Delphine Barthe, impactful entrepreneur

Delphine has been “from Lille by adoption” since the age of 10, as she likes to call herself, and is an entrepreneur at heart. From the age of 16 onwards, she did a series of work placements and other odd jobs to, she says, “discover lots of different worlds and professions, and to earn a living too! My parents instilled in us a taste for hard work and, if we wanted to afford something, we had to pay for it!

Curious and gifted, she went to business school. She made a career out of it for ten years, working in retail, printing and digital technology. A spell in a recruitment agency ended with a redundancy scheme. As a young mother, she took a break to take stock of her career aspirations. She decided to take a course in change management at the University of Lille. “I soon realised that I preferred to sell assignments rather than produce them,” admits Delphine. She eventually joined a risk management organisation (the company was called Credit Safe) as a key account and customer loyalty manager.

With a little time on her hands, Delphine decided to get involved with an association that helps refugees. “I met a family living in a tent, and the mother was pregnant and about to give birth in December”. She couldn’t leave the family in that situation. So Delphine set about finding accommodation that would allow this mother-to-be to welcome her baby in good conditions. Her parents owned a vacant home which they agreed to lend temporarily “but with the assurance that everything would work out for everyone”, she explains. “So I looked at all the possible forms of lease to give the relationship a bit of a framework, and in the end I transformed a model loan of use contract into a home loan contract”. The idea for Stirrup was born: to bring together owners of vacant homes and social integration associations to offer temporary accommodation to families in need.

Starting out as an association for 1 year, Delphine worked to find a sustainable business model for Stirrup, which she chose to create as a company (the association still exists, so a hybrid model could be considered at a later date). To create her impact start-up, she knocked on the door of Euratechnologies, the digital temple of Lille. “I wanted to benefit from their support programme, their ecosystem and their backing too. It was really exceptional, there was a real family spirit, you’re never alone, you know you’ll always find someone who’s been faced with more or less the same situation as you and who can help you.”

Aware and grateful for the support she has received (and continues to receive), Delphine decided to join the Hello Lille ambassador network. “I’m opening up my network, building bridges between people and trying to do my bit to help the entrepreneurs I meet. In my own way, I’m giving back what I’ve received!

*This prize, supported by the Institut Choiseul, honours the most dynamic and promising economic decision-makers of their generation, who are the pride of their region.