From Korean adoptee to French minister and venture capitalist

Executive overview

Fleur Pellerin was adopted from Korea at six months old and raised by a working-class French family with no elite connections. She entered France's most prestigious schools, served as a government minister, and later founded Korelya Capital — a VC fund with seven unicorns.

The throughline is navigating environments you weren't born into. Entering new worlds requires shedding old identities, but that friction builds resilience.

Outsider status, handled right, is a durable advantage.

Growing up different in France

• Adopted at six months; parents came from modest backgrounds with no professional networks
• Racial difference at school was an isolated experience, not a defining one — parents made identity a non-topic
• Standing out as "different" produced resilience rather than trauma
• Entering elite schools meant learning entirely new social codes — how to speak, act, network
• Assimilation into elite environments felt "violent": leaving one class identity to adopt another
• The discomfort of feeling like a traitor to your origins was the hardest part of the journey

Navigating elite institutions without a map

• Graduated from business school at 20 — unusually early — which created time to pursue further study
• Discovered a deeper interest in macroeconomics and public policy than in finance or marketing
• Studied political science as a gateway into public service
• Observed how peers behaved and imitated — treated elite environments as a learning environment, not a destination
• Internships in Japan added cross-cultural range early in her career

Building the French tech ecosystem as minister

• First female and first Asian minister in a French government — appointment drew significant public attention
• Studied why ecosystems like Silicon Valley and Israel worked, then identified transferable ingredients
• Key ecosystem factors: favorable tax and regulatory environment, generational continuity of entrepreneurs becoming angel investors, physical spaces for idea exchange
• La French Tech brand created a shared identity — a way for dispersed founders to feel part of one community
• Mindset shift: in the early 1990s, no one at business school wanted to start a company; today a majority want to be self-employed
• Current challenge is not startup creation but startup scaling — building companies that can conquer global markets

From dismissal to founding Korelya Capital

• Being removed from government in 2016 was unexpected but brought relief after four and a half years across three portfolios
• Left with both the sense of having done good work and exhaustion
• Immediately pivoted to creating her own business
• Founded Korelya Capital in 2016; portfolio now includes seven unicorns — none were unicorns at time of investment
• Core differentiator: using her Franco-Korean identity as a bridge between Europe and Asia, helping portfolio companies enter Korean markets and find partners

Advice on building a career without a safety net

• Never approach networking instrumentally — don't identify useful people and target them
• People notice when they're being used; it damages trust and reputation
• Build a network by being genuinely yourself — anyone has interesting things to offer
• Treat new environments like a sponge: observe, absorb, adapt
• Dare to enter rooms where you think you don't belong — that's where unexpected things happen
• Chance and destiny can be helped along, but not forced