Clara Chappaz

Clara Chappaz is the third director of La French Tech, a mission created by the French government in 2013 to catalyze the nation's entrepreneurial ecosystem through a combination of policy, financial support, and programs that help startups navigate bureaucracy.
== Early life ==
Chappaz is the daughter of :fr:Pierre_Chappaz|Pierre Chappaz, a notable French entrepreneur who co-founded Kelkoo Group|Kelkoo, a startup that was acquired by Yahoo! Inc. (1995–2017)|Yahoo! for €475 million in 2004 and :fr:Teads|Teads, an adtech company acquired by Altice (company)|Altice in 2017 for $307 million. Challenges, the French economic newspaper, once ranked Pierre as one of the 500 richest people in France. 
== Education ==
Clara Chappaz attended Lycée Francois Couperin in Fontainebleau, France where she chose the scientifique focus for her studies that emphasizes science and math in the French Baccalauréat system. Following high school, she enrolled in a Lycée Saint-Louis|Lycée Saint Louis, a two-year preparatory program in Paris for students who want to apply to French business schools. From 2008 to 2011, she attended the ESSEC Business School where she studied strategy and entrepreneurship. Later, she enrolled in the Harvard Business School|Harvard School of Business in Boston|Boston, Massachusetts where she received an Master of Business Administration|MBA in 2018.
==Career==
After graduation from ESSEC, Chappaz had several internships before joining Zalora Group in 2013. Zalora is an e-commerce site created by Rocket Internet, the Berlin-based startup studio that took proven internet business models and replicates them for European, Asian, and African markets. Chappaz relocated to Bangkok, Thailand where she held several management positions at Zalora, including Regional Director for Southeast Asia. 
Following her stint at Harvard Business School, Chappaz launched Lullaby, a second-hand clothing marketplace for children. After 18 months, Chappaz had to abandon the startup, citing "visa problems." She moved to London where she took a role in May 2018 as Vice President for International at Lyst, a fashion search engine developed by LVMH. 
Just 9 months later, she joined Paris-based Vestiaire Collective, a second-hand fashion markeplace, first as Chief Growth Officer and later as Chief Business Officer. During her almost 3 years with Vestiaire, the company became prominent in France as it closed venture capital rounds of $215 million in March 2021 and a similar round in September 2021. With Vestiaire's success, Chappaz became increasingly prominent, offten serving as the public face of the company and being called on to give interviews to announce its big news.
==La French Tech==
Cédric O, France's Secretary of State for the Digital Economy in President Emmanuel Macron's administration, announced on September 30, 2021 that Chappaz had been nominated to be the next director of La French Tech Mission. She had been selected from among 50 candidates and 8 finalists by a jury composed of entrepreneurs, investors, and government officials to succeed :fr:Kat_Borlongan|Kat Borlongan whose 3-year mandate in the role had ended earlier that year. The priorities cited by O and Chappaz for her 3-year mandate that began on November 1, 2021 are to increase the scope of La French Tech programs to work with 1,000 startups by 2024, up from about 200 currently, expand the programs' reach to be more diverse and help more startups outside the Paris region, and boost research-based startups, known as Deep tech, and startups working to combat climate change. 
Category:French people
Category:Harvard Business School alumni 
Category:ESSEC Business School alumni