Ms. Johanna Wagner Founder, Upside Up

Johanna Wagner is an impact-driven entrepreneur and hotel management school lecturer. As she became passionate about hospitality at a young age when working as a waitress, she joined the IMHI/ESSEC MBA in Hospitality Management and specialized in hotel real estate and finance, along her experiences with BNP Paribas Real Estate,... read moreFour Seasons Hotels & Resorts and Covivio. Her various positions these last 16 years, combined with her lecturing activities. made her realize that the hospitality industry has the potential to become a model to foster a global change in the way organizations interact with society and the environment. In her current activities, ranging from hotel asset management to sustainability facilitation for schools and businesses or lecturing, she puts sustainability at the foundation of her value proposition.

Johanna's entrepreneurship adventure started in 2020 when founded Upside Up to support hospitality investors and operators on their journey toward more sustainability and she currently acts as Senior Advisor ESG for Extendam (leading European hospitality capital partner).

The same year she co-founded Join EDuC, an independent, for-purpose company, dedicated to the creation of an international sustainability accreditation for higher education programs (developed with the support of AFNOR) and Back to School for the Planet, a non-profit aiming at creating innovative learning experiences to develop sustainable business practices.

She strongly believes that there is no such thing as small change and tries to make all her business decisions and partnerships matter by focusing on people and sustainability.