Women on Top: Mygwork Meets Criteo’s Camille François-Nienaber

Camille’s story begins with an international background. “I was born in Singapore, and raised in the Philippines,” she recalls, “before moving to France to spend most of my childhood there being raised by my mother, who is South African.” In her eyes, it was this blend of cultures and experiences that shaped her upbringing and led her to feel attached to no specific background – rather, partaking in a mix of identities. Whilst Camille was grateful for the circumstances she grew up in, she admits that in some aspects there were restrictions. “In terms of sexual orientation, it was very binary living in France at the beginning of the 2000s. I never grew up with the feeling that it was okay for me to be me.”

This led to feelings of shame – Camille shares that her first romantic experiences were with girls, and yet she felt the need to bury it; that it was something wrong that had to be pushed away. At the same time, a lack of bisexual representation meant she also felt isolated from the gay culture in her life. “I couldn’t look up to the gay people around me because I wasn’t gay. I liked boys – and therefore, I must be straight,” she says. When she tried to expose herself more to LGBTQ+ content, she felt the need to have to suddenly “purge” it with other content instead, to escape what she had exposed herself to because of the shame. This continued through her teenage years, until her early 20s.

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Criteo is a proud partner of myGwork, the LGBTQ+ business community. Find out more about job opportunities here.