It can take years for a door to open, but you can't stop knocking.

That belief has long guided Stanley Rameau ’12, from his first internship literally knocking on doors to sell office supplies to his most recent venture: marketing a collection shown at London Fashion Week.

It was a Bentley professor, Michael Montalbano, MBA ’12, who inspired Rameau to detour from the traditional route of joining a Fortune 500 company right out of college.

“He said, ‘You can go to your dream company, but you’re young,’ recalls the former Marketing major. ‘If it’s in you, now is the time to take a risk and start something of your own.’”

The timing was perfect. Rameau’s sister-in-law, designer Joelle Jean Fontaine, was starting a fashion line, I Am Kréyol, with help from her mother. As the new COO, Rameau knocked on every door he came upon.

“I took meetings with everyone and anyone I could get ahold of,” he says. “No meeting was bad. If I didn’t get the result I wanted, at least I learned something from the connection.”

Skill and persistence paid off. I Am Kréyol earned Best Fashion Designer honors from The Improper Bostonian (2016) and Boston magazine (2017). Teen Vogue followed suit with a “Haitian Designers You Need to Know About” accolade and, in September 2017, the brand hit London runways. As of early 2018, the line is in talks to be sold in fashion boutiques in London (Wolf & Badger) and New York (Flying Solo).

The design inspiration comes from Haiti; the mother-daughter team was born there and Rameau is first-generation Haitian-American. Despite its relative youth, I Am Kréyol raised more than $10,000 in relief funds for Haiti after the 2010 earthquake; though still a student, Rameau used his Bentley knowledge to aid the effort.

“Being on this entrepreneurship journey is really humbling,” he says. “Sharing our story to help others has been the most rewarding part.”