On International Women’s Day, we thought we’d give you a little insight into all the women, that create the success of Suzanne in France.
Suzanne, as some of you may know, founded the business in 2012 and for a long period worked exclusively by herself. Over time, she realised that she needed to take on additional people to meet the demands of the business.
However, she wanted to be sure that the same level of client service and care continued. It was imperative that her business ran in the same manner since its inception. In Suzanne’s words “we take the colour purple very seriously here!” She truly believes a well looked after team provides for a great service to our clients and I am sure you will agree.
Suzanne was fortunate enough to meet Aurore (incidentally she sold a house to her!). They struck up a friendship and Suzanne came to learn of Aurore’s extensive experience and expertise, in managing operational systems and her organisational skills – which have since proved invaluable. Aurore manages all the day to day administration and technical side of the office. In addition, she is the first person that many see when then come into the office. She also makes the best mince pies in the world. EVER. She has ridiculously beautiful handwriting and can create a password that an FBI agent would have trouble hacking.
Caroline is our native Dutch speaker and is multilingual. She is able to show our international clients our many properties but in addition, Caroline has extensive coaching and management skills. This has also proved invaluable in discussions surrounding new systems and best practices. Caroline is calm, empathetic, diplomatic and extremely thoughtful. She brings a taste of Holland back to the office on a regular basis – be it Christmas Chocolates with hand written rhymes, the best Oliebollen and has some seriously funky trainers that are so cool they are named after her “Hoffman’.
Manon joined our team in October 2022 and fitted in with ease due to her dedicated, committed and easy going manner. She speaks fluent English with her charming French accent and, as you would come to expect from a native, she effortlessly wears her scarfs well whilst chopping back brambles to access a property. She is also able to remain calm whilst entering some eerie derelict properties. In fact, she is the first in line to tackle such properties. She is always a good sport when it comes to being involved with the social media side of things. Such as, twirling a brolly on the door step whilst not raining, this is met with a nonchalant shrug of “okay, as you wish”.
Speaking of Social Media – enter Natasha who joined the team in September 2022 to manage all our social media platforms, write articles and create engaging content for our followers. Much like the fast pace of social media, Natasha enters the building like a whirlwind. Her positivity and energy are infectious and she can always bring a smile to our faces. In fact, she manages to take the best photos as we are normally laughing at her latest antics. We often put our purple Chinese Lucky cat on the “Natasha setting” which is super fast to represent her presence and the amount of talking she does!
Sue is part of the double act which is Sue and Tony. She has revamped our office and picked the perfect shade of purple. This is the same colour as the Cadbury wrappers in case you are wondering. Sue is chatty, bubbly and makes the best cup of tea. Not only that she is an exceptional cook, recently cooking the whole team a fabulous Indian meal. She has a wonderful eye for detail and decoration. She often upcycles old furniture pieces and creates something beautiful.
So there you have it, our all woman team at Suzanne in France.
We would also like to give a shout out to the men in our office. Tony, as mentioned above, who loves to rip things out and renovate alongside Rex, who is a perfectionist. Listening to them both chat during the day is like listening to a comedy double act. Rex is also a fully qualified chef and will always have a 3 course meal on our monthly lunch outings as “it would be rude not to” .
Finally, out of sight but not out of mind, is Leo – Caroline’s partner, who is involved in some recent exciting developments, bringing his business expertise to the party and which will be revealed at a later stage. He is also very good at regional British accents, despite being Dutch and can give Natasha’s Croydon accent a run for its money all day long.
Happy International Women’s Day from all of us here, both men and women at Suzanne in France.
