The women of Foodetective

“Surround yourself with creative women who would mention your name in rooms full of opportunities”

Today it’s International Women’s day, an occasion to celebrate and commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women all over the world.

Here at Foodetective we are proud to showcase a diverse staff that has a majority of women in it. To jump on the occasion of this important day we thought we would present to you each one of the wonderful women working in our team.

Let’s begin: here they go!

Veronica

Meet our CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, you will recognise her for her strong leadership skills, her long (used to be even longer) silky hair and her knack — dare I say fancy? — for organization and protocol!

Originally from Ecuador, she has lived in 9 countries up till now (Yes, you have heard it correctly, 9) the definition of an international woman. As one would figure with such a start, one of Veronica’s passions is traveling and getting to know the culture of the country she visits or, in her case, lives in. Further, while traveling she was able to fully grasp the importance of the hospitality industry and that is how she has gotten engaged with event management, tourism and now food and beverage, everything regarding hospitality culture really. She studied at the Glion Institute of Higher Education, where you’ll be sure to find many more of our beloved team members.

Our Veronica then settled in Madrid where she did a Master’s degree in Event Organization, Protocol and Business Tourism — a mouthful degree as well as an incredibly interesting one. She worked for a while as an event organizer, one of her biggest passions and something that she still finds time to do in her spare time.

One day, planning to catch up with an old friend who had just founded an interesting looking startup, she messaged on linkedin Edouard, an old friend from Uni and Co-founder and COO of Foodetective, who told her more about this project. Sooner than later, there she was in the team of Foodetective on her 3 month trial. Now here she is: Chief Marketing Officer adding a woman to the “C-level” at Foodetective. She brings a human touch to her hyper organised managerial style and was responsible for building the company and its culture from scratch creating an inclusive environment where everyone, women as well as men, feel incentivized, safe and excited to work in.

Armande

Our Parisian born and bred influencer and Sales manager, born in Paris and now based in Paris. However, you’ll have to keep your Parisian stereotypes at bay, refrain from imagining her holding a cigarette in one hand and a baguette on the other (or rather underneath her shoulder), she does not smoke and clearly armpits are not the right place for bread!

She is a movie soundtrack enthusiast and has a knack for languages — she simply loves learning them! She speaks French, English, Italian, German, a bit of Spanish and why not, even a little bit of Greek.

But we have not gotten to her biggest passion yet: food, it figures since she works at Foodetective. She has loved cooking and eating out since she can remember and that is why she opened her instagram blog: frenchfoodielover a few years ago… She is now a successful influencer sharing her culinary experiences around the world with the rest of us!

Graduated in hospitality from Business school in Paris, she has worked in many important hotels such as the Four Season both in Paris at the George V and in London in Ten Trinity Square, covering different positions all the while being an influencer on the side. An interesting fact about Armande is that she was first contacted by Foodetective to become a detective. She liked the company, the team and the atmosphere so much that just a month after she became part of the team, becoming and remaining today, the sales manager for France.

When asked, she is still as enthusiastic about her job as she was on her first day: it is something that allows her to unite all of her passions and her best qualities into one fantastic job: food, restaurant, hospitality, selling and talking to people.

Emily

Directly from the world of Miranda Pristley, high heels and fashion to the world of restaurants and food, we have one of our newest additions: Emily.

Half Italian and half Swiss, she graduated in Lausanne from the Hotel School EHL and then obtained a Master in Milan in Luxury and goods management.

After living in the most important fashion cities (London, Milan, new York and Paris) working for brands such as Kenzo, Max Mara, A.P.C.; she came back to Paris where she reconnected with an old high school friend: Andrea, our CEO. Andrea presented the project and Emily was instantly fascinated by it and here she is, at Foodetective, working as a Head of Onboarding. In practice it is a coordination role where she will take care of accounts, organizing and structuring them, making sure they are properly followed through from the moment they are signed.

When asked, she believes restaurant and fashion are worlds that can learn a lot from each other and often there is an overlap in lifestyle.

“People who like to go out to eat, and choose beautiful restaurants usually like to have that beauty and taste reflected in how they look. So in the end, we end up having most of the same consumers in the two different-looking industries”

She is excited to work in such a dynamic and young environment where people are open minded and hard working. From her part she will bring the glam, the aesthetics and the toughness needed and learned from her background in fashion!

Noémie

23 year old Graphic Designer from Geneva with a To Do list that would scare even the most advanced organizer. Ballet dancer, soon to be yoga instructor, occasionally a radio host and article columnist, with a passion for fashion (word pun intended), photography — and food photography — travelling (often solo) and eating out. If you are wondering where she finds the time, so are we.

A Creative through and through.

She came to our team through one of said hobbies and passions: restaurants. In fact, she was approached at first to become a detective. At the time , in 2020 the company was still growing and they arranged a meeting with Noémie to meet the new potential detective, one thing led to the other, Noémie mentioned her 4 year course and experience in Graphic Design while the foodetective team mentioned the vacancy for a Design job. The rest is history and Noémie has seen the company grow and develop over the years, with noticeable improvements in the design department!

Being able to work with the company since the beginning, she had the chance to fully understand Foodetective vision and perfectly translate it into concrete visuals. What she likes the most about her job as designer is the ability to represent the whole world of a brand into an element, such as the logo for example, and seeing how what she does impacts, not just visually, the entire brand. She is able to put her creative mind at use into many different medium: books, posters , flyers, animation, social media

“When I look back at where we started and then look at where we are now it is so impressive and so satisfying.. Sometimes when you work everyday, you don’t realise, and when you take the time to appreciate the progress is simply.. Wow”

Daria

Daria, born in Ukraine and living in Madrid: mother, wife, friend, passionate kitesurfer and UX/UI designer at Foodetective.

We have all been young and eager to discover the world, right? Well, the same urgency moved Daria when at 16 years old she decided to leave Ukraine and travel the world. She started working on cruise ships visiting, hosting and traveling… After a few years, she felt she needed a more settled lifestyle and moved to Madrid where she studied events management and where she met Veronica. All the while, both in her cruise ship days and during event management, her hobby was to create visuals, funny videos, posters, animations… but just for her friends, you know?!

At some point one friendly design project after the other she realized she was always craving for something more creative. She closed her event planning agendas, and followed her passion for design. And, as if starting from scratch wasn’t already hard enough, Daria became pregnant with her baby. That did not discourage her, far from so, and, with a bursting belly and computer at hand, she terminated her studies and graduated as UX/UI designer.

Then her friend from her first university days in Madrid: Veronica, freshly hired in a promising startup and aware of the vacancy position at Foodetective, presented the project to Daria and sold her on. A job putting masterfully together two of her greatest passions: design and the food and beverage industry. Once again, the rest is history, a wonderful professional website and a few apps later, Daria is UX/UI Designer and the go to for User Experience and interface Design as well as for any questions regarding the “looks” of our products!

Lamia

Parisian born and Swiss bred with a passion for Golf; dynamic, creative and very efficient Head of Sales in Switzerland. She is one the Glion School graduates crew with more than 5 years of experience in events, real estate and sales. She’s done it all.

Graduated and having in her back pocket a 6 months internship in Bangkok, Thailand, that she describes as really fun but very intense, Lamia settled down in Geneva. At that time, in Geneva a start up was growing in the search for new team members in order to make what was a great project an even greater reality. In fact, she found out about Foodetective and it was love at first sight. She became the first sales representative and saw the company grow from its very beginning to where it is now. She tells how it all started during the pandemic Lockdown, which was an added challenge, with restaurant closing and nothing being certain. The team powered through and Foodetective turned into the successful and fast growing company that it is today. Her job is still the Head of Sales for Switzerland and is, practically, to present to restaurants the Foodetective project.

“It is a new enticing challenge everyday, you need to understand the needs of your client and their specific characteristics. I love my job because you become accustomed with interesting new realities, you find out beautiful experiences and beautiful stories and you develop a personal relation with the restaurateur, the cook and the staff.”

Angelica

Our social media manager and content creator with a passion for Musicals. Name one, she can probably lip sync you all the words, especially if your choice is Hamilton. Angelica comes from San Gimignano, Italy, where her parents own a dreamy Agriturismo where they produce wine and olive oil and serve typical Tuscan dishes prepared with products from the farm. She graduated in Social Anthropology in London and then did a master in Philosophy of Food and wine in Milan. You could rightfully say she is a Foodie through and through with a fervent interest in culture.

In her spare time, she is also writing a book about the history of an Italian restaurant association (Le Soste) and is constantly on the move, traveling around Italy, teaching American and British students about art history. With her restaurant at home, a master in Philosophy of Food and wine and her traveling around — and eating out, of course,- you could rightfully say she has an inside knowledge on what a restaurant should be like and what it needs.

She got her job at Foodetective through Linkedin — which in Foodetective’s case, is clearly where dream team matchmaking happens — and is now taking care of the content related aspects of Foodetective writing articles, creating video, blog posts, taking photos and even translating materials. So look out for articles, posts and videos on our channel. There’s probably her hands behind it!

Mélanie

Our 21 years old Parisian, lover of Dramedy with a knack for instantly recognising English accents: whether they’re Australian, South African, Californian or Scottish, she got you! During her degree in Business at NEOMA in Rouen, she spent a year in Scotland for an exchange program organized by her university, a perfect occasion not only to improve her English but also, together with her passion for movies and series, to develop this hidden talent for accent recognition.

Notwithstanding the Scottish experience, she did not pick up the Scottish slang and still speaks English with the delightful and typical Parisian accent.

She arrived at Foodetective by chance but she certainly stayed on by choice. A year ago she was looking for a post-university internship and her brother who had done an internship at Foodetective created the connection and Mélanie began her internship first joining as a Sales and Marketing assistant and was looking after the french instagram account.
Now she is a full time data analyst handling the prospection and the data operation side of the business. In her opinion, it has been an incredibly rewarding experience to be able to see the evolution of the company through its success and achievements over the years. One of the things she loves the most about Foodetective is the startup environment: a small and close knit community of like minded people where everyone knows each other and is more than happy to collaborate, work together and help where help is needed.

Manon

Marketing Manager at Foodetective, based in Paris. She is only 26 and yet she has already been to 35 different countries. WOW, I know right?! Her parents both grew up in 3 different countries and believe that “traveling is the best education”, so they move around a lot. Following her parents legacy, she always has her next trip planned and her dream destination ready: Atacama Desert.

She is a foodie par excellence: always cooking and eating out, and your go to for restaurant suggestions, she is a Cocktail expert: perfect for your party nights. Fun fact: if she could only eat one food for the rest of her life it would certainly be pasta.

She graduated in Hospitality in Glion and has a Master in MS, Marketing and Creativity from ESCP Business School in London. She has a lot of experience working in restaurants and in the hotel industry, this, in addition to her passion for marketing and content creation, made her the best candidate for Foodetective.

As it often happens — especially when talking about Foodetective, a friend from University introduced Edouard (also part of the Glion club) to Manon and he presented Foodetective, still in its beginning stage in Paris, needless to say, she soon became part of the team.

She saw Foodetective from the beginning, growing and expanding into something really special and she is still as excited about it as she was on her first days.
“I’m still learning new interesting things everyday. Interacting with interesting and stimulating people. It’s fantastic!”

Magali

Magali, born in Ghent, Belgium and now living in Geneva, another one of the Glion graduates crew with a BA in hospitality and a Master in Entrepreneurship and innovation. A sound-cloud hidden Indie group type of gal with a passion for mountain hikes and a long-cherished dream trip to Tibet!

She comes from a background of psychology that she has studied in University and has worked in different areas of the health sector, she has also volunteered in homeless care centre.

She decided to stir her career into a new direction and follow her passion for the hospitality world. She found out about Foodetective through a friend from Glion who used to be a sales representative for Switzerland, he did his job so well that he inadvertently sold Magali her new job. She is now an intern working with Lamia in the Swiss Sales team, handling the calls, speaking with potential clients and arranging the meetings.

Her psychology day are not wasted though, as she says, “there’s psychology in every job”, in fact she was able to appreciate the atmosphere and dynamics of the team from a psychological perspective, noting how everyone is frank, transparent and optimistic creating a workspace environment that is incredibly pleasant to be in with a great team spirit.

“An international team where people from so many different cultures and backgrounds interact in a positive and optimistic manner, always bringing their A game and always ready to help!”