newgeneration that if I went into finance I would always be able to go into the business,” he says. “I started working part-time when I was 14 years old as a shipper and delivery boy. I did my CEGEP degree in Administration, and then I went into university and did a Bachelor’s of Accounting and Finance at Concordia.” From 1982 forward, Monney worked with the company, but it was not clear for some time when his father would want him to take it over – if ever. “I had to do it by steps, because I never knew if my father was going to retire or not,” he says. “In the last couple of years, I had started another career in real estate construction, because my father was 70 years old and he had no plans for retirement. The company was not progressing with new trends, and I couldn’t do anything because he was still making all the decisions.”
“We use steel dies when a lot of people use plexiglas; we’ve got dies we’ve been using for over 25 years.” – Patrick Monney
WATCH AND LEARN Valangin changes with the times
Back in 1961, three young Swiss men decided to leave their homeland to make their fortune in North America. Meeting in Quebec City, they decided to open Valangin Inc., a jewellery company that specialized in watches. Now Patrick Monney, the son of one of those three young men, Robert Monney, is moving the company into new territory. “My heart was always into sports, like most kids, but I knew
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Therefore, he says, “I started building condos. When he saw that it was serious and I was pulling away, he called for a meeting with me.” Monney learned that his father’s health was deteriorating, and that it was time for him to start running Valangin. In 2010, “I started taking everything under my own hands. It’s a good thing that I had worked in the business full-time since 1982, because everyone knew me and I had been in jewellery stores across Canada.” When his father died in February of 2011, Monney was ready to move Valangin into new territory. One of his dreams, to buy a building, has already been realized. He’s also going through an extensive needs analysis, and plans to upgrade CRM (Client Relations Management) and other software associated with running the company. “The website, the software, that’s going to be a major step,” he says. Monney is also moving PATRICK MONNEY carefully towards another goal: expanding into the U.S. and Mexico. “I’ve opened up the doors by opening a small subsidiary in Champlain, New York.” Monney intends to maintain some key aspects of the business like custom corporate work. “We use steel dies when a lot of people use plexiglas; we’ve got dies we’ve been using for over 25 years,” he says. Valangin’s reputation for service and quality control are also top of mind. “We’ve got a good name for this,” he says, “and it’s something I’m fighting hard to keep.” CJ