Translator: Ellen Saunders Reviewer: Didar Omar
I want to start by asking you a question.
When is the right time to start a business?
In 1992 I had the opportunity to start selling
packets of biscuits and savoury pastries.
I made them in the kitchen at home.
With a traditional cooker and a hand whisk.
It was something that came easy to me. Ever since I was a little girl
my mother baked pastries every day at home
for the afternoon when the family would get together for coffee.
And so I become involved with that from a very young age.
Right now I’m a housewife
and I look after my two older children.
I started out with lots of passion, but in reality I see this as a hobby
because it was only something very small.
But in the blink of an eye,
I’m suddenly selling 250 bags of bread.
The kitchen was no longer big enough.
And there was nobody to help.
That’s when one of the most important people in my life lent a helping hand.
My father, who is no longer with us.
He saw how much I loved what I was doing,
so he bought me my first industrial oven and first electric whisk.
By then I had some savings
so I built a little place where I set up my workshop
and I hired ten women, ten housewives.
I began to break ground. I saw the market differently.
But I soon realised that we didn’t fit.
And that’s when I stopped and said:
“That’s it. I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
I looked for an engineer
and I designed a facility, and that was going to be the final step.
I’d work there for the rest of my life.
12 years pass,
and I come to a standstill again in terms of space and innovation...
I could no longer keep up with the demand.
And that scared me, it scared me a lot.
I asked myself: “Where do I want to go? What do I want to do?”
What more can I do than this.
I settled down and started to listen to that voice that talks to us,
that voice that every woman has inside.
And I took a gamble and built the 3,000 m2 factory that I have today
which has more than 300 employees.
And you will all say: “What a success!
Look at where Patricia started, how she grew and where she is now.
It was a breeze”.
No.
There were moments of desperation, and times when I cried along this journey,
and nights with little sleep because
I had to return to work in order to keep up with all the orders.
But what frustrated me the most,
and hurt me as a woman,
and as a mother,
was to see my four children, I had for children at that time,
and not be able to spend time with them.
But at the same time I had to tell myself:
“This is for their future.
Yes, I am doing well
and, yes, I will succeed and I’m doing it for them”.
With that I want to highlight three words:
strength, passion and humility.
Strenght.
When you want to start a business
you have to use that strength that comes from within us,
and you have to listen to yourself. Passion.
Do what you enjoy.
You can’t be in a job
where you don’t feel a desire to be there or a desire to grow.
And humility.
For me this word entails a lot of things.
I was asked many times: “Aren’t you embarrassed to be a baker?”
And, for me, I always felt proud and I felt good about it.
With these words I want to tell you that, as women,
we are capable of fulfilling our dreams, and listening to ourselves.
To finish off, I want to ask you the question I started with.
When is the right time to start a business?
The answer is today.
Perhaps some of you are just starting one, maybe others are more advanced,
but other will feel that fear.
My advice is to listen to yourself.
As women, we have great powers,
a sixth sense even, that will always point us in the right direction
and show us the right path. Thank you very much.
(Applause)