I'd like to give you here a more personal sense of who I am. I grew up mainly in Montreal, Canada, curious about the world around me and constantly asking “Why?” My first grade teacher predicted that I would be a philosopher, but my affinity for science and the strong scientific presence in my family initially led me towards a career in biology. My hope was to make a contribution to human wellbeing through medical research.

At Harvard University, where I did my undergraduate degree in biochemistry, I explored other fields like philosophy and psychology, but I stuck to my original career plan, despite a persistent doubt whether my true passion was to work in a laboratory. By the time I'd finished my PhD in Basel, Switzerland, in a field removed from human wellbeing, I knew that a classical academic career was not what I wanted. After several years in the Swiss fragrance industry, working with perfumers and trying to better understand the molecular basis of the sense of smell, I found myself in a highly unsatisfying corporate job, and despite my love for powder, snowboarding in the Alps on the weekends was an increasingly insufficient compensation. A two-year stint at a Geneva-based communications agency that had just received the European mandate for the Gates Foundation allowed me to reconnect with issues I cared about. And then, with a renewed sense of purpose and the confidence to embark on a new path, I left.

My story since then has been a deep exploration of the question “What matters?” and what to do about it, and an increasingly focused effort to increase and share my understanding, and to put it to practical effect in having impact on the world. I spent several years writing a book, starting from a collection of notes and essays I had accumulated, in which I aimed to take a brutally honest and unbiased approach to answering the above question. The result was The Battle for Compassion: Ethics in an Apathetic Universe, published in 2011. It has been highly rewarding and inspiring to discover how closely some of my ideas converged with those of a growing community of thinkers and activists committed to reducing human and non-human suffering in the world.

In 2015 I produced a 20-minute film with the same title as the book to communicate some of the key messages in a readily accessible form. I have been giving talks on the topic to various audiences, from MBA students to aspiring vegans, environmentalists and other activists, and have been developing my ideas further.

In 2016 I founded the Swiss-based think-and-do tank Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS) with the overriding goal of helping to embed compassionate values into an inclusive global system and prioritise the prevention of intense suffering of all sentient beings. We have held events at the UN in Geneva and with the Health Ministry of Burkina Faso to help ensure access to pain relief to all in need. We have ambitions to make a real difference in how governments make decisions.

I also occasionally organise workshops on compassion, self-compassion and ethics, while continuing to write and give public talks about the ethics of preventing suffering. I have a new book coming out in January 2023 called The Tango of Ethics: Intuition, Rationality and the Prevention of Suffering. It delves deeper into ethics, aiming to offer a more holistic framework that reconciles the frequent conflict between intuition and rationality. I also continue to carry out writing and editing mandates on a freelance basis.

When I am not writing and working on activist-related activities, I enjoy hiking and "conscious dance" events like Ecstatic Dance and 5 Rhythms.