This is Léa Messier François.
Léa is 28 years old and is from Quebec City. She studied business administration at St-Lawrence College but as much as she enjoyed the business classes, she had no interest in the other required courses so she decided to make her way to the professional world directly.
One thing you might not know about Léa is her love for horses and how important are the stars for her. When she was little, she would spend her summers in France at her grand-parent’s house and would listen to her grand-pa telling her stories of horses that were named after stars when he lived in Africa. They would look at the sky at night and he would show her the stars and constellations that represented the names of the horses she heard stories about. Although this sounds like the plot of the next Pixar movie, it’s actually real.
Lea started working in the hospitality industry when she was 16 years old. Restauration has always been her fortake. She got into the world of craft cocktails when she got a job in marketing for Scope Magazine, where she was writing about cocktails in her chronicle Les cocktails de Léa. After that, she got a job as the National Director for Made With Love. This led her to travel across Canada many times and to meet a lot of wonderful people in the industry. When her adventure with MWL came to an end, she started her own company, Cocktail Jedi, of event planning for brands, where she would make sure to represent the brand’s image and philosophy. Today, she works for Dandurand as their Spirits Brand Ambassador, representing Romeos gin, Pur vodka, ElGobernador pisco and Torres Brandy.
With her very strong organizational skills, Léa has put together some major events for the community over the last few years. But above all, she is extremely community oriented and has clearly a tremendous love and passion for this industry. As much as she works hard for herself and the brands she represents, she also believes that by making other people shine, the whole community benefits from it and shines even more. Which is a philosophy she not only promotes, but puts into action with whatever she organizes.
And a little bit more about…
♦ The three words that describe her best:
organized – coquette – professional
♦ One thing she has yet to achieve on her life bucket-list:
Go to Bali. She does not exactly know how, when or why, but there is something about this place that makes her feel as if she will find some kind of inner peace when life is going to bring her there.
♦ One thing she has achieved on her life bucket-list:
Bungee jumping.
♦ The most magical place she ever visited:
New Orleans. She loved the energy and the people, the roots of French culture, the live music everywhere, etc.
♦ Fun fact about Léa:
She worked as a mascot for one of Canada’s national teams: the Laval Kebs, Yes, she was Dunky for a few years. Please see video above for some mascot twerking action.
To see the first part, click here.