Alban Muller heads, and has in his mind, more than one garden. They are exploited. In his company, a supplier of raw materials for the cosmetic industry, in the competitiveness cluster (the Cosmetic Valley) of which he is the Chairman, in the ideas he nurtures and that he spreads, as in his experimental Herboretum in Saint-Ay, where he welcomed CosmeticOBS-L’Observatoire des Cosmétiques … This is as a field in which his ways of thinking lead him to grow seeds, many seeds, that he hopes will be our future: the (true) nature and bio diversity.
"I went to this sector, that I call nature, by chance," Alban Muller says. Indeed, as he likes to say, he has been "exposed" to nature very early. "My grand-mother lived in the country. She had a very large garden, with plants and animals, which was my "living-room" in the holiday season. I’ve been shaped this way."
Nevertheless, he begins with what he calls "advanced studies": a bachelor’s degree in science, which may help him go to renowned business schools, and a B .A. in philosophy (
"I was a dull student, but I like challenges …").
He enters general accountability and business administration.
"I was in command of files, including files about plants extracts, which were raw materials for the cosmetic industry. I started to sell them. However, the quality was not always right, never on the same level: it was not good. Thus, I decided to produce them, to take full responsibility to the ends …"
What is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.
With Alban Muller, in his mind
"Nature is elaborated, " he explains. "Its balance is complex, and the human species has had a very negative role on it. Our species did …