Diane Nuteau : communications expert aiming at Empowering Entrepreneurs

Winner of the preceding edition of JCI Young Creative Entrepreneur Award 2018, Diane Nuteau, Communications Specialist, is an epitome of innovation and creativity. She is someone who is ready to go the extra mile to help her clients to achieve their vision. A hardworking woman who is a true example of perseverance and commitment! 

Diane Nuteau’s won the heart of the jury for her innovative concept “The Creative Brainstorming Session,” which is a marketing and communication strategy for startups and entrepreneurs. She reveals that the idea is inspired from a Scandinavian business approach as well as her own experience in Communications. “The objective is to empower entrepreneurs and startups during my session by providing knowledge on various strategies which can be applied to their business. The sessions are VAK-friendly, meaning that they are visual, auditory, interactive, wired to make you think and process information differently. I use mainly analogue tools in the sessions in order to foster focus and creativity among all the participants! One-day session may last up to eight hours.” 

Via this innovative service, she is driven to working closely with her clients to understand their vision and goals, aligning these goals with a strategic marketing and communications plan that fits the Mauritian context. The soft launch for her activities was in May 2018 and the services were available since August 2018. She confides that she loves to work with teams to help them collaborate in order to have a clearer vision on the strategy, project, idea and concept to develop in their organization. “I have always loved working with people and found myself very often leading teams. Since an early stage, I had been trained to use a methodology for thinking, processing information and sharing this information visually to teams.”

On winning the young and creative entrepreneur, she says, “It is really nice to win an award, a recognition for the concept. I need to work harder! For now, I am looking forward to working with teams from diverse industries during the creative brainstorming sessions.” 

She recalls that a friend once encouraged her to teach this thinking process and help others in business. After much research, followed by Meta Coaching courses, she got the courage to create a service which would help as well as assist entrepreneurs and startups with key tools to help them succeed.

I have always loved working with people and found myself very often leading teams."

Additionally, she indicates that her target market includes entrepreneurs, SMEs and startups.  “Established organisations may also find value in such services to motivate their teams, induce them to collaborate, achieve strategic alignment and find consensus. I provide one-to-one sessions as well as team sessions going up to seven people maximum and we also provide follow-up sessions to assist during the implementation phase.” 

Her entrepreneurial journey  

She dived into the entrepreneurship world following her knowledge, passion and her personal attributes to do something new and innovative. After studying in South Africa, she worked in diverse and challenging environments. Her experience evolves from working at an African organisation focused on Internet Development and allocation of IP addresses in Africa where she has travelled for several missions in the continent, to Public Relations and Advertising Agencies in Mauritius.

She avers that the pathway to success has been driven by challenges. She has to adhere to self-discipline. “Another challenge is to create the service from scratch, test it, review it and re-adapt it to the business. It is a long process. Besides, when a service or product is innovative, clients can sometimes be reluctant to try, as they can hardly quantify the ROI or understand what's in there for them. “At first, it was hard to sell the concept. However, once the clients had experienced the services and reaped the benefits, the service gained trust and is now valued.” 

Despite all the hurdles, she kept on paving her way towards success. “I would like to thank my family and friends who supported me along the way. Seizing this opportunity, I would like to motivate people under 35 years. If you have a business idea, a concept and if you believe that it will bring value to others, that you have the starting capital for it and that it will be profitable, try it, test it, evaluate the risks. If it doesn't work, that's fine, at least you tried! But what if it could actually really work?”