Daniela Boutsen could never have imagined the life she would come to lead when she was growing up as a young girl in West Berlin, her path restricted by the Berlin Wall and the general financial restraints of the time. Travelling was a yearly treat for her family, and it was almost never taken by plane.
Now, she calls the luxurious Principality of Monaco her home, travels in private jets are as common as car trips, and she heads a successful design company listing royalty, heads of state and the world’s elite among her clientele.
But every step of the way, Daniela Boutsen has been in complete control of her destiny, carefully carving out a path with the perfection and precision that her German heritage affords her.
To understand where Daniela Boutsen has arrived today, it is important to know where she has come from. Her love for arts de la table was born during an internship at one of Germany’s oldest porcelain makers, Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur in Berlin. It was here where this young professional dancer could apply her talent for art and keen interest in business, learning everything from purchasing and marketing to porcelain production and decoration.
At the age of 21, Daniela founded her first company – an events agency providing staff for major trade shows. The first client she landed was Volkswagen, an icon of post war West Germany and the world’s largest automaker.
“I was so nervous, they were all so old and grey, smoking cigarettes,” Daniela says of her first meeting with the group. “I wore glasses not because I had trouble with my vision but just so I could look older.”
She need not worry because within three years, Daniela had established the second largest agency in Germany. When she was contracted by Audi for a race car meeting, she met champion Belgium racing driver Thierry Boutsen. Her life was set on an unexpected new path.
“I had no clue who he was when we were introduced,” she smiles. “It took me a while to figure out that he was in Berlin with his private jet – it was inconceivable in my little world that you could even have a private jet. And the fact he was living in Monaco, I thought ‘Where is Monaco?’”
Monaco, as Daniela came to realise eight months later, was a far cry from the reunified German capital where she had strived to become a strong, independent young woman. “It was a bit challenging, because Monaco was all new for me, it was not my world. Today, I appreciate seeing a growing female entrepreneurial spirit here, but 25 years ago that was not the case,” shares Daniela.
When Thierry Boutsen suffered a serious accident during the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1999, he put the brakes on his racing career and focussed on his other passion – aviation. Recruited by friends like HH Frentzen, Michael Schumacher, Keke and Nico Rosberg to help buy and sell their private jets, and with a degree in engineering under his belt, Thierry created Boutsen Aviation with his wife. She was responsible for the backend while Thierry’s knowledge and charm were suited to the frontend.
They have since had four children, sold 380 airplanes and have the honour of being classified as the official private jet supplier of the Palace, first for Prince Rainier III of Monaco and now for Prince Albert II.
When Daniela was asked by a client to decorate two new Airbus through Boutsen Aviation, she was handed an opportunity to return to the world of design and arts de la table, to where it all began in that historic porcelain warehouse in Berlin.
“As I knew a lot about aviation and aircraft safety, I began to build my own company around my expertise in aviation and design,” says Daniela.
As a specialist in her field, Daniela’s business quickly expanded and she soon found herself decorating large new-build aircraft for the rich and famous. “Around 80% to 85% of my clients are heads of state, royal family members, or High Net Worth Individuals. There are very few design companies who are specialised in aviation. I even wrote my own engineering software for calculations etc, so it was really tailor made to aviation.”
After gaining solid experience in aviation, Daniela made the relatively “easy” slide to yachting, where her technical expertise and precision were greatly appreciated. “A yacht for a client is more their private jewel, while airplanes are their business tool. They are also more generous with their yachts and there are less technical restrictions in yachting. It is the same client profile but a different approach.”
Daniela moved from “loose” decoration to “fixed” decoration, then to deco refits. Over the past two years, she and her team have worked on everything from a 32-metre boat to an 80-metre yacht, a market that she enjoys because it is “short and intense”. They have just finished a major refit of the 68-metre Oceanco yacht My Luna B managed by KK Superyachts, in Port Hercules, bringing the unique artistic interior up to date while maintaining the integrity of the design.
Daniela’s team has grown to include a decoration and a design department. In addition to the headquarters and showroom in Monaco, they have a store at Nice Côte d’Azur airport inside the Business Aviation Terminal and a logistics centre for in-house quality control on all of their merchandise.
But still, the incredibly entrepreneurial, deeply committed Daniela Boutsen continues to expand her company. “Last year, we also started working on residential projects. I like to say that we are a nice hybrid between design and decoration. We can have full, 360° involvement in the entire process. We start with a white sheet of paper and follow through until a flower is put in a vase in the bathroom. Or, you can simply buy glassware from our showroom,” reveals the designer.
So, where does her inspiration come from? “My inspiration comes from artists like Wassily Kandinsky, who was great at explaining that a blank white sheet of paper is not just a blank white sheet of paper; there are proportions, dimensions, shadows…”
Most recently, Daniela’s blank white sheet of paper was a brand new 250 sqm showroom apartment at Le Winch complex on boulevard Albert 1er opposite Port Hercules. The subsequent tour I received (stay tuned for this story) revealed Daniela’s keen artistic eye and ability to combine opulence and simplicity, modernity and comfort.
Le Winch showroom apartment decorated by Daniela Boutsen
For someone who clearly has her finger on the pulse of design, I am intrigued to know what she considers to be the hot new design trends. “We are seeing a lot of new technologies involved in design now,” answers Daniela. “Design and technology were once separate, but they are much more integrated and it is becoming more important for clients. For example, all the technology we saw in aviation and yachts is now going into houses. It is quite an interesting process.”
Durable, sustainable materials are also becoming more important, Daniela tells me, as society considers its ecological footprint and responsibility to the planet. “I ask my team to look for sustainable materials, so we can propose wood for example that is sourced from sustainable cultivation practices. I see a lot of products coming onto the market and I see a mentality change happening, and I want to be a part of it.”
So, what’s next for Boutsen Design? “I would like to do hotels next… that is next level” she smiles.
It appears as though Daniela Boutsen still has a few more chapters left to write in her story.
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[caption id="attachment_13407" align="alignnone" width="640"] Andy Jack, Covington & Burling LLP Partner and Co-Chair Clean Energy and Climate Industry Group. Photo: CleanEquity Monaco[/caption]
ML: Can you tell us about your background and would you say you were socially aware growing up?AJ: I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised mostly in the Washington, DC area, I’ve been politically aware and was politically involved in my younger days. I went to college at George Washington University and majored in International Affairs.
I was interested potentially in joining the Foreign Service or the Intelligence Community but initially got into law school and became a corporate and securities transactional lawyer. Pretty much my entire career has been spent at Covington & Burling.
ML: You introduced the idea of the Clean Energy Group to Covington & Burling?
AJ: In the 2006/2007 timeframe, I began representing a company called Energy Conversion Devices that had several different clean energy technologies, which included an amorphous silicon thin film solar business and a solid hydrogen storage business. The firm also had the basic patents for a nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery, as well as a joint venture with Chevron to build batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles.
I began to take stock of all the different clients Covington had under the umbrella of clean energy, and concluded that it made sense for the firm to organise a Clean Industry Group. We started up in late 2008 and we now have about 85 of the approximately 1,000 lawyers in the firm who are devoting a fair amount of their time to working with clean energy clients within several verticals: solar, wind, biofuels, energy efficiency, energy storage and advanced vehicles.
ML: Did it take some convincing before Covington gave the green light to develop the Clean Energy Group?
AJ: Not at all. Covington is a special law firm. We are highly collaborative and part of our core culture is to bring together the right lawyers from all different practice areas to help clients solve not legal problems but business problems that involve multi-disciplinary legal solutions.
At the time, a number of law firms were beginning to evolve into creating industry groups as an overlay to what had been traditional practice groups. We at Covington had organised a Life Sciences Industry Group so the Clean Energy and Climate Industry Group was the second of the firm’s industry groups, but we have proliferated industry groups since then.
ML: What was your motivation in creating the Clean Energy and Climate Industry Group?
AJ: I saw at the time a number of macroeconomic factors that I thought were going to drive tremendous growth in the industry. And it’s an industry that is clearly capital intensive, regulatory and policy intensive, intellectual property intensive, international in scope and impactful on the world because it is bringing disruptive technology for positive change.
And looking at that landscape I realised that the kind of milieu, to use a cliché, is a perfect storm that lawyers and firms, like Covington, are effective at knitting together; regulatory, intellectual, public policy and legislation, dispute resolution and transactional lawyers, all within the same set of issues.
ML: How has the industry changed since Clean Energy Group was formed?
AJ: I think the arc is still positive and it’s driven by global macroeconomic factors that demand efficiency and ultimately lower carbon intensity of our energy infrastructure. One of the things we’ve seen in the last two years is a shift in the industry towards a much greater commitment by major global corporations to supporting the growth of renewable energy and the growth of carbon reduction.
ML: Is this commitment a result of COP21, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which took place in Paris?
AJ: Paris was meaningful but Paris was not, I think, what caused this shift. Paris was a culmination of efforts by governments and the corporate sector to realise that the world needed to move in this direction, but really corporations are motivated by what benefits the bottom line. They recognise that the technologies that make renewable energy have come down in cost and that efficiency gains that can be generated from clean tech, obviously, reduce costs.
ML: I read a quote where you said that the industry is now being driven by a combination of economic and business factors that aren’t political, regardless of the Trump administration and its policies.
AJ: Obviously we will have to see precisely what will happen, and the US is just one market. There are global political factors that are still favouring markets around the world, but I think that the US business sector, as well as state policies that are not affected by federal policy, will continue to drive this industry forward.
ML: What is a typical day for Andy Jack?
AJ: I wear many hats. Within the clean energy space, we divide the work into three different categories. There’s our transactional umbrella, which includes negotiating deals, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions or collaboration agreements.
Then there is regulatory and government affairs work, which is either advising clients on how to comply with regulations or helping clients to navigate regulations, as well as how to shape new regulations or new laws.
The third category is dispute resolution work, either arbitration or litigation, which can involve commercial disputes between parties or disputes between parties and government actors.
And wearing my hats, I’m a corporate transactional lawyer when I’m lawyering, but within the Clean Energy Group, I participate in all three of the categories, and spend a lot of time trying to help our lawyers in the firm to coordinate on matters to help clients solve problems.
ML: What is the key to helping your clients solve problems?
AJ: What makes it work is expertise in the law, creativity and collaboration among our colleagues here, and dedication to finding the best result for the client – understanding the nature of the client’s problem within the understanding of the industry in which they operate. It’s bringing together judgement and knowledge, in addition to legal expertise, that I think really sets us apart.
ML: And how did you become involved with CleanEquity® Monaco(CEM), and its co-founder, Mungo Park?
AJ: When CleanEquity® began, Mungo Park reached out to our former colleague George Frampton, who brought this to my attention, and we decided to give it a shot.
I heard rave reviews from my colleagues who’d attended, and they all said, “Andy, you really need to go to this and see it.” So I did, during its fifth year, and immediately understood what made CleanEquity® Monaco special and how it was different from many other venture capital conferences.
One of the things that Mungo and his team do spectacularly well is that they bring together a bespoke group of truly exciting and innovative companies every year to a venue that it is certainly nice to go to, Monaco. The venue lends itself to a level of collaboration and comfort of networking that is different from something happening in New York or Silicon Valley.
The other feature that distinguishes CEM is the investors; there are many corporate strategics that tend to participate, as well as impact investors and sovereign wealth funds, and very few traditional venture capital firms.
And so the conversations that occur tend to be with companies that are seeking to commercialise through a strategic partnership arrangement, or through a strategic exit, much more so than a traditional venture capital investment with Rounds A, B, C and D and then IPO.
Strategic collaboration agreements, that are not cookie cutter but bespoke deals, are one of the things Covington does a lot and does well, and the collaboration between a disruptive technology emerging growth company and a major corporation is always a very interesting transaction. We have succeeded in representing companies that have presented at CleanEquity® Monaco, in those kinds of transactions with major corporates, and we’ve also represented major corporates and transactions with CleanEquity® Monaco.
ML: Why do we need CEM?
AJ: I have not seen other conferences in a setting like this, where the quality of attendees and participants have a focus that is much more on commercialising these technologies with strategic partnerships.