Carla FRIER

Thanks to her parents working abroad, she grew up by the sea, plying the coasts of Senegal and South Africa before moving on to the Comoros and Mayotte islands and then the Coromandel coast of India.

A pretty good student, Carla moved to France after high school to study literature in a ” preparatory class ” (top major French school), which led her to Sciences Po Strasbourg, specializing in European politics and public affairs. During her studies, Carla took a gap year in Cape Town, South Africa, where she worked as a volunteer in a social incubator on issues of food security and sustainable development.

After completing her Master’s, she volunteered for Surfrider (NGO for ocean protection), then took on a public affairs internship on fisheries issues, before becoming a parliamentary attaché for a senator in French Polynesia. The ocean and the blue economy are now at the heart of her missions.

In 2020, she took part in a wide-ranging fact-finding mission for the French Senate on the National Strategy for the Deep Seabed, for which she consulted various NGOs, government officials and companies, including a certain company called ABYSSA.

There was an immediate bond with Jean-Marc Sornin. So much so that the contact continued beyond the mission, with both keeping a close eye on the other’s progress.

After Polynesia, Carla left the Pacific Ocean for the Indian Ocean, joining the Consulate General of France in Pondicherry as economic officer. There, she followed the Franco-Indian roadmap on the blue economy and ocean governance and honed her expertise on maritime issues and international Indo-Pacific relations.

And then, in early 2023, ABYSSA took off. The company now needed to surround itself with new talent to ensure its development and achieve its ambitions. Carla was the obvious choice.