Amy LaBelle’s career path seemed pretty clear when she suddenly shifted gears and reset her goal.
The young attorney had just landed her second high-profile legal gig, this time with Fidelity Investments, when an impromptu stop at a Nova Scotia vineyard inspired her to pursue a different dream.
LaBelle couldn’t shake that vacation from her mind: She wanted to learn how to make wine and operate her own vineyard. So what if she still had more than $100,000 in student loan debt?
Nearly a decade later, she finally secured financing from a local bank after several turned her down.
In 2012, LaBelle and her husband and business partner, Cesar Arboleda, opened LaBelle Winery in Amherst, their flagship 20,000-square-foot winery and event center. In 2022, they opened a second location in Derry.
“You can set out your path and make this happen,” LaBelle says. “It’s not all about opening your own businesses. But when you have that moment that speaks to you in your heart — when you have that moment deep inside that says, ‘I feel this in my in my core’ — just don’t ignore it.”
LaBelle, with help from Arboleda, talked about what she learned as a business owner and how the couple has built their company’s culture during the final session of this year’s Emerging Leader Training Program, offered by the Business and Industry Association and presented by Sojourn Partners, a Bedford-based business coaching and leadership consulting group.
“I’ve learned a lot along the way, because I didn’t come to a class like this when I became a leader,” says LaBelle, who has made speaking gigs part of her business. “I just kind of learned it and stumbled as I went.”
LaBelle now leads a successful company that makes wine and hosts weddings and other events at two locations, and the business has become ingrained in the communities it serves. But the road to reach that peak took many incremental steps.
“From that moment in that winery, in that tiny 1,000-square-foot winery in Nova Scotia, from that day until the day I opened the doors at my flagship Amherst location, was 4,083 days,” she recalls. “And I counted those days, because every single day I forced myself to do one thing, to push that dream forward, because it was a really big project, and I needed to break it down into teeny tiny pieces.”
Arboleda, whom LaBelle met when they both worked at Fidelity’s campus in Merrimack, helps LaBelle execute her vision, complementing her skill set, she says. Arboleda is the one who drives the company culture while LaBelle focuses on the creative vision and financials.
“I wake up in the morning, and I have a new business idea, and Caesar never says, ‘That’s enough. Stop,’” LaBelle says. “I really appreciate that about him. He’s like, ‘Yep. What do you need from me to make it happen?’ So that’s always really great in a partner.”
LaBelle Winery owner Amy LaBelle, with help from her husband and business partner, Cesar Arboleda, spoke about entrepreneurship and company culture during a session of the Emerging Leaders Program at the Business and Industry Association in Concord on Feb. 13. (Photo by Mike Cote)
Arboleda says he’s good at identifying LaBelle’s strengths.
“I dive into her strengths more than I do with my own,” he says. “So that helps all of us. … When she does something that I know is going to be great for the company, I always shout it out to everybody to make everybody on board.”
LaBelle and Arboleda’s two sons have grown up with the business since the days when the couple still both worked for Fidelity. Arboleda was the first to give up the day job.
“We had to go down to work in the barn after we put the babies to bed,” LaBelle says. “And that was OK because I loved every minute of it, and I loved every minute of developing and doing that work toward my goals. During those years, we just worked so much, and we raised our babies, and they both work at the winery now.”
LaBelle appreciates that not everyone who works for her will approach the job with the same level of passion that drives her dream. She understands some employees are there for the paycheck and don’t want work to spill into their personal lives. But the ones she targets for promotion need something more: hustle.
“This is an unpopular opinion these days,” she says. “I feel like we get a lot of push on social media, the anti-hustle culture, no work-life balance.”
LaBelle says she’s always worked hard wherever she worked, whether for herself or someone else.
“Because they’re paying me, and I want to give them my best. And that’s just the way I’m built. I don’t really believe in work-life balance. I’ve always just tried to work on things that I’m passionate about and that I love doing.
“That doesn’t mean I’m a maniac at work and I ignore my children. I try to have good quality time at work and good quality time at home, and I try not to mix the two. But I believe in hustle. I believe in working hard.”
