Interview : Graduated in 1996, Ludivine has launched her own specialty communications agency

I studied in Toulon after getting a DUT in Mechanical Engineering in Cachan, in the Paris region. (I chose mechanical engineering because I wanted to be an airline pilot, but I didn’t pass the ENAC entrance exam.) I decided to attend ESC in Toulon for its industrial programme and they accept a lot of people with a technical background. I didn’t want to go to an engineering school because I love foreign languages and I wanted to be able to practice them. I picked the "Industrial Marketing" option at ESC because it seemed to make the most sense based on my aspirations and my prior education in mechanical engineering. 

 

After my end-of-year internship, I was hired on a fixed-term contract in service communications (organising exhibitions and communications support) for a kitchen manufacturer for professionals. The business was bought out at the end of my contract, so I went to work for a company that organises training. I met my husband there. He had the chance to work abroad, so I went with him. We haven’t lived in France for 19 years, but we’ve always lived in Europe. We’ve lived in Seville (Spain), where my three children were born, then in Brussels (Belgium), and now I travel between northern Italy, where my family lives, and Thonon-les-Bains, where I grew up and where I launched my start-up. I’m a passionate “mamapreneur” with an atypical career, which has made finding a job difficult based only on my CV. I’ve always looked for jobs that let me acquire new skills, and all the jobs I’ve had let me continually teach myself different skills, so I kept up to date with the latest trends. (I’ve done business, websites, communications, needs assessment, and other work).

 

 

There have already been some changes between my initial project of La Manufacture des Métiers d'Art and my current one, :-)

KEDGE let me study abroad, and so I opened myself to other cultures. I guess, it also taught me to find solutions. It's a difficult question because I graduated more than 20 years ago, and the internet didn’t exist when I finished my studies like it does today :-)

Don’t think that being an entrepreneur is easy. On the contrary, it gives you a lot of freedom, but you also have a lot of stress. You have to have a good level of self-confidence and, especially, not be afraid. A salaried job provides a more stable income.