Béatrice de Montille gives Merci Maman a helping hand

It is, in a way, his gift. In tribute to Kate and William, who celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary on Thursday, April 29, Beatrice de Montille launched a capsule of necklaces and bangle in solid gold. It must be said that the Duchess of Cambridge helped take off the personalized jewelry of the founder of Thanks Mom.

Even if Béatrice de Montille, a “Frenchie”, raised in Lyon then in Limoges, started in London in 2007. “When one of our necklaces was photographed around Catherine Middleton’s neck, Merci Maman had been around for seven years, but the Kate episode served as a launching pad”, remembers the 44-year-old entrepreneur, sparkling eyes as brown as her hair.

Paris, London and Berlin

In addition to this new collection, which is added to the 300 existing references, the mother of four children, returned to France four years ago, manages several projects. His Parisian workshop, where pendants, bracelets, rings, and other jewelry intended for a dozen European markets are hand-engraved, is moving, just to gain space to reach 350 square meters.

As for the London site, responsible for fulfilling Anglo-Saxon orders, and the marketing team based in Berlin, recruitments have increased the overall workforce to more than 50 people (for 6 million euros in turnover).

“He’s a captain. In addition to transmitting positive energy, she wants things to move quickly, so she makes quick decisions ”, her husband said of her, Arnaud de Montille. And this former City financier, who joined Merci Maman in 2013, to remember the years of salaried employment where his wife “Suffered from projects that did not come to fruition “.

Take care of your children and clients

It is especially her maternal fiber that seems to have created the entrepreneurial trigger in the one who refutes any perfectionism, preferring “To launch rather than to seek to achieve perfection”. Returning from maternity leave, the hiking enthusiast is refused part-time work. “For the wolf mother that I am, that meant too many sacrifices”, she says. In the process, a designer of birth gifts based in France rejects the idea of ​​sending her a baby chair to London. What convince her to take the plunge by creating an online store of “Personalized, pretty and affordable gifts “.

Another priority: impeccable customer service which, according to her, has helped Pippa Middleton choose her brand to spoil her illustrious sister at the birth of little George. “When I support project leaders, I advise them to look after their clients before seeking to raise funds “, explains the manager, also administrator of the Entreprendre Rhône Network.

It must be said that Béatrice de Montille’s commercial sense was not hidden far away. Daughter of an executive assistant and director of a home for the disabled, the youngest of five children “ won two francs six sous “ by selling the soles of the company taken over by his father.

Congratulated by Elisabeth II

“When I was little, I saw myself as a pharmacist, certainly because I have always wanted to do business”, tells this Edhec graduate who started at Danone, in France then in the United Kingdom, where she traded the French multinational for the American Del Monte. Caught by “The positive attitude of the English”, she stayed across the Channel for fifteen years. The opportunity to be congratulated by Elisabeth II in person, at Buckingham Palace, for having won a Queen’s Award due to the rapid international development of Merci Maman.

But Brexit, and especially its attachment to the capital of the Gauls, brought it back between Saône and Rhône in 2017. “In submarine, there was also certainly a desire to invest myself to enhance the strengths of our country”, says the one who, after earning her entrepreneurial stripes, hears “Acquire political legitimacy”. She has already been elected LR at Lyon city hall since June.