In 2006, Christine and her new husband spent their honeymoon in a part of Italy rarely visited by Americans, namely Sardinia, which is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. There she discovered some remarkable wines.
"We had a wonderful honeymoon, and the whole time I was there I was saying I wish I could buy these wines and liqueurs back home. Someday, I thought, I was going to start a business and bring wines like these to the United States."
That day came sooner than Christine would have guessed. Two months later, Citigroup, her employer, announced that another firm was buying its asset management business, where she worked. It was quickly obvious to Christine that layoffs couldn't be far away. This, she thought, could be her last and best opportunity to do something she should have done long ago: start a business of her own.
Christine had come a very long way already. The first in her family to attend college, after graduating from Salem State College and going to work for the phone company, she somehow got accepted into the MBA program at The Wharton School. Wharton is often ranked at the best business school in the nation.
She explains, "In college, I spent my first year partying and had bad grades. But from then on I managed to do well, although I always had two or three jobs. College was my ticket out, and a state college was the best I could afford.
"When my father passed away, I thought: my life is going to go by in a flash. I knew that someday I wanted to have a business of my own, but financial statements always intimidated me. Besides, I lacked connections and any sort of real credibility. To solve these problems, I applied to four top business schools and got into Wharton."
Fresh out of Wharton, Christine took a succession of good jobs with well-known companies. She worked in management consulting for what was then called Coopers and Lybrand, then moved to Avon Products in an internal consulting role helping the company improve its processes worldwide. From there she moved to BarnesandNoble.com and then to Citigroup. Several times she followed her boss to a new firm. But nowhere along this line did she try to start her own company.
"While I was at Wharton, I participated in the development of a new career counseling program, and in the process took many tests designed to help individuals unearth their ideal career path. My results always said: be an entrepreneur."
And yet, time and again Christine passed up opportunities to do just that. Roughly every three to four years she changed jobs, often because of upheaval at her current firm.
In retrospect, until she went to Italy, Christine lacked a specific idea for a new firm. So it was easier to ignore her entrepreneurial instincts. But when the Citigroup merger loomed just weeks after she first dreamed of importing Italian wines, Christine could no longer resist the urge.
"I approached my management and told them that at some point in 2006 I was going to start this business, and you can take that fact in mind when considering layoffs. Not long thereafter I was given a four-month transition assignment. It was absolutely perfect. This gave me enough time to get a business plan together and start to reach out to my network for advice and guidance."
Still, Christine was not prepared. "I knew zero about the wine industry. I didn't love wines. But I loved the culture. Usually people who do this are at least foodies, or they enjoy wine. For me, I just fell in love with it all at the same time, and I just knew that I wanted to start a business."
That was three years ago. Today she operates as an importer of wines, selling to US distributors who in turn sell to stores and restaurants.
Wine importing is a complicated and highly regulated business. In the New York area, where Christine operates, distributors went through a significant contraction just before Christine launched her business. That complicated matters significantly, and she had no clue about this until she was already deep into the business.
For much of this time, Christine has at some point each day been tempted to quit. She has poured her savings into the business, and operates with a very small overhead, choosing to outsource as many functions as possible. But now she believes that, short of a family disaster or other emergency, she will not give up.
"This is the greatest thing I ever did, because it's the right thing for me. I am living the dream. It is so right. It's what I always wanted to do. In a perfect world, it was a bad idea to start before I knew what I was doing. But if I had taken another job after Citigroup, I would have become complacent and not gone out on my own. I'm so glad I had the guts to do it."
To learn more, please visit Dolce Sarde.
