Starting in branding and marketing with King Gee workwear clothing, being a young female in a male dominated space, through to capital raising and managing a forestry business in Nicaragua, Sonia Shwabsky brings a diverse career experience to her role as CEO of Kwik Kopy.

 

Starting out in clothing retail while at University soon saw Sonia enjoy the opportunity to travel the world attending trade shows and factories in clothing and apparel. On a fast promotion track through the Pacific Brands business meant a variety of roles through to GM with working with a varied range of clients from large corporate client accounts, right through to small businesses.

 

A desire for a broader working experience and a sense for adventure ending up in Latin America, and Nicaragua specifically running a forestry business after initially just raising capital for it in and around the GFC in 2008. The first taste of franchising came a time after through attaining the Dale Carnegie Training license for the country.

 

A quick departure from Nicaragua came after internal turmoil, and re-entering corporate Australia in the print and digital franchise space, which soon led to the role of CEO Kwik Kopy Australia.

 

0:00 Intro

0:53 Key career start and experience in clothing with King Gee work wear

1:27 The start in clothing while working in retail at University

2:26 Seeing the world with trade shows globally in clothing and apparel

2:48 Starting with King Gee as a product and brand manager to GM

4:06 Working on large client corporate accounts for clothing workwear and everything in between

4:40 Working with small businesses while managing accounts with corporates

7:44 Offshore manufacturing of clothing and price points

9:24 A young female in a male dominated industry and finding that an advantage

10:49 The decision to be made to stay with corporate or move for more experience - looking for adventure overseas

13:28 Traveling and the entrepreneur in them finding an opportunity in lumbar in Nicaragua, raising capital then the GFC sees them having to run the business

15:00 What’s involved with running a forestry business in the 3rd world

16:48 Learnings from the Nicaragua experience and problem solving

18:38 Exiting the forestry business and into the training space and the entry into franchising with Dale Carnegie Training

20:35 Starting the franchise in Nicaragua as a new territory for the brand

22:35 The core training products being delivered

23:12 Leaving the training business and working in a digital marketing agency as COO

24:07 Nicaragua turmoil and time to leave

24:59 Moving back to Australia in 2018 in a hurry from Nicaragua and having to leave everything behind

27:42 Got into franchising with another print franchise as Chief Marketing Officer working on digital transformation and e-commerce

28:51 The appeal of the print and digital marketing space

30:02 Coming across to Kwik Kopy as CEO and the desire to get back into senior management

31:05 After 11 years overseas did Sonia feel any disconnection with corporate Australia

32:05 What’s the day to day like as a CEO of Kwik Kopy?

34:03 Keeping on top of tech development for the future

35:33 What is being worked on for the future of Kwik Kopy business

37:49 Wrap up

Podcast Produced by:  www.magneticbusinessmedia.com.au

Franchise Stories and Knowledge Base (our other website):  www.franchisebuyer.com.au

 

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