Sustainability and impact integration
Diagnostics that turn ESG, CSRD and reporting efforts into strategic intelligence and capital allocation tools.
Biography
Embedding AI, impact and sustainable value creation at the core of enterprise strategy
With more than twenty years of global experience across Fortune 500 corporations, private equity funds, family offices and high-growth ventures, Arnaud Blandin helps boards and executive teams move beyond ESG compliance to redesign how value is created, measured and allocated.
His work sits at the intersection of strategy, sustainability, artificial intelligence and capital allocation. He helps organisations connect impact data, financial performance, technology architecture and executive decision-making into coherent systems that can guide transformation at scale.
Most companies today invest heavily in reporting frameworks, sustainability programmes and AI tools, yet these often remain disconnected from strategy, operations, incentives and investment decisions. Arnaud’s work focuses on closing that gap — building practical decision architectures that let leaders understand where value is created, where impact is generated, where risks are emerging, and where capital should be deployed.
What differentiates his approach is the ability to bridge worlds that are too often treated separately: engineering and strategy, AI and sustainability, financial performance and human development, innovation and governance.
The path here
From Java standards to board rooms
Silicon Valley
Engineer, Java standards and enterprise systems
Began his career building enterprise systems and contributing to Java language standards, including work for organisations such as NASA. That technical foundation underpins how he reads data, software and AI systems today — beyond the language of strategy decks.
Asia, Europe, North America
Scaling technology and intelligence businesses
Scaled technology and intelligence businesses across three continents, building the commercial and strategic experience that now sits underneath the advisory work.
2019 – 2024
Founder, the Beyond Institute
Led a global inquiry into the systemic issues, contradictions and paradoxes preventing organisations from acting at the level environmental and social transition requires — developing frameworks to identify, measure and prioritise the real-world impacts of economic activity.
Since November 2022
Lead Faculty, CEDEP
Lead Faculty for Sustainability, ESG and Impact at CEDEP in Fontainebleau, and programme director for Sustainable Value Creation.
Today
CEO of Vela Intelligence · Founder of IRIS
Building the evidence-to-decision platform and the institute that carry the frameworks forward, while advising boards, CEOs, executive committees and investors on multi-year transformation.
The work today
Three types of engagement
Arnaud works with boards, CEOs, executive committees, investors and transformation leaders across three core types of engagement.
AI-powered transformation strategy
Scenario modelling, impact data and financial analysis to help leaders navigate uncertainty and structural change.
Board and executive advisory
Ongoing support for multi-year transformation, responsible innovation, and the integration of sustainability into business models, governance and investment decisions.
Where it has been applied
Circular economy, energy, aquaculture, finance
His work has included circular economy initiatives in the tire industry, impact and intelligence platforms for energy companies, sustainability and AI strategies for aquaculture, and transformation programmes for global corporations, financial institutions, private equity firms and startups.
Alongside the advisory work, Arnaud is programme director for Sustainable Value Creation at CEDEP, which gathers executives and decision-makers each year to build concrete action plans towards more sustainable value.
He teaches and mentors more than 500 executives annually through institutions including INSEAD, Singapore Management University, SKEMA, EDHEC and the International University of Monaco. He also mentors founders through initiatives such as Creative Destruction Lab and the Monaco Ocean Protection Challenge.
Arnaud is currently CEO of Vela Intelligence and founder of the Institute for Responsible Innovation and Sustainability (IRIS). Based between Europe and Asia, he works with organisations ready to move beyond sustainability as a reporting exercise and use AI, data and impact intelligence to redesign how value is created in the first place.
Next step
Start with a conversation
Thirty minutes to discuss your challenges, your timeline and whether this is the right kind of help.