Renaudot centenary: Nicolo-Peccavi at the Cercle Drouant
The first novel ever awarded the Renaudot, presented by Philippe Zaouati with Gérard Lemarié. Doors 5:30 pm, limited seats.
Philippe Zaouati
Financier, novelist, essayist.
Founder of Mirova.
For more than twelve years I led Mirova, the responsible-investment asset manager I founded within Natixis. I write novels, essays and opinion pieces where finance, Europe, mathematics and history meet. I live between Paris and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, in Provence.
Highlights
Les Refus de Grigori Perelman on stage
Adapted by Michel Bellier, directed by Julie Timmerman.
Mes mains pleines de sang, by Claude Askolovitch
A hard book, a diagnosis I share — and an argument that undermines it.
Vers l’inassurabilité ?
A 2 °C world remains insurable, a 4 °C world does not: the line also applies to social violence.
« 17 octobre : le monde économique ne peut pas se dédouaner de la crise de la cohésion sociale »
The cost of social inaction, alongside climate risk.
« Dans l’enclave des papes, les Juifs ont développé une culture extraordinaire »
On Nicolo-Peccavi and the Jews of the Comtat Venaissin.
Money is not neutral. It carries choices, risks and responsibilities — and those who manage it can no longer act as if nothing were at stake.Philippe Zaouati
News
Upcoming events, then the thread of activity: encounters, publications, stage.
Upcoming
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Renaudot centenary: a Nicolo-Peccavi evening at the Cercle Drouant
The first novel ever awarded the Prix Renaudot, in 1926, presented by Philippe Zaouati with Gérard Lemarié. Doors at 5:30 pm, €30 contribution, limited seats.
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Les Refus de Grigori Perelman on stage
Stage adaptation of the novel by Michel Bellier, directed by Julie Timmerman.
News
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What future for humanity?
A talk at the Rencontres scientifiques organised by Philippe Camus and Objectif Science, alongside Jacques Attali, Nicolas Bouzou, Nicolas Bordas and Éric Revel among others. How can the economy and finance be reconciled with the planet’s physical limits? Finance’s role in transforming the economy, and how climate and biodiversity enter investment decisions.
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Reissue of Nicolo-Peccavi ou l’Affaire Dreyfus à Carpentras
Expanded centenary edition of Armand Lunel’s Prix Renaudot, with a foreword by Philippe Zaouati and a preface by Manuel Carcassonne.
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Handing over at the head of Mirova
After more than twelve years leading the company he founded, Philippe Zaouati pursues his advisory work, his writing and his commitments.
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“Algeria as a heritage”, with Boualem Sansal
A literary evening before nearly 200 people: the long history of Algeria’s Jews and their entry into French citizenship in 1870. An occasion to compare views on the Crémieux Decree’s effects on Jewish and Arab populations, and to hear Boualem Sansal on his ordeal in Algerian prisons.
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Sixth edition of Lire sur la Sorgue
With L’éditeur… à part and Réjane Lacoste, first author of the “Identités” series.
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Renaudot centenary: Armand Lunel’s Nicolo-Peccavi
An evening around the first Prix Renaudot, with Nadine Labory, Manuel Carcassonne and Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, ahead of the reissue by L’éditeur… à part.
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Publication of Le Décret
Historical novel: 1871, the Kabylie uprising and the Crémieux Decree, seen by a young Jew from Algiers sent to Paris.
Press, radio & TV
Press interviews, podcasts, broadcasts and talks.
Press interviews
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« 17 octobre : le monde économique ne peut pas se dédouaner de la crise de la cohésion sociale »
With Marina Fabre Soundron: the cost of social inaction, alongside climate risk.
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Member of the jury of the Green Finance 2026 competition
His career, sustainable finance in the age of AI, and what he expects from the entrants.
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« Les enjeux de durabilité ont favorisé l’émergence de nouveaux instruments »
Ten years after the Paris Agreement, what sustainable finance has changed in the markets.
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Accompagner les transitions
The Mirova–Thematics AM combination, and taking stock ten years after the Paris Agreement.
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« Nous ne poursuivrons pas notre objectif de 100 % de fonds article 9 »
€32 billion under management, headwinds in listed markets, the €60 billion target for 2030 maintained.
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« Un investisseur ne peut se dire responsable s’il ne s’intéresse pas aux pays émergents »
Mirova, Gigaton and clean-energy financing in frontier markets.
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« Écrire, c’est faire un pas de côté »
On Discours sur l’état de l’Union, Naufrages and Perelman.
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Mirova’s Philippe Zaouati: realistically optimistic
Profile interview, from Gramsci to Mirova’s strategy.
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The Big Interview: ten years of Mirova
Mirova’s record and strategy, the Orpea affair, the wave of SFDR downgrades.
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Interview with Philippe Zaouati, CEO of Mirova
The genesis of Mirova, artificial intelligence, greenwashing and the Paris financial centre.
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« La littérature est l’un des derniers lieux où le doute est permis »
Long interview with Dan Burcea about Applaudissez-moi !, lockdown and Samuel K.
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Conversation with Philippe Zaouati, ENSAE 1989
On Applaudissez-moi !, writing and sustainable finance.
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« Il faut réduire l’empreinte carbone de Paris de 15 à 20 % pendant le prochain mandat »
As co-chair of the climate emergency council, ahead of the 2020 municipal elections.
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« L’impact réel de la finance durable est très faible »
An unsparing look at green finance, after chairing Finance for Tomorrow.
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Écrire pour convaincre que Paris doit être la capitale de la finance verte
With Anne-Catherine Husson-Traore, on the publication of La finance verte commence à Paris.
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« Nous incitons le gouvernement à se montrer plus ambitieux dans le domaine de la finance verte »
One year of Finance for Tomorrow.
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« Il faut une stratégie pour réorienter l’épargne des Français vers la finance verte »
With Delphine Cuny: Brexit, the Pacte law and green finance.
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« La transition vers la finance verte ne pourra pas se faire sans les citoyens »
The HLEG final report’s recommendations: taxonomy, labels, green bonds.
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« Construire un projet avec nos 52 000 adhérents parisiens »
As La République en marche’s coordinator for Paris.
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« Si on veut responsabiliser la finance, arrêtons d’en faire un diable »
The launch of Finance for Tomorrow and the work of the HLEG.
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« La crise est une opportunité pour l’investissement responsable »
Then head of business development at Natixis Asset Management: the financial crisis as an accelerator for responsible investment.
Hosted programme
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Billet vert
Eight programmes hosted by Philippe Zaouati: how to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy, and can finance really be sustainable?
Podcasts and videos
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« Dans l’enclave des papes, les Juifs ont développé une culture extraordinaire »
On Nicolo-Peccavi, the first Prix Renaudot, and the Jews of the Comtat Venaissin.
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Il faut sauver le décret Crémieux
The Jews of Algeria before History, on the publication of Le Décret.
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Mémoire et héritages contemporains
Panel of the symposium on the Crémieux Decree.
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De 1870 à Vichy, l’émancipation et ses ambiguïtés
Panel of the symposium on the Crémieux Decree.
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Grigori Perelman, a strange mathematical genius
A two-hour conversation about Les Refus de Grigori Perelman, the Fields medallist who refused his medal, and the path of a financier turned novelist.
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Légion d’honneur ceremony, presented by Agnès Pannier-Runacher
The minister’s address and Philippe Zaouati’s reply.
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#66 — Philippe Zaouati, fondateur de Mirova
With Arnaud Naudan: from the 2008 crisis to the dilemmas of sustainable finance, and the place of doubt in leadership.
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Where does the economic transition stand?
With Delphine Darmon: finance’s role in changing the world, the reality of green finance, and writing as a step aside.
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#136 — Les pionniers de la finance durable
Sustainability in listed and private markets, Article 9 funds, data, the creation of Mirova and its move into natural capital.
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Can finance respect planetary boundaries?
Masterclass for the Environment and Finance groups of Sciences Po Alumni (audio replay).
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#16 — Philippe Zaouati, CEO de Mirova
Ecological transition and finance, planetary boundaries.
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La finance face aux limites planétaires, in questions
Filmed conversation with Dominique Bourg, in partnership with the Association Europe Finances Régulations.
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Interview with Philippe Zaouati, CEO of Mirova
Article 29, taxonomies, Orpea, financial advisers: a tour of sustainable finance.
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Green finance: a journey
A conversation in English on the path of a financier who became a sustainable-investment pioneer.
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Investing for tomorrow — a conversation with Philippe Zaouati
On the notion of planetary boundaries.
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En.quête d’impact avec Philippe Zaouati
A financial engineer’s path, and redirecting every euro towards impact.
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TEDxHECParis talk
On finance as a tool for transformation.
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« ESG, no more blah-blah-blah ! »
Video interview at the ESG edition.
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Vers la prise en compte de la présence en Russie dans les critères ESG ?
With Sandra Gandoin and Christophe Jakubyszyn, one month after the invasion of Ukraine.
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Sustainable finance: myth or reality?
With Alexis Gazzo (EY): the real economy, greenwashing, the EU taxonomy and the Green Deal.
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Conversation with Philippe Zaouati
Acting for the living world: the new challenges of sustainable finance and its role in the transition.
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Decade for Change, the podcast — #3
With Charles Nicolas: how sustainable finance and investors can move the lines. Long term, climate risk, biodiversity.
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Green finance
With Emmanuelle Joseph-Dailly.
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« La finance verte donne une chance à Paris »
Video interview as chair of Finance for Tomorrow.
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« Nous avons besoin d’une trajectoire claire sur le prix du carbone »
Green bonds and the Paris financial centre after COP21.
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Enjeu climat, green bonds, puissance de l’épargne : Mirova, héraut de la finance verte
A twenty-minute long-form interview.
Opinion
Opinion pieces published in the press (Le Monde, Les Echos, L’AGEFI…), on Substack, in the LinkedIn newsletter My Views and in Bastille Magazine. Most are in French.
Opinion pieces and policy notes
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Mes mains pleines de sang, by Claude Askolovitch
A hard book, a diagnosis I share — and an argument that undermines it.
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Vers l’inassurabilité ?
A 2 °C world remains insurable, a 4 °C world does not: the line also applies to social violence, after the 17 October riots.
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Le Palais, ou le vin mis en fable
On Le Palais by François-Henri Désérable (Gallimard): a wine fable that is a little too well thought out.
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La Musica deuxième, ou l’amour sans contexte
Duras staged by Arnaud Desplechin at the Vieux-Colombier.
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L’entrepreneur, cet alibi
Touch capital taxation and entrepreneurs will leave, we are told. Checked.
Books & publications
Novels, essays and reference works. Titles are in French unless stated otherwise.
Novels
Le Décret
L’éditeur… à part, October 2025
1871, at the height of the Kabylie uprising: Élie, a young Jew from Algiers, leaves for Paris to defend the citizenship the Crémieux Decree has just granted his people. A novel of filiation and identity.
Naufrages
L’éditeur… à part, 2024 (1st ed. Éditions des Rosiers, 2014)
A woman leaves Sofia for Paris; at the funeral of her former lover, in a kibbutz, she is handed a bundle of letters. From Haifa to Istanbul, the shipwrecks of exile and memory.
Discours sur l’état de l’Union
Le Métier des mots, 2022
January 2034: faced with the failure of the fight against climate change, the President of the United States proposes a radical solution to Congress. Also published in English as State of the Union.
Applaudissez-moi !
Pippa, 2020
August 2020, mid-pandemic: Samuel K., a financier who moved into sustainable development, is questioned by the financial police. Touch by touch, he reveals what has haunted him since leaving Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Les Refus de Grigori Perelman
Pippa (in French)
Saint Petersburg, summer 2006: John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, tries to persuade Grigori Perelman to accept the Fields Medal. Tangente Prize special jury award; adapted for the stage in 2027.
Perelman’s Refusal. A Novel
American Mathematical Society, 2021 — translated from the French by Rachel Zurer
English edition of Les Refus de Grigori Perelman.
La fumée qui gronde
Arhsens éditions, 2011
2008: Emmanuel, a golden boy celebrated for twenty years, is thrown out with a cardboard box in his arms. Facing the wreckage, he searches his past, then flees, to find out what his future will be.
Short stories
Opération Pilate
Chut! no. 17, 20 February 2025 — illustrated by Lucia Budzáková
A sequel to Discours sur l’état de l’Union: Destiny, imprisoned, relaunches from her cell the challenge of saving humanity.
La Meute
Bastille Magazine no. 30, July–August 2024
Subscribers only on bastillemagazine.com; free to read on LinkedIn.
La visite à Lasserre
Chut! no. 10, 13 July 2022 — illustrated by Laure Dorin; audio version as a podcast
Léa slams the door of the flat on rue de Rennes: with seven friends, she has just called on her classmates to desert the system.
Essays
La finance face aux limites planétaires
Actes Sud, 2023
A dialogue between a philosopher and a financier, led by Anne-Cécile Bras: can finance serve the living world rather than help exhaust it?
Finance durable : l’heure de la seconde chance
Éditions de l’Observatoire, “Et après ?” series, 2020
What the 2020 crisis reveals about sustainable finance’s unkept promises, and how to give it a second chance to truly fund the transition.
La finance verte commence à Paris
Rue de l’Échiquier, 2018
How Paris became a leading centre for green finance, and what remains to be done for finance to serve the ecological transition. Also published in English as Paris, the Kilometer Zero of Green Finance.
Pour une finance positive
Rue de l’Échiquier, 2014 — with Hervé Guez, preface by Jacques Attali
Because money has virtues too: a manifesto for finance that funds the real economy and the transitions. Social and Solidarity Economy Book Prize; published in English as Positive Finance (Greenleaf).
La Gestion quantitative
Economica, “Connaissance de la gestion” series, 1994
One of the first French textbooks on quantitative portfolio management, written during his years at the Caisse des Dépôts.
Prefaces, reports and articles
Foreword to Armand Lunel’s Nicolo-Peccavi
L’éditeur… à part, “Identités” series, 2026
The first ever Prix Renaudot (1926), reissued for its centenary in an expanded edition. Foreword by Philippe Zaouati, preface by Manuel Carcassonne.
Preface to L’entreprise régénérative
Niels de Fraguier and Stephen Vasconcellos — L’éditeur… à part, October 2025
Preface. How a company can move from limiting its damage to regenerating the living world, and thrive with it.
Canfin-Zaouati report — Pour la création de France Transition
Report to the ministers for the Ecological Transition and the Economy, December 2018 — with Pascal Canfin
Risk-sharing mechanisms to mobilise €10 billion of private investment in the ecological transition.
Financing a Sustainable European Economy
Final report of the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, European Commission, 2018
As a member of the HLEG. This report gave rise to the EU action plan on sustainable finance.
Chapter in Pourquoi attendre ? Innover pour le climat
La Fabrique Écologique, edited by Géraud Guibert — Rue de l’Échiquier, September 2015
Chapter 4: “How can savings serve the energy transition?”
Savings in the service of the energy transition
Green finance, a powerful and citizen lever — policy note for La Fabrique Écologique, May 2015
How to steer French savings towards financing the transition.
Long-term financial management: the specificity of pension fund management
Revue d’économie financière, no. 40, March 1997, pp. 233-254
Special issue “Pension systems: structure(s), challenges and prospects”. Full text in open access on Persée.
Career
Born in Marseille in 1966. ENSAE graduate (1989), member of the French Institute of Actuaries.
Today
- T.KUN Advisory — independent advisory
- Senior Advisor, Dowgo
- Advisory Committee, 50 Partners Impact Fund
- Strategic Council, Asterion
- National Council and Archives Committee of the FSJU
- Columnist on Radio RCJ — Pierres Vives, the magazine of French Jewish heritage (4th Wednesday of the month, 1:10 pm)
- Full LinkedIn profile
Honours
- Knight of the Légion d’honneur (2025)
- Knight of the Ordre national du Mérite (2017)
- 2026
American Academy in Rome
Visiting Artist, from October 2026.
- 2026
Leaves Mirova
After more than twelve years at its head.
- 2023
International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits
Franco-British initiative on biodiversity credits.
- 2022–2024
Mouvement Impact France
Board and executive committee member, in charge of European advocacy and of developing the Impact Score.
- 2021–2023
Communauté des entreprises à mission
Board member.
- 2020–2025
WWF France
Board member; member of the audit committee (2020-2024), then of the nomination committee (2024-2025).
- 2020
Mirova Foundation
Creates and chairs the corporate foundation dedicated to environmental and social impact.
- 2018
Canfin-Zaouati report
Delivered to the ministers for the Economy and for the Ecological Transition.
- 2017–2019
Finance for Tomorrow
Co-founder and chair of the Paris Europlace initiative, now the Institut de la finance durable.
- 2016–2018
High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance
European Commission expert group behind the EU’s sustainable finance strategy.
- 2014
CEO of Mirova
Mirova becomes a fully fledged asset management company, a Natixis subsidiary.
- 2013–2016
Investment Leaders Group
Chair of the group, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
- 2012–2014
International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN)
Board member.
- 2012
Founding of Mirova
Responsible investment division within Natixis Asset Management. Chair of the AFG’s SRI committee and of EFAMA’s Responsible Investment working group.
- 2007
Natixis Asset Management (now Ostrum AM)
Deputy CEO, member of the executive committee, in charge of business development.
- 2002
INSEAD
Crédit Agricole Senior Executive Program.
- 2005–2007
Fund Channel
Chairman of the platform linking asset managers and distributors, which he initiated within the Crédit Agricole group (Luxembourg).
- 1998–2007
Crédit Agricole Asset Management (now Amundi)
Product development, then CEO of the Luxembourg subsidiary; head of marketing and communication.
- 1995
Sogeposte (now La Banque Postale Asset Management)
Head of product development.
- 1992
Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations
Financial engineer, strategic allocation and quantitative management. Publishes La Gestion quantitative (Economica, 1994).
- 1989
BIP Gestion (now Allianz Global Investors)
Quantitative portfolio manager. First steps in asset management.
- 1989
ENSAE — Institute of Actuaries
Graduate of the École nationale de la statistique et de l’administration économique; member of the French Institute of Actuaries.