Who we are
From a young age my life was imbued with the scents and colours of foreign travel. Our summers were spent meandering through France; stopping wherever we arrived at 4pm, spending hours exploring hill-top market towns, stepping out of the hot sun into the cool peace of a cathedral and bribed with promises of ice-cream whenever culture became too much for our little selves.
Weeks were spent at my grandfather’s house on the Spanish coast, clambering into caves to look for treasure, sleeping on the veranda whilst lightening traced its way over head, listening to the laughter of the locals who spent their evenings in the convivial local taverna.
I loved the smells of the arid pine forests of Southern Europe, the hustle and bustle of the local markets selling everything from ducklings to toys and the mystery of foreign languages. As I grew older and more independent, holidays began to be taken with friends; hedonistic weeks in the Balearics, lazy afternoons spent by the pool in Tuscany, and in winter the magical crystal cold days of a skiing trip. By the time I had finished university, spent a gap year in South East Asia and failed to get into the Foreign Office I decided to follow my dreams and ended up in the French Alps for a 6-month ski season. 6 months that turned into 9 years.
I fell in love with working abroad on day 1. We were sat in the basement of a ski hire shop – a motley team of workers from all warps of life and a variety of different continents but all brought together by a shared common interest, and as a wider desire to have the best 6 months of our lives. We worked hard, but we played and skied harder, and perfected the art of existing on little sleep, fresh air and seasonnaire priced booze, whilst sharing 18sq metre apartments with 3 complete strangers and a lot of kit.
There is something breath-taking about stepping out of a lift into the bright icy sunshine of a February morning. Your lungs fill up with pure Alpine air, your hangover melts as the icy wind freezes to your cheeks and the adrenaline coursing through your body makes you feel alive. We were young, earning next to nothing, were shouted at by clients who had picked up the wrong skis after a long lunch, complained to when heavy snowfall meant transfers were late and berated when a chalet meal wasn’t quite ‘perfect’- but none of this mattered because each day brought fresh adventures, more laughter and memories to last a lifetime.
By the end of 6 months I was hooked and the idea of returning to the UK and finding a gainful career seemed like suicide; I knew that I wanted to make working in the travel and hospitality industries my life and got on a train to the South of France where I dock walked in Antibes for 2 weeks, picking up the occasional bit of day work before I got my first proper yacht job and spent the summer working back to back charters in the Med. The hours were horrendous, the living conditions appalling but the tips, the sunsets, and the good times were unforgettable, and I could see why people would return year after year, or work back to back seasons on both sides of the Atlantic; but the mountains called me and I returned to the Alps, finding a year round role which kept me there for the next 8 years.
Sometimes I wonder why I left, when my winters were spent skiing and my summers a blended palette of tennis, pétanque, hiking and rosé, but I needed a change and returned to London the week Lehman’s crashed with a job working for a Marketing Agency. It wasn’t long until the recession took its toll and I found myself walking into a recruitment agency on the Kings Road hunting for any job that would tide me through the next few months until the markets settled.
“Have you thought about recruiting” was their question. “God no” I replied – I wanted to work in Fund Management or Yacht Broking. A week later I started my second career as a Recruitment Consultant placing PA’s into Private Households and Finance companies.
Over the course of the next 10 years I gained 3 children, a dog and a cat and moved out of London, setting up my own business working with clients and candidates all over the world. We have filled roles relating to anything related to an individual’s lifestyle needs. We have worked with Magnates in Hong Kong, Hollywood A Listers in LA, Fund Managers in NYC and Oligarchs in London and on roles that range from Dog Nannies in Europe, villa staff for summer seasons, Yoga teachers in the Middle East, Private PA’s on film sets and even once a chef for a very picky client in Ibiza who just ate marmite on toast for a month.
