Society & Culture
Guest: Virginie Martins de Nobrega
Virginie Martins de Nobrega is a practicing Lawyer at the Paris Bar and a Mediator based in Paris and Brussels. She acts as a Senior Advisor or Board Member for international actors (IO, INGO and foundations, Corporations.
In 2016, Virginie founded a niche advising firm called CREATIVE RESOLUTION to address the need for innovation when addressing global political, economic, legal, social and cultural challenges.
Most recently (EMBA, 2018), she conducted research on the risks and opportunities of Artificial Intelligence (A.I) to leverage the impact, speed, and efficiency of public policies and initiatives in relation to the SDGs with a focus on the United Nations innovation ecosystem. She oriented her research on global governance, management and organizational strategies, public policies and ethics.
She is passionate about progress for all and thrives in making connections between disparate concepts and across sectors.
She advises and supports international stakeholders to be more impactful and efficient adopting a hands-on approach. She believes and advocates for a shift of paradigm in which sustainable profits are defined by a human-centered and human-rights approach coupled with a positive social impact, while grounded on business financial and economic realities.
HIGHLIGHTS & TAKEAWAYS:
- Virginie: “I think the red thread for me has always been to work and be engaged on legal and political issues that have societal implications. And also about always bringing, connecting the dots by having a systematic approach, a transdisciplinary approach to try to tap into our collective intelligence.”
- “I think my driving force is kind of anger, anger for equality for all, progress for all, humanity for all and our humaneness.”
- At a personal level, I would say that it's really your foundation, your principles, your purpose. But it's also a compass and a horizon line to what you do, what you decide to be. And it does give you congruence. And it also helps you and enables you, I think, to show up with congruence and to act accordingly, which I think does provide a certain stability and also helps you build trust with people because they can rely on you based on your ethics and they know they can trust you.”
- Ethics is very important as lawyers. And when you think of ethics at a professional level, I think we are very lucky, at least in France, because when you are swearing to become a lawyer, you have to take an oath in front of a judge and your peers where you have to swear that you’re going to carry out your duties with independence, conscience, integrity, probity and humanity. And I think those values really are key ethical values and skills and a way to act.
- And so you are facing navigating the fact that you want to drive change within the organization. But you are facing people who are reflecting you on ethics that is absolute opposite of what you are and what you are doing and criticizing you and even sometimes really like you are having the impression that you are like sacrificed in the public sphere. And it is has been very challenging.
- And what I learned is that your ethics can be yet subjective and your ethics is your ethics, but the law is the law.
- And the last thing, which was not easy for me at a certain moment in time in my career is that, you know, there are a thousand of interesting people, there are a thousand and millions of people in this world that just want to do better, that wants to work with you, just find them, you know, keep doing until you find them. Don’t stay and don’t compromise about your ethics and who you are, because that’s the core of who you are.
- It’s what is in my power, what is not. If I feel that I need to rest, but I don’t have time, that’s where I need to rest and take the time. Because if you take the proper test and the proper distances, then you are much more impactful afterwards.
- I think this is when you need to know the right colleagues and peers around you when they can tell you, hey, that’s okay. We’re going to handle it later or we did the best we could. Now it’s time to let it go. And when it comes to the point where you can’t handle it anymore, then it’s time to, I think, reconsider your activities and put back your well being at the center and stop for a moment, even if it takes months, but you have to stop.
- I think, or my impression, is we’re lacking a bit of sense of beauty, you know, like everything seems to, it’s a constant reminder that everything is ugly, that everything is not going round and we are losing the battle on the environment, climate change and on the human rights. And there is not something that transcends us. We are just facing ugliness all the time. Not that we have to be naive and not see what is happening with crises and wars everywhere, which is shocking. But can we also see the beauty?Can we also see hope? and compassion and things that are still there, but we just don’t see it or we don’t put our intention into it. It’s like we are denied this right to see beauty when we need it as a collectivity and as human. And for me, I’m like, where is beauty? And sometimes it’s about walking and say, where is the flower? And it was little tiny things or someone smiling and a smile can really make a lot difference in someone’s life and in your daily life.
- I think the challenge now is having clarity of those things and crystal clear all the time, having consistency and congruence and always thinking of that. Working the talk, which is part of integrity and not just preaching, just to avoid green watching and human rights watching, but do the work. I think it’s good to get crystal clear. And I think also it’s to keep in mind something I’ve been strongly advocating for is that having a societal, social, human rights, human rights-based international approach to things, it’s a key driver for success. It’s good business. It’s smart business. It’s KPIs. So there is a shift of paradigm between profits and human rights. All of them come together.
- Constant reminders/steps from Virginie: 1)Matching 2) Fit for purpose analysis 3) Measure one or two KPIs per year 4) Brainstorm
- There is to be, to have an alignment between the tokens, the action and congruence and integrity, and also being very strict and stricter when we talk about the law.
- The first one is the Gandhi quote that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. This is so simple and so complicated and complex and powerful if you really as a professional, but also as a person. You integrate, which I think is beautiful.
- Another quote that I think is a compass that I think I wish we can remember all the time is science without conscience is really the ruin of the soul. And I think nowadays it’s when it comes to bringing back our humanity, human centric approach and our humaneness, it’s really about that. Science can be a great vehicle for progress, but we need to be aware of it and put our conscience and even our heart into it.
- Maybe we won’t succeed in achieving everything we want, but I think we owe it to ourselves and to society to just continue to pursue our dreams to the best of our abilities and the opportunities you are given. And I also think that we really have, we are at this moment in time where we really have to tap into this challenge to tap into our potential that is not exploitation in a smarter way. And really focus on what makes us human and what do we want.
REFERENCES & LINKS:
Virginie’s LinkedIN and website:
Virginie’s suggested article/book:
Stanford-Strengths to Love by MLK
The Human Conversation Podcast Channels: