Thierry do Espirito

“The real pleasure is sharing what you know — and the emotions that come with it.”

A graduate of the École normale in Tours, Thierry do Espirito started out as a teacher — six years in the classroom, plus a carpentry certificate earned along the way, just for the pleasure of learning one more skill. Passing on knowledge, a method, a passion: that was already, without the name for it yet, the thread running through everything he has done since.

After a degree from Sciences Po Paris, he moved into the corporate world: two years at Banque Populaire as head of communications, then five years at Air France running central media relations.

In 1995, he left salaried employment for good. He built his own change-communication consulting firm from the ground up, working exclusively with major corporate clients, and ran it as an independent entrepreneur for over two decades — the same instinct that would later lead him to found and grow La Compagnie des Guides.

Alongside his consulting work, he wrote — a dozen published books, from professional essays to popular history: Pharaonique, C'est trop con, Les lettres interdites, Les Templiers pour les nuls. Teaching, building a business, writing: each one, in a different form, the same drive to pass something on.

In 2020, in the middle of lockdown, he founded La Compagnie des Guides, on a conviction that still holds true today: share the emotion. Teaching a skill, telling a story, revealing a cathedral — every time, the same belief: knowledge on its own is not enough. What you pass on is also what it makes people feel.

The rest of the time, he collects comic books, devours history books, and never turns down a good glass of wine.