fire worker.

Haashim GOBURDHUN

Haashim has joined Aera since November 2021. His role is entirely dedicated to financial support functions. Among other responsibilities, he has designed and implemented a comprehensive financial report with all of the company’s key figures and performance indicators. His contribution has enabled prudent and efficient management of the cash flow, for which he also supervises hedging, foreign exchange and optimisation operations.

Haashim also prepares the annual budget and monitors its execution. He coordinates the publication of the financial statements and is in charge of the audit process. He prepares quarterly and annual financial reports and presentations for shareholders and ensures full visibility of financial positions on an ongoing basis. Haashim also interacts with rating organisations to satisfy Aera’s credit rating requirements. Finally, his area of responsibilities also includes financial compliance and the control of all external financial communication.

Haashim has held various senior finance positions in multi-nationals with multi-billion dollar assets and revenues in the financial services, pharmaceutical and mining industries. Some of the companies he has worked for include Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Aspen Global Incorporated and Eurasian Resources Group. In his last position, he was the Head of Treasury and Shared Services for the group’s African operations (more than 10 entities) and was also the Executive Director of the Mauritian entity.

As a Chartered Accountant, he has over 15 years of experience in the profession and is also an FCCA member of the ACCA.

Clémence PONS

Clémence oversees compliance and ethics at Aera. She conducts the onboarding of clients, counterparties and suppliers and validates KYC checks to prevent money laundering, corruption, financing of illegal or terrorist activities and to identify sanctioned individuals, chain of controls and ultimate beneficiary owners. These verifications are made systematically and are updated and goes through reconfirmation each 12 months. She reports to the management executive committee, maintains compliance reporting and dashboard database up to date and structures the compliance digitalization tools.

Clémence also drafts Aera’s code of governance and business conducts. She ensures that the company complies with all applicable laws and regulations covering compliance.  
 
Before joining Aera, Clémence worked in major banking groups for eight years : BNP Paribas (European Union’s leading bank, 65 countries, 190,000 employees), Société Générale (€25,8bn of Net Banking Income – 2021) and Crédit Agricole (€19bn of Net Banking Income – 2020); She had been two years in the Regulatory Department at Société Générale for the establishment of MIFID 2, the regulation of financial markets.
 
Clémence holds a diploma degree in Economics and Laws from CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers).  
 

Alexandre GOUBLE

Alexandre oversees Aera’s portfolio management and communication. He supports day-to-day origination and sales operations by providing data reporting, updating deliveries schedule, and managing contractual risks.
 
Alexandre is also deeply involved in the structuration of internal back-office. He ensures constant process improvements to produce efficient, reliable, and live flows of information.

Alexandre overviews Aera’s communication. He’s in charge of providing cutting edge projects marketing to clients. Alexandre also supervises Aera corporate identity and branding and drives social media and press relations.

Previously, Alexandre worked at the communication department of France largest business association (MEDEF) and at the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the governing body for the world’s largest automotive championships (Formula 1, World Endurance Championship, Formula E…)
 
Alexandre holds a Master’s degree in management from the European Business School (EBS, Paris). He also graduated from Le Wagon, an international coding school (Paris). 

Sophie GAUCHÉ

Sophie is the head of human resources & accounting at Aera. She joined the company in May 2022. She oversees the recruitment process and overviews the employees benefit program. As part of her direct tasks, she supervises the payroll and salaries, she manages the worker’s contracts and coordinates the employees working calendar as well as work related travels safety. Sophie also makes sure that each employee gets trained and can develop skills through executive education programs and dedicated workshops. She undertakes the annual evaluation of employees and ensures that Aera complies with its internal reporting and with the external declarative and administrative obligations.

On the accounting side, Sophie oversees the invoicing process for clients and suppliers. She conducts daily accounting operations, manages the internal software systems tacking and interacts with statutory auditors, accountants, and banking partners. She controls the corporate obligations with the tax administration. She contributes to the external financial communication under the supervision of Aera’s Chief Financial Officer.
 
Prior to joining Aera, Sophie held several accountant positions in large French retail groups including Casino (208,000 employees, 11,500 stores worldwide, €30.5bn of annual net sales) and the “U” banner (65,000 employees, 1,568 stores). She was the HR and accounting manager at Food & Beverage franchise Columbus Café & Co (200 points of sale in France and abroad) where she supervised the accounting of 10+ companies, established the monthly reporting and the annual balance sheets.
 
Sophie is a graduate of the University of Angers and holds a Master’s degree in Management AES (Economic and Social Administration).