My mother, Christiane, was already the daughter of the other. I don’t live with the pressure of the last name, because I admire my mother so much. I find myself blessed to have her in my life and to be able to consult her at any time. It is a luxury to have him by my side. And I’m not the only one with that name. I have cousins ​​who are in the business with us. We all share the values ​​of the company and we are all complementary. I can build on my strengths and bring added value around the table. Besides, if it hadn’t been for our family and our ties, I don’t know if we would have made it through the difficult times of the pandemic.
The business world is not easy. If you don’t use your strengths and your last name is part of it, it will be even more difficult. If our parents built the name and reputation of the company we know today, I think we have to build on it.
The concept of buying local, especially with our procurement approach, has always been part of what we did, but we did not communicate it officially. When we launched our hotel in Quartier DIX30, we used geothermal energy when no one was integrating it into their projects yet. And we continued to use it whenever possible. Currently, we reflect on each of our decisions. We don’t want to put the environmental burden on the shoulders of our guests by asking them upon arrival at the hotel “Do you want to offset your greenhouse gas emissions?” “. We want to have found ideas upstream to take on this decision-making responsibility. That doesn’t mean we’re always going to have the right answer! For now, we want to quietly install washable slippers in our rooms. We are also thinking about the famous water bottles. Maybe it will translate into water jugs, reusable bottles. We want to reduce our consumption of plastic, because perhaps at some point the guest will need a plastic bottle. We have already installed jugs that filter the water to improve the taste and quality of the water.
I think the starting point is to give girls self-confidence. What made me believe in myself? It is to have had a role model who gave me self-confidence and who believed in me. I never wondered whether or not there were girls in engineering. On the contrary. It was a source of motivation to say: I will show them that I can do these studies. And I would do the same journey for all that it brings me in my work. When you look at the construction and development of hotels, there is genius there. Whether it is the mechanics of the building, the structure and everything inside the building.
The motivation is not to advance my career. It comes when you get involved, when you meet people, when you develop your network. This is how you grow in your business. You have to look beyond the day-to-day work. The primary motivation is to find a cause that gives me fun. In philanthropy, they say that women in general don’t like soliciting donations, that guys are better, and people cling to that idea. But when people want to get involved in a cause, we have to encourage them to come, even if it’s not to collect donations. Women will be able to give advice, contribute to a discussion. Yes, we need to fund our organizations, but there are other things women can do to contribute.
