Catherine Destivelle – Alpiniste

A Legend in Her Own Time

Catherine Destivelle is recognised and admired as the most adventurous and exciting female climber in the world today. Her daring accomplishments as a solo climber in scaling the most difficult and dangerous peaks without the use of safety ropes, support or back-up is legendary. Her passion and desire to conquer the most challenging mountain faces in the world satisfies her emotions and her thirst for adrenaline, keeping her at the forefront of climbing and ahead of her time.

Catherine Destivelle now shares her experiences and love of climbing with us.

“ Climbing is my first love and my favourite pastime – in the mountains, on cliffs, in competition, while travelling, anywhere in the world. For me climbing is an enterprise: I provide technical advice about mountaineering gear and give talks, I organise seminars for companies, publish books and produce films about the mountains. Whether you are mad about mountaineering or simply curious, just passing through or a pro, let me show you “my” mountains.“ Catherine Destivelle

Why invite Catherine Destivelle to talk to your company?

Corporate presentations

This extraordinarily brave woman is an accomplished speaker in both English and French. She gives inspirational presentations where she challenges and inspires her audience to re-focus their goals to achieve success by sharing her visions and startling achievements. Catherine powerfully illustrates with slides , video footage and films the necessary vision, belief and self-determination needed to stretch herself to her full potential.

Catherine Destivelle’s mountain exploits require meticulous planning, perfect physical and psychological preparation, and complete determination when it really counts. Even the preparations for a solo climb require a huge amount of teamwork based on mutual encouragement and shared attention to detail. Safety equipment, the lightest possible individual gear, physical training and targeted preparation are all part of a long process at the end of which Catherine Destivelle sets out on the ascent alone, responsible for every decision and for converting the project from an idea into reality, with absolutely no margin for error. As such, this sporting experience bears many similarities to life in business.

Catherine Destivelle always works closely with her clients to ensure that her talk meets their requirements.

She is brilliant at conveying her enthusiasm, her attention to detail, the pleasure she takes in her work, her ambitions and the “calculated risks” she takes.

Catherine Destivelle uses words like dreams, creativity, initiative, daring, safety, vulnerability, preparation, confidence, commitment, concentration, and cooperation to explain how she succeeds in the challenges she sets herself.

Example talk titles:

Reaching the top
The Spirit of Conquest
Dreams as Inspiration
From Vulnerability to Exceeding Expectations
Catching the Opportunity”,

Team Building Seminars

Catherine Destivelle organises climbing excursions or trips into the high mountains as part of seminars or conferences. These are not meant to be testing ordeals, but rather opportunities to find out more about ourselves, others and the world around us in a sociable environment. These unique, unusual experiences can play a major part in teambuilding.

Public Speaking

Catherine Destivelle presents photo stories and films of her achievements to illustrate her passion for meeting people and discovering faraway places. These “meetings” are for everyone – mountaineers, mountain-lovers and anyone else who is interested. The talks are followed by a question and answer session with the audience.