“I’ve wormed the cat and put out the recycling, now I’m jumping on a plane to meet Baroness Ariane de Rothschild” is not a text message I ever thought I’d send to my husband, but here we are. Baroness Ariane de Rothschild (pronounced Roth-sheeld) is the CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Group and was in New Zealand for the first time with members of her senior team and Eve, her youngest daughter, visiting their vineyard property at Rimapere in Marlborough and to oversee the progress of newly acquired Akarua in Central Otago. Akarua is on track to be the Bordeaux-based company’s first certified-organic winery.
She’s also one of the most powerful and influential women on the planet. The first woman to run a Rothschild company in 200 years, Ariane was born in El Salvador and grew up between Colombia, Bangladesh and the Belgian Congo. She married Benjamin Rothschild (often referred to as ‘the richest Rothschild’, being heir to a $2.5billion fortune) in 1999 after meeting him when she was working, she’s kind of a big deal.
