The mountains are not immune to profound questions about their future. Faced with these challenges, Compagnie des Alpes (CDA) has decided to create a unique space for collective reflection within its teams: the CDA Debrief. Created as a time to take stock at the end of each winter season, the CDA Debrief has evolved over the years into a veritable laboratory of ideas, emotions and perspectives. More than just an internal event, it has become a unifying ritual, a necessary breather in the hustle and bustle of day-to-day operations, but also a powerful strategic tool for transforming mindsets and practices.
Under the impetus of David Ponson, Director of the Mountain and Outdoor Activities Division, the CDA has decided to make this event an annual highlight. David Ponson looks back with passion on the genesis of this event, how it unfolded and, above all, the profound intentions behind it: “You can’t transform the mountains without transforming the people who bring them to life. The CDA Debrief is a moment suspended in time where we provoke, inspire and pave the way for new, meaningful narratives.”
CDA Debrief: a management ritual serving a changing mountain
The 2025 format of the CDA Débrief was structured around three complementary blocks that follow a highly structured emotional and narrative logic:
- The ‘uppercut’ from Arthur Keller, an expert in systems and planetary boundaries, who shook up certainties with a dense, radical and essential lecture to raise awareness of ecological issues.
- The testimony of Inoxtag, a young YouTuber who set out to conquer Everest, symbolising a youth capable of reconnecting with the mountains and embodying the spirit of pushing oneself beyond one’s limits with humility and sincerity.
- The screening of La Faille, a 20-minute fictional film imagined as a forward-looking narrative, designed to inspire each employee to write about a desirable and collective future for their region.
Arthur Keller’s uppercut: the brutal awakening of ecological consciousness
The CDA Debrief 2025 opened with a salutary shock. From the very first minutes, Arthur Keller, an engineer by training, lecturer and consultant specialising in global risk systems, set the tone. Facing an attentive but unprepared audience, he delivered a masterful, dense, disturbing but necessary lecture on the major global imbalances and the complexity of our times.
Known for his work on the limits of our civilisational models, Arthur Keller has developed a philosophy based on the interconnection of systems: climate, energy, economy, biodiversity, food, resources, etc. Nothing evolves in isolation; everything interacts. His message is clear: the ecological transition cannot be addressed in isolation, and without profound systemic change, we are heading for disaster.
For over two hours, without pause, he presented a sweeping overview supported by more than 250 slides at a rapid pace, leaving many participants with a feeling of vertigo. The complexity of the findings, coupled with their alarming scope, generated a sense of unease, which David Ponson claimed was deliberate and constructive: ‘It even creates a kind of momentary discomfort, because of the way he presents things, with a lot of conviction and punch.’
Faced with the cognitive dissonance that sets in – the uncomfortable gap between what we believe and what we suddenly understand – the intention is not to paralyse minds. David Ponson fully embraces this choice to start the event with an ‘uppercut’: ‘The goal is not to mould a way of thinking, but to enrich the debate. It is not to demoralise. It is a necessary shock, a wake-up call. A building block in a broader process.’
Arthur Keller’s presentation is structured, backed by solid scientific data, but always focused on action and collective responsibility. He invites everyone to rethink their practices, habits and perceptions. This message resonates deeply in a company that wants to give new meaning to its actions: “He hits on a key point: nature does not function in silos. And we continue to think in silos. We need to embrace his systemic approach if we want to transform our territories in a sustainable way.”
Beyond the content, it is Keller’s method that makes an impression: a direct style, sometimes divisive, but never moralising. He speaks freely and demanding, driven by sincere conviction. This initial shock is not an end in itself, but a starting point, as David Ponson reminds us: ‘If I had only brought him in at 12 noon, I would have lost everyone. Some would have left in total dissonance, others would have been destabilised. But this confrontation was necessary. It’s a prerequisite for change to begin.’
Inoxtag: the breath of youth in search of meaning
After the chaos of the findings came a surge of inspiration. Enter Inoxtag, a 23-year-old YouTuber with millions of followers, who came to tell the story of his incredible ascent of Everest. It was a crazy gamble, undertaken with no mountaineering expertise or sporting background, but with disarming sincerity and determination.
In the hushed world of ski resorts, the presence of a Parisian influencer might have been surprising, even confusing. And yet his speech was one of the most memorable moments of the event. Because Inoxtag did not come to be the star. He came to share his inner journey. ‘He showed rare social intelligence, sincere humility and, above all, a maturity far beyond his years,’ says David Ponson.
Far from the exuberant character he sometimes portrays on social media, Inoxtag revealed the story of a young man who decided to transform himself by voluntarily cutting himself off from his digital world. He left his phone behind, put his professional life on hold, and embarked on a year of physical, mental and logistical preparation, surrounded by experts and loyal friends. ‘It’s a global challenge that he has seen through from start to finish. He put together his own team, chose his partners, learned mountaineering, how to cope with the cold and life at high altitude. He took this challenge seriously, with exemplary rigour.’
This testimony touched the CDA teams far beyond the anecdote. For David Ponson, the impact was personal. ‘It was my son, Noé, who told me about his challenge. And, wanting to do the same, he came to me and said, “Dad, can we climb Everest? I told him it might be a bit ambitious… but we climbed Mont Blanc. Three months later.”
This moment of father-son bonding echoed the emotion conveyed by Inoxtag in its film Kaizen, which was screened in part during the CDA Debrief. The film is as much about physical achievement as it is about family ties, fear, loneliness and courage. Through its sincerity, it builds a bridge between younger generations and the mountains.
In a world often divided between experts and novices, between ‘those in the know’ and influencers, this presentation had the power of a unifying, accessible and inspiring story: ‘He discovered the mountains with respect. He loved them through hard work. And he talks about them in a way that resonates with young people. That’s what interests me: showing that you can fall in love with the mountains at 20, even when you come from a digital world.”
The message sent to the teams is clear: dare, dream big, surpass yourselves collectively. And above all, never underestimate the impact of a personal example: ‘It was because his challenge seemed impossible that it was achieved. That’s what I wanted to convey: let’s have crazy ideas. And let’s make them happen.’
Beyond performance, it is the dynamic of inspiration that Inoxtag embodies. It is becoming an unexpected vehicle for a generational revival of the mountains. Through its journey, the CDA is asking an essential question: how can we talk about the mountains differently? And above all, who should tell their story?
‘La Faille’, a story of tomorrow to dream about today
After the systemic shock of Arthur Keller and the generational momentum carried by Inoxtag, the event ends in the silence and darkness of a room. On the screen, a 20-minute fiction film entitled ‘La Faille’ (The Fault). It is short but full of meaning. Because La Faille is not a documentary or an institutional presentation. It is a forward-looking story, a deliberately offbeat work that combines imagination, emotions and concrete issues. The film was produced by the Compagnie des Alpes and designed to stimulate collective reflection through emotion and storytelling.
‘I wanted a film that opens the imagination, that doesn’t lecture, but questions. A journey into the future, not to say what needs to be done, but to spark desire, debate and projection,’ explains David Ponson.
In the script, a space-time fault allows characters to observe a future where the mountains have successfully made the transition. We glimpse a territory that has adapted, preserved its ecosystem, innovated in its uses and, above all, built social and environmental coherence. Through this modern fable, viewers are invited to contemplate what the mountains could become if we took care of them today.
But La Faille offers no definitive answers. It asks questions and builds bridges. ‘It’s a gift,’ I told them. ‘It’s up to you to take it. I wanted everyone to leave with images in their minds, feelings, ideas. And above all, the desire to write their own story. I think the time has come to produce positive narratives. Stories that make people want to take action, that inspire teams at every site, that re-enchant the collective.”
For David Ponson, this latest brick completes a deliberately progressive triptych: the lucidity of the uppercut (Arthur Keller), the inspiration of the challenge (Inoxtag), and the narrative momentum towards a desirable future (La Faille). In a sector sometimes perceived as rigid or locked into its codes, the approach is bold. Bringing fiction into a managerial framework means relying on emotion as a vehicle for transformation. It’s a gamble that David Ponson is fully prepared to take: ‘I wanted to show that every resort, every region, can invent its own story. This film is an invitation. Not an injunction.’
At the heart of an era marked by the need to invent a new model for the mountains, La Faille thus becomes a powerful lever for breaking down barriers, restoring meaning to action and reconnecting each local player to a shared vision. The film is not followed by a debate. No questions and answers. No closing slides. Just a moment of silence, prolonged by the collective emotion, then a sober conclusion:
‘You have everything in your hands. It’s up to you to write the next chapter.’
Long thought about by engineers, developers and planners, the mountains could now be reinvented by those who live there, care for them, tell their stories and inhabit them every day. This is the whole purpose of the CDA Debrief, as described by David Ponson: to put people back at the centre, not as resource managers, but as bearers of stories, visions and responsibilities. By choosing to confront teams with unvarnished ecological truths, then inspiring them through the crazy challenge of a young explorer, before making them dream of a desirable future, Compagnie des Alpes is charting a new course: that of management based on meaning, community and imagination.
True transformation will emerge from the terrain, the resorts and the teams. It will take shape in shared stories, courageous micro-decisions and local experiments, driven by people who deeply love the mountains — not for what they have been, but for what they can become.
