Agathé Kerr: IT consultant to pastry chef

To understand how happendipity (happenstance/serendipity) works, I interviewed Agathé Kerr, an IT consultant turned pastry chef. Her French patisseries are based in Melbourne: https://shop.agathe.com.au/

Here are the key takeouts from the interview about her career change. Read the interview below:

Key Takeouts:

• Follow Your Instincts “Follow what you want to do and what is right for you and not worry too much about what others might think.”
• Be Financially Cautious “When I started, I was extremely careful not to spend too much. I did everything on a tiny budget because I was unsure where it was going.”
• Embrace Chance “I absolutely embrace chance. I don’t plan things either. I don’t like planning for the future.”
• Stay Adaptable “Keep your eyes open and don’t be too stubborn in what you want to do. Some businesses fail because they don’t want to change or alter what they’re doing.”
• Trust Your Intuition “When I see an opportunity and I feel it’s the right thing for me, I don’t think too much. I just go with my intuition.”
• Communicate with Family “Make sure you are able to talk to your family. It’s not easy to make a big change.”

Her final piece of advice encapsulates her philosophy: “Just make sure you’ve got your antenna out to have your idea evolve.”

Interview transcript

Q: What is your career story and what did you do previously, before the bakery.

A I am actually from Paris in France, I studied at business school, and then I started working for a big consulting company, American company, Accenture, and I worked there for 15 years.

Q What are you doing now?

A Well, now I have a bakery.

I married an Australian, so I’ve always loved traveling. When I started working for Accenture, I knew they had offices everywhere in the world, and so I, I asked them to send me on a project abroad, and they sent me to Sydney. So that’s how I fell in love with Australia, right?

I worked in Sydney for three years, and I met my husband there.

Q Why did you make the change? Why did you start your own bakery?

So I really enjoyed my life at Accenture. I really enjoyed the work and the people and just the company itself. It was really good. I learned a lot. I went back to France and I still worked for Accenture. I took my husband, you know, my Australian with me.

I always had in my head that I wanted to go back to Australia. I just wanted to leave here, but we were just living in Paris, and we had three kids there, and I’ve never really thought of changing career until we decided that it was the time to move to Australia, because our kids were still little, and I was worried that if we waited too long, we’d never move.

We moved, first in 2004 and came back in 2013 when we decided to come back. I just saw, I’ve been with Accenture for, it was 13 years at the time, and what am I going to do in Australia, and am I going to transfer? What do I want to do now? Because I was also reaching a limit. I think in my career with the three kids, it’s really hard to juggle everything.

And I thought, well, wow, when moving to Australia, really think of something else to do with my life, and that’s when I investigated. I did a lot of thinking, you know, what can I do? What should I do? And I am not a cook or a baker. I’ve never had any time to do anything, and I was never even interested in my family. Nobody cooks. My mom’s a lawyer, and my dad has a business.

So what can I learn? What can I do? It was a little bit of a random thing. I enrolled in an amateur baking class, very fancy school.

He baked a beautiful cake in front of you, it was really more about you sitting down with cake and drinking tea while he does all the work. But I really loved it. You know, baking was really scientific and very rigorous.

It really interested me so much that I started learning about that and then when, just before we moved, I managed to take parental leave from Accenture and enrol in a proper school, and I did an intensive course, and I even have a diploma, in Paris. And then we moved here, and even when we arrived here, I wasn’t too sure if this was a real thing or not. And because my husband got a really good job. So we were with one salary, we might be okay. That’s how I started really baking and trying to do what I learned in France. And it picked up.

Q: Where are you at now with it?

A: So the bakeries, I have two shops, one in the South Melbourne market and one in the city. The bakery has been open for nine years and it’s actually going really very well. I’ve got close to 25 employees working well, and I mostly run the business, not so much in the kitchen anymore.

Q: So what role has chance played in your career?

A: Really, I would think a lot. I’m not a confident person at all. But I tend to think that everything that I achieve is not because of what I do at all, because of random chance. People tell me it’s not true, but I don’t know. I just think things align for some reason. I don’t even know how I did what I did in my career.

Even when I moved here, I could have a job as a consultant, and the pay was really good. But I don’t know how I found that confidence to just say no, I’m just going to do my own stuff.

I think it was probably crazy. I don’t know.

Q: Do you think you’re someone that embraces or rejects chance?

A: Yeah, I think I absolutely embrace chance. I don’t plan things either. I don’t like planning for the future.

I have no strategic planning. I’ve got a lot of people who ask me: what’s my five year plan with the business? I never have any planning. But I just say always, if something happens and I see there’s an opportunity and I feel that it’s the right thing for me, I don’t think too much, and I don’t do a lot of numbers. When you have intuition, and if I choose it feels like something, right? And then I will do everything. I have to do to make it work.

Q: Can you think of a chance event or events that changed your career?

A: When I started here. It was probably the right timing. I arrived in Australia in 2013 and it was really the beginning of the artisan bakery. There were not many. At that time, I can only think of maybe one more really, very famous baker here. It was a perfect timing. Now there’s a new bakery every day. Probably much harder. So that was chance of good timing.

I also had to change what I wanted to do. I did try a few products, and I saw what was working and was not working for ages. Chance is important, but then you also have to keep your eyes open and not be too stubborn in what you want to do. Some cake shops opened because they loved what they were doing, but they it didn’t work because they didn’t want to change or alter what they were doing. In the end, they have to shut down because you can’t sell your products as much as you love it. It’s being able to gain an opportunity, and which can happen because the universe sends it to you and but then you also have to follow more intentional elements or other elements of the artisan bakery.

Q: What have you learned from the process of changing careers?

A. I’ve learned that you just have to follow what you want to do and what is right for you and not worry too much about what others might think, especially for me, my family. When I told them I wanted to become a baker, they thought I was completely crazy. And my dad even said you cannot – you have a great degree and a great job. And how am I going to tell my friends doing this diploma and becoming a baker.

I think people have ideas of you from their own life, because the change is scary, so make sure you don’t you just follow what you feel in your heart that is right for you. Because I think that’s really what people find the strength to do it.

Q: What advice you’d give to someone who is wanting to change their career?

A: Follow your instincts if you think is right, but then also do not financially risk too much. :Like when I started, I was extremely careful not to spend too much time. I did everything on a tiny, tiny, tiny budget, because I was unsure about where it was going. I never bought any machinery. I did everything myself. I worked really hard, long hours. I do all the marketing. I do a lot of hard stuff. Make sure you don’t invest to much or impact your family and your life. Make sure you are able to talk to them, it’s not easy. Just make sure you’ve got your antenna out to have your idea evolve.

Images: supplied

If you are interested in career storytelling coaching, find out more here.