Page 53
Business Partners and Life Partners: Lily and Simon Liebel
Interview & Words Phadria Prendergast
Lily and Simon Liebel are the co-founders behind Entourage Collection, a group of four companies they founded in 2010. As Creative Director, Lily oversees the growth, brand direction, and partnerships of Entourage. Simon is the decision maker. Their list of global luxury clients and partners include Manolo Blahnik, Piaget, the English National Ballet, NET-A-PORTER, LVMH, MATCHESFASHION.COM and Richemont, just to name a few. The husband and wife tell WOTC what working together for the past 11 years has been like.
It was a busy Wednesday morning, just before 10am and in all honesty, I had almost forgotten that I had been scheduled for an interview with Lily and Simon. It was one of those days where you are reminded that time doesn’t wait for anyone. It was a telephone call, it wasn’t a Zoom, so I wasn’t in my home office. I decided to take the call in my kitchen - a small error on my part, especially whilst having guests over. Listening back and hearing all the background noises, I’m sure Lily and Simon must have been thinking what on earth was going on.
I was already excited - mostly for our readers, about the whole concept of partnerships with your partner, so I was ready to hear all about Lily and Simon’s take after just over a decade in business together.
Lily: Simon and I met in London, we were neighbors, and that's how we started dating. At the time, he was doing events for a big events company and I said, ‘you really should go and start your own company’, 'cause he had great clients and they would follow him. We had such a good vision and it was just so much bigger than what he was doing at that moment. And so he did. We literally started our company from our dining room table.
Phadria: Wow.
Lily: I was working full time for another company. I was doing PR, but I worked behind the scenes and on the side. It was really Simon at the beginning, he started everything. Well, so Simon started it. We do such a range of projects around the world; private clients, big brands, corporate clients - you name it. And we have our headquarters in London and our second office is in Hong Kong.We're about to open our third office in New York.
I think what works well is that for one, Simon is such a champion of women. We're an all female team and he's super encouraging of hiring women, encouraging them to speak their minds and contribute to everything. I've been so lucky to have him. Not only is he the best husband and the best dad but as a business partner, he's always super encouraging when I have ideas.
I think the reason that it works for us is that we know what we're good at and what we're not good at and our areas of interests are very different. He focuses much more on the big picture, on the big clients and the big projects. I love to work with smaller female-led brands. As the creative director, I look at the look of our company, the social media, the website, the events that we do with our clients and brands. I think it works because there's not a lot of crossover in terms of the day to day and what we do. Our roles are pretty clear and defined. At the end of the day when there's big decisions to be made, he has the final say and I'm really happy with that. It's clear and it's easy. Of course, there's times that we'll disagree on something and of course we get on each other's nerves [laughs], and that's normal. But at the end of the day, I mean, how many times have I been like 'OK that's it, I'm resigning and then half an hour later, I'm like 'oh, what did you think of this?' [laughs] And that's just realistic you know. If you think that's not going to happen, you're delusional.
The lucky thing is, we have our office and I work in the office most days in the morning and then I get our children in the afternoon - that's a rule for me to do the pickup every day. But there's clear rules, clear separation of space. Sometimes I work from home because I don't want to be in his face all the time and vice versa. So I think it's just having that balance and knowing what you're good at, what you're not good at and what works for you as an individual.
Phadria: I love that. And when you do have those disagreements, how do you get through that? And what advice would you give to other couples that work together?
Lily: [Laughs] When do you think? [referring to Simon]
Simon: I don't think that there's any set rules of ‘this is what you have to do’. I think it boils down to understanding what each other's strengths are. At the end of the day, I'm very set in my opinions, and I think that if it's something that affects the business, then my word is final and I don't really waiver from that. If it's something that is important to Lily or something that is focused on one of her clients, then I don't need to be heard on everything, she'll do what is right.
Lily: I think there's some general words of wisdom and it's a cliche quote, but I think it works and one of them that Simon loves is ‘happy wife, happy life’[laughs], and so he lives by that you know. I think the other thing is - and this can apply when you're working with a friend, working with a business partner or working with your partner; you have to not have such a chip on your shoulder. You have to be able to say sorry and you have to take responsibility so that you can move on. A girlfriend of mine who is single, she can't figure out why she's not married yet [laugh] and I love her, but one of the things is in an argument, she always has to be right. She has to win. At the end of the day, that means then, that your partner or whoever you're dealing with is a loser. And I don't mean like a loser meaning an uncool person, but in a bigger sense. You don't want your partner to ever feel like that. It's just not healthy. OK, I don't always say 'sorry I'm wrong’ immediately, but I do try to take a step back, have perspective and be like, 'you know what, shit, I'm sorry' and own it. Be open and communicate so you can move on from it.
Phadria: I love that, and also what Simon said about his voice not needing to be heard all the time. I think you're very right about not having a chip on your shoulder, and it's very important to be able to admit that you're wrong and say you're sorry.
Lily: Yes, there's ups and downs with anything and if anyone tells you 'oh my marriage is perfect all the time, my business is perfect all the time, we never fight.' Sorry, they're just lying. Spoiler alert.
My mom gave me really good advice when I was young, before I got married and she said 'it's not if you fight, because you will fight, it's how you fight. It's how you make up and resolve it. That's what matters.’
One of Simon's brilliant traits is that when we hire people for the team, he really has a good sense of who will be a good fit. And I always trust him on that. It's the same with our team and how we work with our team. We believe in hiring the best people. Hire the smartest people you can. Hire people who are smarter than you are, it brings more to the table. It brings something different. Then let them get on with it. Don't micromanage them. We call our team the dream team and it's not a joke. I value their feedback and their opinion, and vision on things so much. We have a Monday morning meeting, and I'm like, ‘bring something to the table that you're excited about and want to do. How can we do better? How can the company do better?’ I think that sense of encouragement works from us as the founder and creative director for the team, but also between each other; supporting, encouraging and respecting each other.
Phadria: And what was it like in those early stages of working together and formulating that idea and maybe not even knowing if it would last this long, but just taking that risk and going for it anyway? What were those early stages like?
Simon: I think at the beginning, I started the company with one particular focus and over the years the company grew into more and more things. I've always said that it doesn't matter if you can do something, I would just say yes and figure it out afterwards. We've had some incredible opportunities as a result. Over the years our business has been based around trust more than anything else, it's about managing expectations. Our clients come to us again and again, because they know that we are competent and they can trust us.
If the company evolves then you evolve with it. Markets, the economy and many people will shape it and if you have a very set idea of how things will work, you're probably not going to succeed. During the last year of covid and everything else, we adapted and we are actually 35 percent bigger than we were the year before. In the first month of this year, we've turned over 70% more than we did the whole of last year, and that's because we understand that we have to be adaptable. We have to move quickly.
Lily: And to see opportunities. Objectively, I think one of Simon's greatest strengths is his vision and his ability to see opportunity and to diversify and pivot. That's why I think our company has grown from one to four. We’re in Asia and we're going to go into America because we continue to grow and adapt and diversify. For some people, I think just doing one thing and doing it really well works, but for us, we had bigger dreams and bigger visions, and so we had to just roll with the time.
Going back to your question on how we started in the beginning, when we first started, we talked shop all the time. That's something that, when you work with your partner, you have to balance it, because if you're only talking about work and you're not having fun or talking about other things, that gets draining. I think for us and, OK I say that and I have yet to really follow my own rule because we still talk shop all the time. But, we're doing super fun projects around the world with some of the best talent, best brains and creative geniuses. So it's not like we're just sitting around at the counters talking about calculators, [chuckles], so it's OK for us.