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This KEDGE Alumnus is bringing back the espadrille style sneaker by creating his own brand!
Alexandre Suermondt graduated from KEDGE Business School in 2006 had has decided to bring back the famous espadrille, the iconic shoe from the South-West of France. Three years later, the project has been a great success.
Hello Alexandre! To start with, tell us about your background: what did you study at KEDGE?
After I obtained my Bac, I did two years of prep school in Toulouse, then I joined KEDGE Business School. I specialised in Business Financing, even though marketing was my main objective I wanted to have a solid financial basis. J'y ai suivi une spécialisation Finance d'Entreprise, car même si le Marketing était mon objectif principal, je souhaitais avoir une base financière solide.
Tell us about what you did after school: what job did you have? What did you learn?
Once I obtained my degree, I went to backpack around Australia, to improve my English, visit this wonderful country...and find a job! After four months, I obtained a VIE position at Pernod Ricard Australia as Champagne Brand Ambassador Champagne: an incredible experience! After my VIE, I worked for six years as Zone Export Manager at Pernod Ricard Europe in Paris. After these great experiences that enabled me to work in marketing and sales, I decided to start my own company.
Tell us about Angarde, your brand. How did you come up with the idea and desire to become an entrepreneur?
At Pernod Ricard, we regularly launched new products in different countries: I found the launch strategies, marketing budgets, and distribution plans facinating. I dreamed up being able to do the same thing with my own brand. So I created ANGARDE with my sister in the summer of 2014, it's a sneaker brand inspired by the espadrille. We wanted to modernise the espadrille, which is from Basque Country, by making it water resistant, comforable like a sneaker but dressed up enough that you can wear it at the beach and in the city.
What are your objectives for the future?
The brand is present online and in around 100 mutli-brand stores. We hope to increase our retail exports (via agents or distributors) and develop our online presence in France (optimise our online sales). We are going to start working on fundraising in September 2017. Today, we are being incubated at the Arts et Métiers school, which is also helping us with bioplastic R&D; we are also part of the Au Dela Du Cuir network, the Scientipole Network, and the Entreprendre Paris network.
How did your time at KEDGE Business School help you become the person you are today, and how did what you learn help you launch your project?
At KEDGE I obtained a general education with a solid basis in sales, finances, and marketing. On top of this solid knowledge, I also gained a certain open mindedness and curiosity, notably thanks to the associations. At the time I learned about certain humanitarian organisations and now we are working hand in hand with the NGO Solidarités International: for every pair of shoes you buy, 20L of drinking water is distributed in Africa.
If you had one piece of advice for KEDGE Alumni?
Winston Churchill said these true words: "success is the ability to move from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm." Too many people are afraid to take risks because they are afraid of failure. However, failure is a chance, because it is the best way to learn. So, live from your passion, go for it and persevere everyday... That is what I tell myself every morning.
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