Alexandre Garese, Founder of Kouros Investment: Taming Uncertainty in a Time of Change

    Alexandre Garese headed a large international law firm. His experience has led him to intervene in restructuring major energy sector companies. In 2016, he founded Kouros, an investment company dedicated to energy and sustainable mobility technologies. He tells us why he got into entrepreneurship and how he deals with uncertainty.




    Why did you decide to create an investment fund dedicated to clean energy and mobility back in 2016?

    In the early 2000s, I felt a revolution was already underway. I started interested in hydrogen then, as I had already invested in several “traditional” energy market segments. It was counterintuitive to leave a very profitable market in favor of an uncertain sector back then. But today, I am convinced I have made the right choice by orienting my efforts towards sustainable energy sources. I believe that if all global investors made the same bet, the energy transition would be over within a decade. All the more so since energy transition is the oxygen of a suffocating economy. For an investor, it’s also the safest way to secure value creation in the long run. For most leaders, any type of environmental damage has become synonymous with value destruction, which immediately orients investors towards sectors more compatible with sustainable development principles.

    What are the scope and philosophy of Kouros’ investments?

    The two main conditions for sustainable mobility are renewable energy on the one hand, and infrastructures scaled to collective life on the other. These two criteria supersede all others with Kouros. We seek to produce clean energy and use it “on-premise” without degrading the quality achieved during production or transport.

    What qualities can a lawyer bring to an entrepreneurial project?

    A good entrepreneur, just like a good lawyer, must be sharp, neat and creative. In law and business, he should roam the territory using the map but allow himself to deviate from it from time to time. I learned from the law the art of real-time thinking, never staying put, and always coming and going between constraints and opportunities. Even today, as an investor, I still work in very constrained settings, where leadership must often take a step back and take on more of a “commando” collective style.

    Do you have a particular approach to entrepreneurial risk as a law professional?

    Risks and uncertainty are the characteristics of what is possible. They are, therefore, inherent to the entrepreneurial project and give it all of its value. Wherever risk is non-existent, and uncertainty is eliminated, there is no enterprise and only passive income. In my mind, the winner’s honor is pegged on his risk, and the virtue of an enterprise is to allow the man to achieve, by challenging it, his freedom.

    What advice would you give to entrepreneurs who want to succeed internationally?

    Three points strike me as fundamental to performing internationally: a clear general vision of the political context in which we operate (be it social, economic or cultural); an excellent capacity to analyze the legal context (but without letting the map hinder the assessment of reality); and, finally, an excellent knowledge of oneself. Whereas many entrepreneurs focus on threats and potential adversaries, I think it is more decisive to concentrate on oneself and commit to playing the game while staying true to one’s principles, following one’s initial goals, and listening to one’s inner voice.

    How important are these “principles” to you as an entrepreneur?

    Having principles requires time and commitment: the time to think about them and the commitment to make them one’s own. The idea isn’t to have principles as one would adopt a trend or submit to ready-made thinking. Principles pertain to what one is more than to what one has. The game is to keep one’s principles alive in the face of economic realities which are “axiologically neutral”, in that they are indifferent to moral values. It is better to have fewer, uncompromising principles that are defendable on a day-to-day basis – this defines, in my mind, an honest entrepreneur or investor. Those who will last will be those who will have proven themselves as constant and authentic in the long run.



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