Get to know our Founder

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A Conversation with Manon Pelletier

To kick off our blog, we sat down with our founder & CEO, Manon Pelletier, to talk about her life journey that led to her successful career her from a childhood spent moving around the world to building Archipelae and The Reef.

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1. You started moving around the world with your family at age five. How did that early experience shape who you are today?

Manon: I sometimes say my childhood happened “in translation.” I was born in France, but by the time I was a teenager I’d lived in Italy, India, Hong Kong and the UK. Every few years meant a new language, new school system, new social rules.

That means I had a front-row seat to how differently people live depending on where they happen to be born. It made the “lottery of life” feel very real, very early.

That gave me a deep curiosity for differences, in people and cultures, and an ability to dissects systems with an external perspective. I became obsessed with questions you're not supposed to ask, like, “Why is it like this? Does it have to be like this? What could it be like, if it was different?” Those questions still guide my work as a designer, strategist and founder.

2. When did sustainability and design connect for you?

Manon: Design came first, through photography and visual storytelling. My aunt, who is like a big sister and role model to me is 11 years older than me and was studying graphic design when I was entering teenage years, so it inspired me to follow in her tracks. But everything shifted at London College of Communication, where I studied Graphic & Media Design right as design thinking was emerging.

Suddenly design wasn’t just about making things aesthetically pleasing; it was about how we frame problems, how we shape systems, how we influence behaviour with our skills and sensitivity. I wrote my dissertation on the role of designers in building a more socially and environmentally conscious future, questioning why we couldn't align our ethics with our professional life and also impact the direction the world was taking with our power of imagination. And once that door was open I couldn’t un-see it.

From then on, I knew I didn’t just want to find my style, or create cool stuff. I wanted to use design as a tool to bring the light on what mattered, and bring real solutions to important problems to the world. I had this fire burning inside telling me there was NO WAY I would settle into what being a designer meant at the time, and that I ought to bring something more to the table. We sometimes underestimate the power that creativity and imagination in building the future we actually want to live in and I'm here to make sure it is seen and heard, and it will benefit us all.

3. You’ve worked with some of the biggest brands in the world. What did that chapter teach you?

Manon: Yes. I had the chance to work in small international agencies working for big global actors in London, Hong Kong and Amsterdam and grew into what I call a “hybrid designer”, moving between branding, strategy, advertising and experience design.

I had the chance to contribute to global campaigns for brands like Nike, Under Armour and others: international campaigns rolled out in both 2D and 3D across markets, digital platforms and retail spaces. I fell in love with building unique experiences that connected online, social and physical environments in a meaningful way.

That’s when I realised the impact design could have on people in deeper ways than instant emotional resonance. A brand lives in the way a space feels, how a story unfolds, how a community gathers around it. That understanding has shaped everything I do since.

4. When did entrepreneurship come into the picture and what did it change for you?

Manon: For a long time, I felt something was off and I couldn't find a way to be happy long term in a regular agency or in-house job. I didn't want to be put in a box, condemned to become another niche expert and doing more of the same everyday. I felt I was wasting something in my potential, that I could do much more if only I could direct what I do and what I learn everyday. I needed more challenges, more adventures, and more risks to take and learn from.

Then I started spending more time with founders and realised business is just another design medium. A business model is a system. A product is a story. A company is an experience. As a designer and strategist, I could contribute not only to how things look or sounded, but to how they work.

That realisation was a huge mindset shift. I completely fell in love with business: not as a cold, corporate thing, but as a complex yet powerful tool for change. That’s how Archipelae was born: a responsible branding and creative innovation agency where we could test, improve and sometimes build businesses from the ground up.

5. In 2021 you joined the Momentum incubator. What did this experience bring you?

Manon: Well... Momentum gave me as sneak peak into innovation methodologies: the tools, structure and community to explore new business models and test ideas. It uncovered another layer of freedom and possibilities...

When I joined Momentum, I was also incubating a mini-me at the same time. I can tell you it was a challenge and taught me that my first asset in business was myself, and that I had to accept that no days would look the same; as an entrepreneur and a mother. I learned how to listen to my body, my mind, and juggle with a thin healthy balance between business, family and existing as myself in between.

Together, they gave me a new definition of power: not constant hustle, but the ability to create, hold and protect spaces where others can grow. Motherhood made me even more committed to building a future I’d be proud to transmit to the future generations and to grow up in.

6. What is The Reef, and what is your ambition with it?

Manon: The Reef emerged from a very simple realisation: most creatives are incredibly powerful, but are treated, not as leaders, but as executors at the end of the chain. They’re rarely given the business, finance and wellbeing tools they need to be creative entrepreneurs. But they’re the ones with the imagination and creative superpower to rethink society today, and prepare a better one for tomorrow.

For me, that’s both a waste and a huge risk. If the people who can see, imagine and prototype better futures are burnt out, underpaid and misaligned with their ethics, we all lose.

The Reef and Archipelae work in exchange, bringing more creativity to business, and a business approach to creative work.