Viviane de Beaufort, founder
and academic director of the EAF Women Entrepreneurs program at ESSEC,
and
professor in European and comparative law, together with Diana Derval,
course
leader of the ESSEC program, lecturer in market research and marketing
strategy, and President of DervalResearch, identified the secrets of
successful
European women entrepreneurs:
management, mentoring and
motivation!
Women who
become entrepreneurs fall under one of three categories, shares
Professor de
Beaufort, who carried out a study on European women entrepreneurs in
2007 under
the aegis of the Women’s Forum:
- Generation
Y: young women with an average of
3 years of professional experience and a solid amount of training who
deliberately step out of the system and assert their autonomy.
- Generation
X: mostly college graduates with excellent track records in
business, who
hit the “glass ceiling” and must create their own opportunities for
advancement; they capitalize on their experience and their professional
networks and are in need of training that focuses on transferable
management
skills.
- The “forgotten”:
often unemployed or underemployed, these women need training that will
teach
them the fundamentals of management and help them overcome the age
barrier
through networking and coaching. They create businesses to create jobs
for themselves.
Management fast-tracks and on-going mentorship are particularly pertinent for all groups, according to Professor de Beaufort, as they help ambitious women overcome internal and external obstacles. Women in all of the groups face the usual obstacles: self-censorship; the fear that life and family obligations will be adversely affected by the effort required to start a business; masculine stereotypes of entrepreneurs that make it tougher for women to succeed because they have to “prove themselves.”
-
A’ Generation X’ Women
Entrepreneur
with Flair
Brigit Mettra is
one of the
many successful ‘Generation X’ entrepreneurs who have participated in
the EAF (‘Entreprendre
Au Feminin’) Women Entrepreneurs program at ESSEC Paris-Singapore
Business
School since it was started up in 2008.
Brigit was a former trader with a flair for luxury and design.
She
took the 9-day program and turned her idea into a winning brand: La
Favorite.
La Favorite designs and manufactures luxury
furniture and accessories for VIPs,
Very Important Pets. Her defining creation is the Sofa O’ – an
egg-shaped sofa for distinguished dogs. “Brigit delivered with Sofa O’
the
right sensory mix in terms of color, texture, and shape, and she quickly
won
over both pets and owners”, highlights Professor Derval. La Favorite target customers are wealthy
households
and luxury resorts; a typical customer is an elegant woman in her
forties,
well-educated, who enjoys contemporary art and, of course, pets! She
loves
white and considers Sofa O’ a work of art – with a Dali-twist.
Brigit is proud of
having
created a brand from A to Z. Her
Sofa O’ required 8 months of R&D. “Our first sale with the luxury
Parisian
hotel Le Meurice was a high point in the firm’s development,” she
says. Brigit anticipates customers’ needs, forever seeking out new
natural
and recycled materials. “Our know-how is based on our understanding of
the
market environment.”
Brigit is
results-oriented,
listens to others, will take advice and sometimes change her mind. But,
she
confirms, “I make the final decision on my own”. She is demanding and
never
loses sight of her objectives. Brigit is now expanding the brand
internationally as new opportunities are increasingly coming from the US
and
from Asia.
- ESSEC EAF
Women Entrepreneurs Program, contact Nathalie Simonet, phone + 33 1
34 43 32
47, Email : [email protected]
- La
Favorite: http://www.lafavorite.fr
- Derval, D.
(2010) The Right Sensory Mix: Targeting Consumer Product Development
Scientifically. Heidelberg: Springer.
- De Beaufort, V. (2008) “L’ Entrepreneuriat au féminin, la creation d’entreprise pour briser le plafond de verre?" Les cahiers de l innovation Les Echos, Jun 2008, p. 6-7.:Téléchargement article_les_echos_la_cration_dentreprise_pour_briser_le_plafond_de_verre_viviane_de_beaufort1.pdf
- De Beaufort,
V. (2006)
"La création d'entreprise au féminin dans l'Union européenne",
Echanges, Nov 2006, Vol. 1, Numéro 237, p. 59-62.
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