I Love Ski met with David Ponson, director of the mountain and outdoor activities division of the Compagnie des Alpes group. Originally from Saint Etienne, this father reveals his passions, his vision and his motivations for initiating change towards a more sustainable mountain environment.
David Ponson, could you tell us about your professional career?
David Ponson: I am originally from Saint Etienne. My training as an engineer at Arts & Métiers in Cluny and then in Paris allowed me to discover the mountains and even do my military service there in the air force, at the Méribel station (in an air mountain centre). These early experiences allowed me to enjoy the pleasures of the mountains and feel at home there. After a stint in industry, the founding president of the Compagnie des Alpes group, Jean-Pierre SONOIS, offered me a position in Peisey-Vallandry (Les Arcs) and I have been part of this group ever since.
I have developed my career and training within the Compagnie des Alpes group. For ten years now, I have been based in Chambéry, where I initially held the position of director of operations for the ski resorts in part of the perimeter. Currently, I am in charge of and responsible for the entire mountain perimeter of the Compagnie des Alpes group. This includes mountain operations, ski resorts and other outdoor activities complementary to skiing.
We have recently partnered with Évolution 2 schools, which are ski schools but also outdoor sports activity centres offering more than 50 different activities. This allows us to diversify our operations, but also to learn which complementary activities to skiing in the mountains may interest our customers, both in summer and winter.
What are your passions?
David Ponson: First and foremost, I am passionate about my children. There is no school or book that can teach you how to be a good parent; in fact, they are the ones who teach me the most.
My passions revolve around skiing and the mountains. I have practised many activities, such as football, like any good “Stéphanois”, and then years of basketball until my student days. Since then, I have continued to practise sport as much as I can, especially diving and underwater photography, rafting, paragliding, mountain biking, motorcycling, etc. In short, eclectic activities, in groups or alone! My other passions are meeting people and discovering new things, especially when it comes to new mountain destinations or meeting new people. Research and innovation are also part of my passions. At Compagnie des Alpes, we are starting from scratch when it comes to low-carbon snow grooming machines.
Today, 87%, even 90%, of the carbon impact related to our profession and our sector is due to slope grooming. I was eager to tackle this issue and do my bit. In collaboration with CM DUPON and the CDA teams, we have developed a prototype fully electric snow groomer that has been in operation this winter and with which we wanted to go beyond the simple carbon balance achieved by eliminating the combustion engine. In fact, we decided to also eliminate all hydraulic fluids, which are a potential source of pollution for our mountain. We are very pleased with the initial results. It is something that motivates us and encourages us to go even further.
David Ponson, what motivates you? Why do you get up in the morning?
David Ponson: I get up early in the morning. It’s a habit I’ve always had, since my grandfather used to tell me that the world belongs to early risers. But beyond that, I like to feel like I’ve had a busy day, an intense day, every day.
What motivates me to get up is the desire to do many things. I am fortunate to have a job that allows me to meet different people throughout the day and deal with a thousand different topics. I deal with marketing, technical, financial, political, DSP (Public Service Delegation), environmental issues… I think what motivates me every day is all of that, that desire to learn. Not a single day goes by without me learning something new, and that has fuelled me since my earliest childhood. As long as I have that desire to learn that drives me forward, in this job or another, I will feel alive and feel that I am making progress.
What is your greatest satisfaction or your greatest achievement?
David Ponson: There are several. First of all, satisfaction as a man with regard to my children. Learning with them, giving them the keys to understanding life and how to move forward in this ever-changing world, in which we ourselves have few points of reference, when we are supposed to give them to them. I want to give them the tools to deal with these situations in a positive way.
Then, in my job as a manager, what gives me the most satisfaction is motivating our teams. We recently had an end-of-season seminar in Chamonix, which was a great moment. We all got together to take stock of the season and, hearing everyone’s positive comments, we felt motivated for next year. It’s a great source of satisfaction as a manager.
What is your greatest regret, if you have one?
David Ponson: As a good human being, I tend to see and remember what works worst. I have learned to have fewer and fewer regrets. There was a time when I had many, which constantly resurfaced. Over time, I have learned to be at peace with them and to accept that not everything is perfect and that some things take longer to settle than others. I remember the Chinese proverb ‘wei-wu-wei’, which means ‘acting without acting’. When you think about it, it’s true that we move many things forward without giving the impression of doing anything, such as silence, which is sometimes the solution for change. So I’ve learned to live with it, to move on, and I feel much better.
If you had a list of three wishes for the mountains, what would they be?
David Ponson:
- We must collectively learn to step outside our comfort zone in order to make a definitive shift in our economic model in the mountains and learn to do less, but better (a formula borrowed and adopted from Marc Halévy, whom we invited to one of our end-of-year seminars five years ago).
- learning to demonstrate through concrete evidence and facts, and not just through commitments, especially in environmental matters.
- to have a united and supportive mountain community and overcome the corporatist and dogmatic attitudes in our environment that sometimes prevent us from truly moving forward.
- I have one goal: to leave a beautiful, preserved and enhanced mountain for our children 😊.
David Ponson, how do you see the mountain of tomorrow?
David Ponson: Before responding to tomorrow’s mountain, we need to take the time to define what we don’t want it to be and then try to set it in motion. We find ourselves in an incredible ecosystem, but one that has difficulty evolving due, in particular, to our habits, the stability of the business and the comfort zone we find ourselves in. In these circumstances, we try to unbalance the system a little so that it asks the right questions. This is what we usually do in research and innovation with the development of sustainable media.
We have high-altitude locations, especially glaciers, that have been losing more than a metre of ice per year for 30 years. It is true that these indicators have enabled us to become aware of the magnitude of the situation more quickly and to launch initiatives in terms of mobility, slope conditioning and the development of our photovoltaic and hydroelectric energy technology. Although some things take us away from our core business, if we can make a modest contribution to this change at our level, we will have fulfilled part of our mission.
As for tomorrow’s mountains, it is clear that they must be preserved, as we are in an environment that is particularly sensitive to global warming. We care deeply about our mountains; we are passionate about them. The intangible value that we have been able to measure in our teams is not that of the ski lifts or all our material assets, but rather the commitment and passion of our employees who live in the mountains and earn their living from them. All of this must be part of a very long-term perspective. There are several small transitions within the big transition. It will take time, but in the end that is the most exciting thing.
