Building Trust in the Digital Age – The Perspective of Olivier Clyti, Chief Strategy, CSR and Digital Officer, InVivo, France
1. To begin, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us what led you to work in the cooperative world, particularly at InVivo?
Before being a cooperative man, I am first and foremost someone from the agricultural world who later transitioned into the service industry. I’m a farmer’s son and still very close to that world. I began my career in finance at a private family business, the Soufflet Group, which I left in 2001 to join a publicly traded company, Veolia. After 13 years, I returned to Soufflet as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Board Member.
In 2021, I actively led the sale of the Soufflet family group to the InVivo cooperative group. So, I’d say I came into the cooperative world somewhat by chance, but I found familiar values there—my father was deeply involved in Crédit Agricole and Groupama. The values of mutual aid, responsibility, collective interest, and impact for France’s farming sector, combined with solid governance, are some of the strongest assets of this model. It also offers the ability to take a long-term view and lead the way forward.
2. At InVivo, how do you concretely use digital tools to strengthen cooperation between your members or partners? Could you share a key example?
At InVivo, digital has long been considered a strategic priority—both for the group and for the 170 member cooperatives of Union InVivo.
For example, we developed the Aladin.farm e-commerce platform, which is used under the brand of about fifteen cooperatives and today generates over €300 million in sales, reaching tens of thousands of members. This platform is constantly evolving and benefits from the mutualization of the group’s various digital assets.
3. Trust is at the heart of the cooperative model. How do you integrate digital solutions at InVivo while maintaining trust, especially around data management?
Clear governance.
Simple rules.
Transparency — we explain, we say what we do, and we do what we say.
Another key is to demystify the topic of data—its value is created collectively, through mutualization. In other words, through cooperation.
4. In the face of global challenges like climate change or food sovereignty, what kinds of digital or international collaborations have you developed or envisioned at InVivo?
Climate change is a reality experienced daily by our cooperative member farmers and clients, but also by our industrial sites. Energy and water scarcity, temperature peaks, heatwaves, floods… and so many other issues.
Our concerns around our impacts are reflected in a set of group policies aimed at reducing or mitigating them.
Digital tools play a major role here:
They help us manage resource efficiency—optimizing water, energy, etc.
We also develop precision agriculture services that help reduce environmental impact.
And we’re building positive-impact offers that directly address key issues like climate and biodiversity.
5. Finally, what inspires you most in the current evolution of the cooperative model, and what message would you like to share with the next generation of cooperators?
My main message is a message of vigilance:
- Be careful not to lose the DNA of collective action
- Be careful not to lose the DNA of the long-term perspective
- Be careful not to lose the connection to the field, which enables foresight and adaptation
- Be careful not to lose the DNA of balanced governance
And all of this while maintaining dual performance—both economic and environmental in the broad sense.
This model has supported the success of many agricultural, industrial, financial, and insurance sectors. We must preserve its capacity to innovate and prepare for the future. It’s the responsibility of the cooperative model to lead the way.
When implemented effectively, it’s a highly performant model—history has shown us that. And today, we’re seeing other models begin to resemble cooperatives—take, for instance, Mission-Driven Companies, which also demonstrate that impact (in the broadest sense) creates value.
In short, I am convinced that our cooperative model is a model for the future.
