Skip to main content
Back
Popular Pages
Educators
Businesses
Learners
About
  1. Influential Leaders
Influential Leaders

Stéphanie Gateau

Founder and CEO, International Strategy and Handiroad
Recognition Year(s): 2025
Area of Impact: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
School: Audencia Business School
Location: France

Summary

Stéphanie Gateau has overcome significant challenges, including a rare neurodegenerative disease, Asperger’s syndrome, and personal hardships. Despite these obstacles, she founded International Strategy SC, a successful consulting firm dedicated to helping French companies expand into global markets. Later, Gateau launched the Handiroad app, a startup designed to combat exclusion by improving accessibility for people with reduced mobility, and Exportunity, an incubator focused on supporting international startups. Both ventures earned her international recognition. She is now an outspoken voice on disability legislation, a regular advisor to the French government, and a recipient of numerous awards for her work in strategy and business incubation.

Entrepreneurial Impact

Gateau is not only a business leader but also an advocate for diversity and inclusion. Her work is rooted in the concept of universal design, which prioritizes accessibility for everyone, and her efforts are a testament to the power of resilience, innovation, and a relentless drive to make the world a more inclusive place.

Gateau’s entrepreneurial journey began at the age of 21 when she attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with a British IT company. She excelled in helping foreign companies navigate the French market through intercultural management. This experience laid the foundation for a career dedicated to breaking barriers, especially for disabled workers, women in tech, and female founders.

While working for a consulting firm, Gateau realized that traditional strategy reports were ineffective. In 2009, she launched her own company, International Strategy SC, which focuses on practical, human-centered solutions. As a woman with multiple disabilities, she faced numerous accessibility challenges, such as navigating airports and finding wheelchair-accessible accommodations. She identified a critical gap: There was no one-stop solution to help people with mobility issues plan their travels efficiently.

Her lightbulb moment came when her five-year-old son became frustrated with pushing her wheelchair, and Gateau then suggested an app like Waze for people with mobility-related disabilities. This simple but profound idea became the foundation for Handiroad, an app designed to make mobility easier and safer for people with disabilities. Gateau’s personal experience with mobility challenges, combined with her passion for equality, drove her to create a solution that would serve not only people with physical disabilities but also the elderly, parents with strollers, and others facing mobility issues.

Handiroad goes beyond mapping accessible routes; it fosters a community of users who help each other by reporting obstacles and sharing experiences. Whether by helping grandparents visit their grandchildren or enabling disabled individuals to participate more fully in society, Handiroad empowers people to reclaim their mobility.

In addition to Handiroad, Gateau is addressing digital inclusion and cognitive bias in artificial intelligence through her role as an ambassador for Impact France. It is the first movement of French business leaders who put ecological and social impact at the heart of their companies.

Gateau’s entrepreneurial spirit and dedication have earned her numerous recognitions, including La Poste Groupe’s 2024 Women in Digital Technology Award, a spot on Maddyness and Ayming’s list of the Top 30 Handitech/Sportech Personalities, and second place in a competition for global inclusion in tech with 114,000 female founders from 180 countries. Handiroad has also been selected for Résidence d’Accélération Startup’s 9th edition.

Despite her achievements, Gateau remains focused on the future and is driven by a mission to continue challenging societal norms and promoting inclusion for all.

Additional Information