Far from emerging from Paris's elite, Mr Beaudoin was a French-Canadian chartered accountant who happened to marry the daughter of a successful maker of snow-mobiles, one Joseph-Armand Bombardier.
For Mintz, a 39-year-old accountant and former chief executive of a cooperage (wine-barrel-making business) and Twelftree, 38, with a background in construction and small-scale wine exporting, the change is music to their ears.