Richard Sagala

First certified butler in Québec, Canada, trained in the Netherlands and the UK, Richard Sagala got his butler diploma in 2001 from TIBA (with "Distinction") plus a Chauffeur certification from the Rolls-Royce & Bentley Motor Cars School of Instruction in Crewe, UK.

Richard Sagala holds ten wine certifications and accreditations plus a Wine MBA from Kedge Bordeaux and is the owner and founder of the International Montreal Butler Academy (IMBA) and École In Vino Veritas (ÉIVV) a WSET accredited wine business school with a track record of a dozen business research presentations around the world. July 2017, ÉIVV started its sixth academic year. 

Alain Cloutier

A fine wine cellar is worth a lot of money and will fall unto the responsability of the butler

Managing major private accounts at the SAQ Quebec Liquor Control Board, a certified sommelier from the French Université du Vin de Suze-la-Rousse, Alain Cloutier became in 2009 the head of the SAQ Services Signature.

Mr. Cloutier has decades of experience adding value to his clients wine cellars. With his extensive knowledge of first growths & iconic wines, spirits, old and rare vintages, Alain Cloutier will be training IMBA students in understanding those special bottles and will teach them how to take proper care of a fine wine collection.

 

Ian D'Agata

Italy, the wine treasure trove of the XXIst Century.

It is with great pleasure that we welcome Dr Ian D'Agata to the IMBA Faculty. Italian born and a Canadian citizen, Scientific Advisor of Vinitaly International, recognized around the world as the most prominent scholar and living educator for Italian wines, Dr D'Agata is an award-winning author and distinguished journalist. His latest book, Native Wine Grapes of Italy won in 2015 the prestigious Louis Roederer International Wine Awards Book of the Year.

Trained as a medical doctor in Canada and the USA (Harvard, Cincinnati and California), Dr D'Agata possesses a scientific mind enriched by a passion for wine and a talent to communicate effortlessly his comprehensive wine culture. No doubt the Ian D'Agata lectures and guided tastings will be a high point in what the students of the IMBA academy will experience.

Liliane Cardinal

Management skills acquisition are of primary importance for a butler

Project Management Expert, Ms. Liliane Cardinal MBA is a certified specialist from the PMI the Project Management Institute. Ms. Cardinal will teach students of the IMBA the keys to successful project management, logistics, and team building techniques.

Paolo Dinis

To be on top of the wine world, constant research is required

Dr. Paolo Dinis Lopes is the wine technical director of IMBA and ÉIVV. Responsible for content development. Dr. Dinis is an oenologist with a Ph.D. from the Bordeaux Faculty of Oenology and a Wine MBA 2011 from BEM Bordeaux Management School, the same promotion as Richard Sagala. Co-founder of ÉIVV, it was during their MBA studies that both of them decided to create the In Vino Veritas wine business school to train professionals, conduct research and fulfill marketing and distribution research mandates for the industry. A researcher, Dr. Dinis is a specialist on oxygen issues and lectures around the world on how closures types impact the evolution through time of the taste profile of bottles of wine, an important topic to understand by the IMBA students in light of the older wine vintages they will find in the wine cellars under their supervision.

Bernard Burtschy

Decoding older vintages is indispensable to a competent cellar manager

An expert taster of Bordeaux wines with an encyclopedic knowledge of first growths, Bernard Burtschy has been tasting en primeur Bordeaux wines uninterruptedly since 1994.  Dr. Burtschy will help IMBA students decoding and understanding older and classic vintages. An avid collector himself, owner of a fine cellar of >40,000 bottles, Bernard Burtschy is equally a journalist and writes a weekly column in the French publication Le Figaro. In addition, he contributes to a number of other publications including l'Amateur de Bordeaux and l'Amateur de Cigare. Bernard Burtschy is a permanent member of the Grand Jury Européen and is President of the French Wine Press Association. In 2016, he received the Golden Orange International Award Wine Press given by the World Gastronomy Institute in Madrid.

Ph.D. in mathematics, Dr. Burtschy is a professor of statistics at the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in Paris.

Loic Le Roy

Expert in human performance and olympic trainer since 1989, Dr Le Roy holds a Ph.D. in Psychology. Dr Le Roy will train International Montreal Butler Academy students to raise their energy level, increase their concentration, sharpen their focus and achieve more in term of performance.

Yves Jean Lacasse

Elegance by design

Montreal born Yves Jean Lacasse is our in-house designer responsible for the IMBA uniforms.

Ambassador for Canadian Fashion and holder of many prizes such as New-York Rising Star Awards and the Belgian Première Griffe, Yves Jean Lacasse collections have been presented in France, Belgium, Germany, United States, The Netherlands, Morocco, Tunisia and Cuba. Yves Jean Lacasse Envers brand and maison de couture excels in bespoke and unique one-off creations for men and women.

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