iDealwine is delighted to announce that Angélique de Lencquesaing, company co-founder, has been featured for the second year running in the 2020 Women Equity awards. This prize highlights the success the site has had, all the more so after such a particular and challenging year.
On Monday 18th January, Dunya Bouhacene published the results for the 11th edition of her national Women Equity awards, in which Angélique de Lencquesaing figures for the second year in a row. Angélique is co-founder of the company, which is now Europe’s top wine auction house and a global leader in wine e-commerce, celebrating 20 years of existence. Alongside Cyrille Jomand and Lionel Cuenca, Angélique brought iDealwine into the world after working at the stock exchange. Now head of the Marketing and Communications departments, she has made detailed market analysis and trend-spotting in the fine wine industry one of iDealwine’s exclusive specialisms.
2020: clear progress for iDealwine
The Women Equity programme is Europe’s first initiative dedicated to small and medium businesses that are growing and run or co-run by women. Now a keenly awaited announcement, the annual ranking was born of Dunya Bouhacene’s desire to put forward 50 businesses for their growth, whilst accompanying these businesses financially and operationally. The 50 names chosen this year made an average total revenue of €31.5 million and 30% growth on 2019. 59% of them also have international links, including iDealwine which has an office in Hong Kong and hopes to expand to the US.
The Women Equity prize is the fruit of meticulous work involving the analysis of 25,415 French businesses, with total revenues spanning from €4 to €150 million. 50 of them are then picked in the light of 5 key elements: growing revenue from 2019, average growth over three years, profitability, growth in value, and the average growth in gross operating surplus over the past three years.
This ranking has recognised iDealwine among its winners, bringing together a community of 650,000 wine lovers and 700 partner domains. Since 2015, iDealwine has seen a two-figure annual growth on average. In 2020, wine sales reached €33 million, almost half of which were exported, and this corresponds to a 15% increase on 2019.
The unstoppable force of the digital
This year, the Women Equity prize points to an acceleration in digital projects as well as a strong push to develop internationally. Whilst these initiatives have always been central to iDealwine’s activity, the year just gone has really brought their importance into sharp focus. We spent much of 2020 distilling all of our actions into the digital realm, pushing us to bring yet more of our processes online, including those involving sourcing, and to introduce our online Masterclasses, which are held via Zoom.
Women in wine
The only woman in this selection who works in the wine industry, Angélique stands out from the crowd, representing a sector that isn’t widely known for its feminine influence. As time goes on, though, more and more women are making a big impact in the mondovino, and iDealwine has almost total parity in the number of our male and female employees. In terms of our client base, however, women are still very much in the minority. We’re hoping that all of our efforts to open up the world of wine in general will increase engagement and interest from a wider public in time.
At iDealwine, we’re honoured for this prize to have been awarded to our co-founder which, as well as recognising the company’s excellent results, puts our fantastic team in the spotlight.
