This KEDGE Alumni dropped everything to set up in Costa Rica!

Her background

After getting her bac at the French High School of Tunisia, then went to prep school at the Notre Dame of Sion high school in Marseille.  Karina passed KEDGE’s entrance at the time, which at the time was called "ESC Marseille". She started from its first year. “At the time, prep classes only took a year”, she clarified.

“The education I received at KEDGE and my experience working at a company helped me tremendously in my two tourism ventures. Because of them, I knew how to promote my product, I knew how to sell it, I knew how to advertise, I knew how to manage, I knew how to anticipate market changes, and I knew how to watch current trends, etc. In short, when you’re in school, you can’t imagine to which point what you learn will be anchored in your memory and help you throughout your career!” said Karina.

After finishing her studies, Karina tried the Paris experience, like 15,000 of our current Alumni. “After growing up in Tunisia and studying in Marseille for four years, I absolutely wanted to find a job in Paris to get to know the capital. Since I had taken the international business option my last year, and was good enough at languages (English and Italian), I had the profile needed to get a job at COFACE (Compagnie Française pour l'Assurance du Commerce Extérieur/French Company for Foreign Trade Insurance) as a credit analyst on the Italian sector. It was a great first work experience that required travel to Italy to analyse the purchasers of French insurance, but its structure was too administrative, and the work was too superficial and routine. So, I didn’t hesitate to accept a position as Administrative and Financial Director in the south at a research laboratory where I had done my first study placement. It was the ideal position to learn management at a SME with 20 employees, I did absolutely everything there and learned a lot: personnel management, accounts, management control, finance, marketing, implementing quality standards, opening capital to investors...”, Karina explained.

A successful career change, a departure for an adventure

Following these different jobs, Karina had three similar positions, always in SME around Sophia Antipolis... until I asked myself a fateful question: “Did I really want to do this my whole life? Is this really a career that goes along with my desire to explore the wold and have different experiences? And the answer was no.  It was obvious.  I really wanted to quit the business world and work in tourism.”

So, Karina took off for the Antilles after spending a year preparing to open a B&B. At the end of six years and due to development, the B&B was running very well, too well. “You must be there all the time, serving breakfast every morning... I needed to get a change of scenery, why not take a sabbatical year in Costa Rica? There were lots of applicants who could manage the B&B - enough to put them in charge and to continue to process bookings remotely. So, here I am in Costa Rica with my children enrolled in the Franco Costa Rican High School in San Jose for a year. The idea was to take road trips every weekend and school holidays to fully discover this country that 100% of it is nature. It wasn’t long before my B&B guests asked me to help them organise a trip to Costa Rica. Yes! It was a great idea!”

 

 

 

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Une publication partagée par Karina Poirot (@circuitsaucostarica) le 10 Juil. 2019 à 11 :04 PDT