Business and entrepreneurship have no gender. True, but hard to believe? A humane enterprise is defined as one that demonstrates innovation, and sustainability, and fosters a corporate culture centred on humans, empowerment and engagement. No rule in the business book says anything about business being done by men alone. The rules of the game are the same for everyone.
However, due to the traditionally patriarchal system that has been prevalent in society for ages, it is tough for many of us to trust women-led businesses. And although there are some traditionally male or female businesses, stereotypes are now fading as more examples emerge of inspirational women leaders, especially in tech and service industries. Interestingly, the biases start from home where kids see and unknowingly slip into gender-based roles. These notions then get carried forward to their professional life.
Raised in a family of entrepreneurs, with a majority of women, Patricia Stoeckel experienced gender-neutral parenting even before it became a trending term. Her parents treated their children exactly the same, without any differences between her brother and her sisters and herself. They had/have still the same level of expectations. No stereotypes. “I am not keen on the “woman entrepreneurship” approach; I don’t agree with gender separation in business. Probably my upbringing helped me in my personality because it is first also a question of education and values. I dare to work, I dare to create, I dare to try, I dare to fail, I dare to succeed, I dare to say no …. I have never been facing a barrier in my life because I am a woman and I share this with great pleasure, because probably men around me gave me the chance, the trust and the energy to progress,” asserts Patricia.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology are unique, feels Patricia as they are not judged by being started by gender X. They are and must be evaluated by innovation brought to market, the team with a good background (their talent, experience, passion, adaptability), return on investment, competitive advantage and many other things that define a good business. “So whatever gender you are, it will be all about uniqueness when it comes to developing a business. That is why entrepreneurship has no gender. It is also about a great balance between your personal life and your professional life. And for this, we need to be able to disconnect, we need to be well organized and to have good people around us. And finally, I must say that practising sport is ideal to let off steam and to get re-energized,” she explains.
The Professional Journey
Patricia is a Digital, Business-oriented and data-driven Executive leader (C level) combining strategy and operational execution with +20 years of experience in (e)commerce area (cross channels and online/pure player), both at the global and country level.
Coming from a family of entrepreneurs it would have seemed to be the obvious choice to continue in her family’s footsteps and work within the business. However, she decided to trace her professional path externally and through multiple experiences. Patricia began her career in consulting at KPMG as a Consultant and then as a Retail Manager. Consulting experience in one of the highly regarded companies offered her valuable experience, with crash courses in how a company or an industry works, in what are the best-in-class processes. She spent 6 years, learning a lot from company to company and travelling a lot. Then, from listed companies (Saint Gobain) to family-owned groups (Louis Delhaize), she held various management positions in Strategy and Transformation. Adept in agile organizations, she joined the Veepee group in 2015, the largest European digital outlet e-commerce company, where she integrated the Executive Committee and created the Transformation and Innovation department. She led a large-scale transformation program, fostering organization & business performance and supporting profitable growth development through digital business, data, technology and agility, product management and innovation. Since 2019, she is the CEO of Veepee.ch (ex-eboutic.ch) in charge of the development of the Swiss and Liechtenstein market. She is also a Foreign Trade Advisor and Board member of the International French ICC & Board member of the Swiss-French ICC.
A Passionate Leader
Patricia is passionate about (e)commerce; has developed an appetite for new technologies and loves to explore the mysteries of (e)commerce with customer satisfaction as her spearhead. Putting the customer first and creating a positive, seamless and ‘woah’ experience is her mission. To her, providing a positive and one-of-a-kind customer experience allows a company to stand out from others, leading to acquiring and retaining more customers. A customer is no longer just a number or a name on a receipt. Instead, customers are empowered, connected, and engaged consumers who have a voice in the company’s strategy and management.
Patricia has seen the Retail industry evolve for more than 20 years. Retail is unique, she feels, perhaps more than any other industry, retail is ubiquitous, complex and ripe for disruption. It is a world defined by trends — both internal and external and therefore is a highly competitive and leading innovative market that forces you to keep the leadership and always be at the forefront of innovation – therefore digital combined with technologies are driving the development while always putting people at the heart.
Growing up in an atmosphere where working hard and solidarity were cardinal values, Values and Culture have turned into the pillars of her working style. Patricia is convinced that a company that aims at leading the market by growing higher and faster than its competitors, needs to focus on
- Culture and people
- Agility and innovation
“All is about people” and as Peter Drucker said “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – this is exactly the way she is managing her team and developing her business.
First with democratic and participative leadership, she wants her team to participate and to be part of the journey. She established a low power distance because she trusts her team. “Trust is key in collective work. By sharing the responsibilities, I allow the team to be creative and performant, always being solutions and results-oriented. The How Yes is much more important to me than the Why Not,” she explains.
Patricia also has a strong value of belief: “Everything Will Be OK in the End. If It’s not OK it’s not the end” and of course of empathy: “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own. You should not judge; you should understand.”
She embraces the change every day and encourages her team to do so. Because nothing is granted, and nothing is as permanent as change. She prefers transformation and movement to inaction. She is convinced that opportunities are part of the development and improvement of people and the company. For this, being kind but demanding and allowing risks, thanks to boldness and determination is her mindset.
Makings of a Diverse Organizational Culture
Patricia believes that diversity and inclusions are core values and we absolutely need to champion them in our organization and culture. Fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion of people from different backgrounds, lifestyles and perspectives is exactly what today’s businesses must do to compete on the global stage. She values the diversity of ideas and people. True excellence requires that each individual be able to work and learn in an atmosphere of respect, dignity, and acceptance.
“It is about promoting ‘cognitive diversity’ because people who think differently blend perspectives for stronger collaboration, problem-solving and innovation. Furthermore, diversity and inclusion increase talent retention. I strongly believe that diversity and difference make us stronger. I respect and seek out inclusion of differences, as a cultural priority, allowing open conversations and walking the walk, she says.
Dealing with Challenges
Life is full of challenges. But it is the steps you take to overcome, move around, or transform them into opportunities that give you strength. We learn a lot every time we fail and we should never view our challenges as a disadvantage. Patricia feels it’s important to understand that our experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of our biggest advantages because she strongly believes that we succeed in times of adversity. Resilience is key and she supports her team in the right to make mistakes.
We are constantly faced with the challenge of leading change within our organizations and questioning ourselves. It’s a complex task that requires strategic thinking, effective communication, and thoughtful actions. To bring a concrete example, when she came to Switzerland, taking over a new team, in a new country, with a new language, and a new culture was for sure a big challenge for her: big but interesting because it was a great time for questioning and adapting, for getting the hang of the way of working, for listening and involving the teams. Communication as well as the ability to understand and not judge, to adapt and not copy, to listen and not impose was key to overcoming the challenge.
Metaverse and Marketing Strategies
Innovation is key and technology is at the heart of retail business. Consumers are more and more tech-savvy and hyper-connected – on the other side, the retail sector is booming in terms of innovative and valuable start-ups that are created each year.
The retail industry has seen a fast-paced change from bricks and mortar retail to online shopping experiences and we continue to see brands explore innovations.
Talking about Metaverse, Patricia concurs that as we move further into a digital world, it’s important for brands to focus on creating emotionally appealing retail immersive experiences for customers. In the metaverse, this means using sight and sound to create a space that feels as real as possible. With the metaverse, retailers can provide their audience with a similar experience to a real-world mall, where customers can converse, play, exchange content, discover, engage with brands and make purchases virtually. Your business becomes an always-on journey that shoppers can engage with in bigger and more immersive ways that can truly expand the customer experience.
“Metaverse enables to bridge the gap between physical and digital retail experiences, with a lot of benefits for brands as well as for customers. So, for sure we will need to adapt our marketing strategy to integrate this new world. Metaverse is a goldmine for growth marketers because it is purely data-driven. The virtual world is built around data, which makes a lot of room for growth marketing. And this will help us leverage engagement and retention, but also to reach a much larger audience,” she explains.
Current Challenges of the Industry
The market is witnessing an extraordinary digital transformation led by major technological innovation but also driven by constantly improving and demanding expectations of customers. Patricia suggests we can focus here on 3 major challenges among many others (pricing, supply chain, data, cybersecurity, …):
- Enhancement of the customer experience: the pandemic has transformed the way we live, work and – of course – shop.
- We need to take an omnichannel approach: Whether online or in-store, we need to offer seamless customer experiences by creating seamless engagement no matter where you interact with customers. We have to activate customer data for effective personalization because customers today expect personalized experiences and interactions. This is true across generations, but it’s especially crucial for younger shoppers (Gen Z). The challenge is unifying customer data across channels and sources to create complete customer profiles with behaviours, preferences, and predictive attributes.
- Generative AI is a real game changer in the retail industry: it can generate new and original content such as images, videos, audio, text, and music. Personalized product recommendation, supply chain optimization or even price optimization are concrete examples of how AI will leverage retail operations.
A Sustainable Business
Sustainability becomes the thread that weaves through every business. It is a “mandatory” change with the new and rising expectations of consumers, investors and regulators. Patricia and her team have to be committed to responsible practices and concerned about environmental, social and societal issues such as promoting second-life products and a circular economy, managing their environmental impact and promoting their inclusive business model
- Offer: whether it is local production, eco-designed, recycled or second-hand products
- Packaging: more eco-friendly, more adapted in terms of size
- Transportation: optimize full charges, boost click and collect, and adapt deliveries schemes without pushing on a same-day delivery that is really costly in terms of carbon footprint
- Social commitment: good quality of life at work, inclusion and diversity,
Living Without Regrets
Patricia loves her job. She has no regret about what she has done in the past, even no regret about tough decisions she had to make or even mistakes she made – because this is part of her learnings. “We all learn from mistakes. Each time I was thinking that I could have done better, I always adapted the path very quickly. To me, there are no benefits to having just regret. Instead, we need to be resilient, rechallenge and adapt as often as required. I fear stagnation, I embrace changes.”
Patricia has two favourite quotes that drive her life:
“Carpe Diem” because life is short, so we need to seize all the opportunities every day with love and kindness.
“Whatever you want to do or dream, you can do. Begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it” – anything is possible and a great team can achieve great things with large and open diversity of thinking. We need to dream big!
Message for budding entrepreneurs:
First, a big Bravo to all our budding entrepreneurs because it’s not an easy path. Not easy but so exciting!! Our economy and our society need great entrepreneurship to build the future. I am an active Foreign Trade Advisor and Board member of the International French ICC & Board member of the Swiss-French ICC. And therefore, I am promoting the start-up ecosystem as well as I am supporting the scaling up companies.
Being an entrepreneur is first a mindset. To put it in a nutshell, the 5 most important things for an entrepreneur are :
- Be ready to speak up and be bold
- Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. Bring humanity into the conversation
- Be curious and keen to learn – show humility and empathy and be creative
- Don t give up, build resilience, it will pay back
- Create the opportunities – this a great way to step up and show the difference you can make
Quote: “Everyone Should Work Retail Once in Their Lives because Retail surrounds us in all of our lives – It’s an emotional, demanding environment where innovation is key”
