Reflets Magazine #148 | Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux (E00), in Search of "Moonshots"

Reflets Magazine #148 devotes a feature to Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux (E00), winner of the ESSEC USA Visionary Award 2023 for her career and activities in the higher spheres, from the aerospace sector to the highest-ranking American institutions and international organisations. Here is a free online translation of an excerpt of the article… subscribe to get the next issues (in French)!

Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux developed an interest in technology and its impact on society during her secondary school days. ‘At the age of 17, I was selected to represent France at the 1995 G11 Junior Summit on the prospects of the web, which was still in its early days. I defended the idea that this network could contribute to education and a more sustainable economy by hosting virtual schools and citizen platforms to raise awareness of environmental damage.’ She was nevertheless aware that realising this vision would requires resources. ‘I joined ESSEC to go into finance and support innovation.’ She gained her initial experience with BNP Paribas in Hong Kong, under Bruno-Roland Bernard (E88), and was then recruited by Thierry Sancier (E93) at Goldman Sachs in London. ‘I worked on cross-border M&A with the USA and China, etc., for deals totalling $8 billion.’ This prosperous period was also marked by the burst of the dotcom bubble. ‘I had a front-row seat to this crash. It taught me a lesson.’ 

The USA calls

After a few years, Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux headed to the USA to study an MBA at Harvard, and finally settled in the States. Around the same time, she took her first steps in entrepreneurship. ‘With four classmates, we launched a process to freeze ova and then reimplant them, once fertilised, at a later date. Our aim was to offer a solution to women wishing to wait but without losing their fertility in the meantime, as can happen for example after certain medical treatments such as chemotherapy.’ This has now become a widespread solution in the USA. ‘I didn’t follow the project after university, however. I needed a secure, well-paid job to pay off my student loan.’ Money was thus the crux of the matter. 

After a few years of asset management with TPG-Axon and Renaissance Technologies, she found a compromise by creating her own investment fund, Ajna Capital. The year was 2008. ‘The subprime crisis happened in the following months’ and yet this was not the biggest hurdle she would face. ‘At that time, women were managing less than 2% of the industry’s assets! And today, we still have more difficulty convincing investors than men do...’

She nevertheless succeeded in raising the glass ceiling, if not in breaking it. ‘I put my good results down to my solid knowledge of financial risk. On this note, I’d like to thank, among others, ESSEC, whose teachings put me a step ahead in the matter, and especially the classes by the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, with whom I remained in contact after my school days and up to his death. He developed fractal theory and analysed its influence on share prices.’ 

Her initial target was the public sector. ‘This focus helped to build a track record rapidly; equity participation demands relatively low amounts of capital and generally lasts 12 to 18 months.’ Having forged her reputation, she turned towards industrial start-ups in deeptech and artificial intelligence, with a particular appetite for the aerospace sector. ‘Incidentally, my grandfather André de Cayeux dit Cailleux is considered to be the founding father of planetary geology. A crater on the moon was named after him!’ That’s what you call being born under a lucky star - and may explain why she was one of the first to bank on a certain young start-up named… SpaceX.

Take off

Once on this path, Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux soon became co-founder and president of the company Escape Dynamics, which would make decisive progress in the field of high-power microwaves. ‘Possible applications include rocket propulsion and wireless power transmission.’

These achievements caught the attention of both NASA and the US Army. ‘Little by little, I began working with various national and international bodies in security and defence, including the Pentagon, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Science Board, the Truman National Security Project and the Council on Foreign Relations’. Not to mention NATO, who called on her advice for matters such as the Digital Ocean project or unmanned maritime military equipment. She even played a role in Joe Biden’s electoral campaign. ‘I have the same message everywhere I go: the USA must encourage and strengthen public-private cooperation around disruptive technologies. The European Union is already doing this with its Innovation Fund. This type of scheme is a key way for a state to access technologies which, by nature, require long-term, higher-risk and lower-profitability development. Otherwise, the state is outpaced in terms of innovation or cost by foreign competitors it cannot depend strategically, or even worse, by its enemies. This in turn threatens the country’s economic and security interests. Hence also the critical need to invest in start-ups like SpaceX!’ 

This belief underpins the choices she currently makes at the helm of her second fund, Global Space Ventures II. Start-ups already in her portfolio include Lynk Global, which rolls out satellites capable of covering the cellular network of regions without relay antennas; Thrustme, which provides iodised cold gas propellants to reduce the carbon footprint of orbit launches, or Colossal Biosciences, which reconstitutes the DNA of extinct species thanks to genomic editing. ‘I believe tech has a crucial role to play in building a world of better futures. This is also why I’m involved in the organisation of the XPrize, which supports initiatives in decarbonisation for example. The prize is worth $100M - the highest ever attributed to this cause!’ Laetitia is also committed to bolstering women’s place in science and innovation, through various dedicated programmes run by the US State Department, as well as in Portugal, Poland, Palestine, Belarus and other countries.

"The sky is not the limit"

Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux was recently awarded the ESSEC USA Visionary Award 2023 for her lifetime achievements. ‘During the award ceremony, I gave all the ESSEC alumni present a fragment of the same asteroid with the message "What’s your moonshot ?", as a way to invite them to aim for the moon, both metaphorically and literally! If each of us sets out to pursue our dreams, we can change the world.’ 

This is also a significant award because it testifies to Laetitia’s attachment to the network, and through that, to her roots. ‘I have US citizenship and am devoted to this country, but I maintain ties with France. When Pierre-André de Chalendar (E79), President of Saint-Gobain’s administration board, and Maxime Carmignac (E03), Managing Director of Carmignac UK, come to New York to prospect, I’m always there to welcome them and discuss shared interests, whether it’s high-tech glass and ceramics (used on board the international space station and now Artemis) or to encourage women to take control of their financial future. When La French Tech called on me to gather together the local community of 150 French start-ups for a conversation with Thomas Pesquet, I said yes. When Thrustme, launched by a Polytechnique graduate, submitted their pitch, I felt a certain degree of satisfaction in supporting a French space start-up, which also happens to be run by a woman. And when I’m with my children, I’m delighted to see their French is as good as their English!’  

Interview by Louis Armengaud Wurmser (E10), Content Manager at ESSEC Alumni
Translation of an excerpt of an article published in Reflets Magazine #148. Read a preview  (in French). Get the next issues (in French)."