Will you be spending Valentine’s day alone this year? Inga Verbeeck, Founder and CEO of Ivy Relations could have the solution for that one essential part of your life that’s missing…
Love and relationships are one of the most challenging parts of life to fulfill. You can have everything, a brilliant career, fabulous friends, a beautiful home, no financial worries, but for some reason, never have met that ‘other half’ to share it with. Having someone special to share a great view with, or a night on the sofa with a bottle of red, can be the added ‘seasoning’ to daily life. However, the wrong partnership can also have the opposite, detrimental effect. In an era of dating apps, swiping left or right, trying to meet someone can be a daunting experience. After strings of disastrous dates, it’s easy to give up and make do with life on your own. We invest in help in so many areas of life, why leave one of the most important aspects to chance, or even worse, Tinder?
After marrying early at 21, Inga found herself a divorcée at the young age of 29. A friend persuaded her to try a dating agency, an experience that personally didn’t work for her. She did however, fall in love with the idea of creating an agency with the aspects she felt were missing from the market. After a career as a journalist, followed by 13 years in the family steel industry, Inga made the bold move to set up Ivy Relations. With offices in Geneva, Paris, London, Monaco, Antwerp and a multi-million euro annual turnover – it seems to have been the right move. And most of all, Inga has immense job satisfaction watching people have their dreams fulfilled. Inga is now happily partnered up, enjoying life, spending time at the company’s headquarters in Belgium and visiting her second home in Verbier as often as possible.
VL: How did you end up falling in love with life in Verbier?
Inga: My parents got a place in Verbier in 1984 which rather defined my childhood as we’d spend almost every holiday – summer and winter – as well as free weekends in Verbier skiing, hiking, mountain biking and skating. I fell in love with Verbier and its active lifestyle as a young girl, and haven’t yet fallen out of love with it! That makes it the longest love-affair of my life I’d say!
VL: How many successful partnerships have you made over the years?
Inga: Hundreds! More over, I believe at Ivy we have a ‘modus operandi’ offering clients value in more ways than one. Over the span of a Membership we are our client’s confidants, mentors and challengers. We see our clients improving their personal lives on various levels while with us, which is clearly very rewarding and inspiring .
VL: Is there a second generation of mini Ivy Relations babies out there, thanks to you?
Inga: Oh yes indeed that is happily the case! On a general note though, there is still such an incredible taboo about engaging a matchmaker’s support for one’s personal life. We’ve made a bunch of couples that will never share – even with their inner circle – that they’ve met through us. It is incredibly strange that the online dating app thing has become entirely socially acceptable, yet our elevated and personalized version of dating support isn’t at all. We strive to break that taboo over the next years!
VL: What are the biggest challenges when matchmaking?
Inga: Straightforwardness. Clients often don’t dare to be sufficiently truthful about the elements they look for in a partner, and are attracted to. Too often is takes a lot of time for us to dig deep enough to really understand a client and what rocks their boat! We instigate our clients to be as blunt as possible so that we know how to make things work for them. Combining that with figuring out what a client really needs is quite the task and awareness process. But what would life be without challenges! The idea of buying love. It needs to be clear that (true) love is a two-way street!
We charge substantial fees because of the time and investments we make to build a strong client base, network and customer service platform. You cannot however buy love. We can provide and enable suitable, exciting opportunities but chemistry is out of our hands, and so is the actual date!
VL: Where are most of your clients from?
Inga: Switzerland is an important market for us, as is Western Europe in general. We are mainly active in continental Europe, as well as the States and the Middle-East. We offer a global presence and service, yet everything depends on the individual client’s expectations and criteria. If one would be hoping to meet someone in a 2km radius from their little home village we wouldn’t be the right investment. If you’re looking for someone to share an exciting life with, and can think a bit worldlier we’ll deliver wonderful surprises for you!
VL: How do you vet potential candidates, what criteria do they need to fulfill to join Ivy Relations?
Inga: Vetting is key for a sustainable and qualitative service, in more ways than one. Vetting a client starts with an exploratory phone call, and is followed with an in-depth, in-person meeting where we aim to forge a solid view on the person. We will then require the client to fill in some questionnaires, at which time we will also run a background check with our security partner. Integrity is key in acceptance as a client, as well as authenticity and having realistic expectations. As our service is an exclusive and tailor-made one, financial independence is a basic requirement.
VL: Where do you see the company in 5 years and how does Verbier fit into those plans?
Inga: We see our company grow further both in global foothold and number of clients. We aim to further develop innovative programs to help our clients achieve their personal goals, whichever they may be. Whilst digital solutions are superb for a many great things, I do believe they have negatively impacted social behavior in society. Divorce rates are higher than ever, male suicides are higher than ever and loneliness is a detrimental factor for many. Verbier for me has always been a place where it’s easy to connect with people, whether for friendship, business, love or simply accompaniment on active ventures. I’d say Verbier people – whether resident or frequent visitor – share a true love for the mountains, for an active lifestyle and the beauty of nature (perhaps combined with a healthy appetite for some post-sunset fun!) which provides for an organic and unique little community. It’s rather symbolic for what we do on a daily bases! Surely Ivy will use that and be actively present in Verbier in the near future!
As featured in: verbierlife