There are forces of nature who can make things happen by sheer will, and then there’s “de Ville,” as she’s known by everyone who’s drawn to her. Like a whirling dervish of energy, enthusiasm and effervescence, de Ville doesn’t so much enter a room as she explodes into it – like champagne in human form – all while wearing her standard uniform of a sleeveless sundress and a strand of pearls.

Carol de Ville’s love for promo started when she was 9 years old and her family left South Africa on their journey back to Canada. “This is where it all began,” de Ville says. “I started to collect anything and everything that had a logo: a pack of matches, a printed paper coaster, a branded stir stick and hotel-branded pens. … It was very important to me as I had either been there or experienced an event, and now it’s a memory. Who knew that 41 years later I would still have this exact same passion for promotional premiums – my ‘trinkets and treasures?’”

At her first serious job, de Ville took a position at the Royal Bank in Canada, and one of her responsibilities was to design an incentive program for an outbound customer service team – her introduction to designing, managing and ordering promotional products. “A friend of mine suggested this industry because of my passion for promo,” recounts de Ville, who started with a distributor in 1992 and joined a larger company a year later, staying there for almost 15 years.

And then in 2008 – as the Great Recession was beginning to take hold – de Ville opened her own distributorship, Brantford, ON-based The Branding Company (TBC asi/145376), looking for a new challenge and opportunity that she herself could drive. Since that time, as TBC’s sales have grown, it’s won numerous awards for its creativity and ability to deliver innovative, exciting promo-driven campaigns. Equally commendable is that de Ville – whose company received WBE certification in 2017 – has amassed a team that’s, quite literally, 99.9% women. A big believer in education, de Ville ensures all staffers achieve their education credentials; she also runs a co-op with the local high school and college that allows her “to bring in some truly bright young individuals to work in our firm every year.”

For a woman who describes herself as an “eternal optimist” and whose company mottos are “Being Kind Is Free” and “Failure Is Not an Option,” it’s no surprise that she’s harnessed her considerable enthusiasm and made the commitment to mentoring and volunteering. Consider just a smattering of how she’s given her time through the years: Director of the Direct Marketing Association; President of IMA Canada; Chair of PPPC’s National Board of Directors; PPAI Professional Development Action Group; PPEF Chair of Scholarship; and a founding member of PPPC’s Women’s Empowerment Event (WEE). Truth be told, that event, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary, would have folded in its early years as support and participation were waning. But de Ville, in typical de Ville fashion, just would not give in or give up, and used the triple threat of her energy, connections and her considerable mouth to rally other women to save WEE. Today, an event that struggled to get 30 participants years ago has become a not-to-be-missed sell-out. No doubt because of all she’s given and keeps giving, de Ville was inducted into PPPC’s prestigious Hall of Fame in 2017.

Leading in the Time of COVID
It’s one thing to run your own company; it’s quite another to do it during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that brings the world’s economies to a grinding halt. To her credit, de Ville took a breath and dove into the deep end of the pool, moving quickly to adapt.

“The first few days, when we heard the initial rumblings of a possible country shutdown for a couple of weeks in Canada, I had a ‘911 call’ with our team and shared that we wouldn’t be laying anyone off or closing the company, but rather figuring out how to play in this new arena,” she shares. “I tasked our group to come up with a list of all the things we wanted to accomplish but never had time to investigate or finish, figuring out how to effectively have everyone work from home at 70% of capacity, and through this exercise we quickly developed a list that would take three weeks to complete.”

Calling her TBC team “amazing” and noting how proud she is of them, de Ville points out that while everyone knows it’s the people who make a company, the critical questions became: “How, remotely, could everyone be an integral part of TBC, how would everyone adapt to the new change and format, how could we ensure that everyone was communicating well and creating their own leadership qualities, and could we continue to move forward as individuals with a common goal? We did it. … Thank goodness for the internet and the strengths of the TBC team members.”

Six women on TBC’s sales team shared their consensus on de Ville’s leadership style: “Carol is most certainly a true hero in both spirit and in action. Her generosity, commitment and dedication have paved the way for so many of us in the company and the industry overall. She’s led and taught the finest examples of what a true professional is, and her greatest satisfaction in life is built on the successes she helps others to achieve.”

And lest you wonder how one woman does so much, de Ville, among many things, is a master at achieving an ever-elusive life balance. “I work within the ‘four quarters,’ she maintains. “I allocate 25% of my time to business, 25% to learning, 25% to my family and friends and 25% to me. I’ve found that over the years, this has truly helped me be focused, allowing me to grow the business, my friendships, learn continuously and become a better me.” Which makes the words her mother wrote on de Ville’s 18th birthday card so apropos: “You are human tonic for humanity – don’t ever change.”