Sailor, adventurer, first woman to do a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, and bestselling author
Europe
France
Upon completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in France and England, Peggy Bouchet started working for Alcatel in Paris as an export financial engineer. She was 23 years old at the time. She resigned from Alcatel in 1997 to join a team sailing across the Atlantic Ocean because she wanted to gain more experience of the sea.
Upon returning to Brest, she invested in a rowing boat that met her requirements. After being recruited to a logistics management role by 3M France, she spent her weekends working on her project. Peggy Bouchet secured her first sponsorship by the end of 1997, and January the next year saw her resign from her job and create her own company to manage her expedition.
In March 1998, Peggy Bouchet left the Canary Islands and rowed alone for 79 days across 5,500 km, 10 hours a day. However, one day before arriving in Guadeloupe, her boat capsized in a raging sea with 7/8-meter-high waves. She endured nine long hours straddled on the hull of her boat. She was surrounded by four-meter sharks. Her last-minute rescue, however, ensured her survival. Peggy Bouchet became the first woman to row across the Atlantic and swore to do it again.
A short 18 months later, Peggy Bouchet left the Cape Verde Islands and arrived in Martinique in January 2000. Her accomplishments generated many partnership/advertising contracts with major French and international brands. These included the likes of Peugeot, Citroën, BMW, SFR, and Roxy Quicksilver.
Peggy Bouchet has over 500 talks to her credit in France and Europe and was a jury member of the 2016/2017 ” Prix des Femmes d’influence.” She was also the Godmother of “Prix des Voyages extraordinaires” and “Libres ensemble” events, which encourage curiosity, adventure, and entrepreneurial spirit. Peggy Bouchet gave a TEDX Talk at the London School of Economics in London in 2016 on the theme “Be an Adventurer In Your Life” and a talk at the plenary of the “Women’s Forum” in November 2018 in Paris on the theme “Be the bridge and dare!“.
A bestselling author, she is currently working on a new book and an original training program for young project leaders that focus on strong values such as entrepreneurial spirit, daring, courage, enthusiasm, will, and curiosity.
The recipient of various awards, she counts among these the following:
As a conference speaker, Peggy Bouchet has addressed companies, organizations, and universities in France and Europe. In her talks, she shares her values of audacity, resilience, managing risks, federating a team, overcoming failure and obstacles, and entrepreneurship spirit. She lives in France and speaks French and English.
“Not just existing but living even more in this gloomy climate”. Thank you Peggy Bouchet for this exchange full of wisdom and optimism with the teams of Zurich Insurance France. This crisis is our crossing of the Atlantic. invites us to reconnect with the essentials and resume them time of wonder".
“Encounters are like the wind, some touch your skin, others knock you down… The meeting and the moment of sharing and inspiration with Peggy Bouchet was and will remain a strong and significant moment in the life of our scale-up. Peggy amazed us, touched us, inspired us. A huge thank you to Peggy Bouchet for sharing with our entire team the story of her adventures and the values that you embody. The inspiring values carried by Peggy will help us turn the page on this terrible period that we are going through. Your testimony will live forever in the minds of all. Peggy is an ode to audacity, commitment, will, resilience, courage, exemplarity, so many values and points in common with the business world. Peggy is the proof by example that we are built on difficulty and that obstacles and adversity are useful to experience satisfaction.”
“Thanks so much for your extraordinary lesson in courage you gave to our team at the annual convention.”
“Again thank you for your innovative talk, full of human awareness, energy and humour. Your adventure shows how exceptional people are capable of moving mountains thanks to willpower.”
“Your talk to our 150 top managers remain a highlight for our company. You have led our team well beyond your finishing line, your victory over the Atlantic and into yourself in a world made of dreams which must be achieved, optimism, and willingness. I am sure your talk will remain for a long time in our mind like an example to dare what some consider as too difficult to be tempted.”
" Thank you Madam. I have very rarely met people who have accomplished exceptional things and who know how to share them in such a way that in contact with them you feel capable of realizing your most daring dreams. You have this gift and that is what our whole team salutes. We will therefore carry out our crossing full of your presence. Thanks. »
"Thank you Peggy Bouchet for this extremely rich and inspiring testimony and sharing of experience".