DATAMARAN
At GRI she led a technical team assessing corporate sustainability reports, then moved to represent the standard-setter in North America. That role exposed her to sceptical US corporates that did not yet see a strong business imperative for sustainability.“ It was a fantastic learning experience in how to connect sustainability to real business risk and opportunity,” Marjella explains. Those years convinced her that technology could accelerate change. By analysing large, unstructured datasets on ESG topics, she believed companies could build an objective business case compelling enough for even the most hard‐nosed executives.
“ That’ s what led me to found Datamaran – using technology to evidence which ESG issues matter most and get into C-suite rooms faster,” she says. The company name itself reflects that mission. Datamaran plays on the word catamaran, a vessel designed to navigate complex waters, and the data“ lakes” of unstructured information around sustainability.“ It was always about helping companies navigate the data lakes of ESG information – hence Datamaran,” Marjella notes.
In the 12 years since, the context for ESG has shifted dramatically. Sustainability moved centre‐stage as mainstream media, investors and regulators embraced the ESG agenda, before political pushback and fatigue brought a much more cautious tone. Marjella argues this volatility has only increased the need for robust, non‐ideological evidence.“ We have to make sustainability non‐emotional and non‐political – it’ s about building successful businesses in a changing world,” she says.
“ We talk about risk and opportunity rather than‘ sustainability’ – that’ s the language business leaders understand”
Marjella Lecourt-Alma, CEO and Co-Founder, Datamaran
How Datamaran frames sustainability as risk and opportunity At the heart of Datamaran’ s approach is a deliberate shift in language. Many standards bodies, Marjella suggests, become stuck at the level of key performance indicators, debating how best to measure a specific metric. Business leaders, however, want to understand the underlying drivers: why a topic matters, where it is emerging and how it affects fundamentals like revenue, costs or resilience. To bridge this gap, Datamaran built what she describes as a dictionary or ontology – a structured map – of sustainability topics.
Initially focused on environmental, social and governance issues, it has expanded to include geopolitical, cyber and technology trends that shape corporate risk. The platform continuously scans mainstream business sources, such as regulations, media coverage, reputational signals and peer disclosures to track how these issues evolve.
54 April 2026