Camille Aït-Taleb (SKEMA 2014), Business Owner "Elle investit": "Know yourself well to have a successful life”

Could you introduce yourself briefly?

My name is Camille, I'm 33 and I live in Paris. I used to be a consultant; I worked for 7 years in major consulting firms like Accenture, EY and KPMG in Hong Kong and Paris. In April 2021, I decided to leave consulting and salaried employment to start my own business. I’m now the founder of the "Elle investit" community, which encourages women to invest.

Tell us about your educational and professional background…

I had the typical career path of the good student who doesn't know what to do and always aims for more to make sure she "opens all the doors": I obtained my Baccalauréat S (French high school diploma, science pathway) in 2008 with honours, went on to do 2 years of prep school, and then joined SKEMA in 2010 (Sophia-Antipolis campus). I chose SKEMA for 2 reasons: I was tempted by the possibility of studying in China thanks to the Suzhou campus (at the time, SKEMA was one of the few schools in France to have its own campus in China) and I was also drawn to the Master's degree in Luxury Management.

I went to Suzhou during my M1 and it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life as a student: I was captivated by China, its culture, its practices, the total change of scenery and being so far out of my comfort zone. Since this experience, I’ve been going back to Asia every year to travel and to discover this continent that is so rich in cultures that are so different from my own.

After completing my M1, I still didn't know what I wanted to do, so for my final year I decided to join the Master’s in Business Consulting programme (run by Corinne Hirzmann at the time), because it's a buoyant sector (lots of jobs and good career prospects and salary) and also because consulting is a very broad profession that continued to open doors for me and enabled me to avoid having to specialise and make choices.

After graduating from SKEMA, I joined EY in Paris-La Défense in September 2014, where I worked for 3 years as a consultant on sales strategy and customer experience improvement projects.

In 2017, I resigned from the EY Paris office and applied to the EY Hong Kong office. I was hired and went to live there for a year and a half. I'd been thinking about moving back to Asia ever since my time on the SKEMA campus in Suzhou!

It was an incredible experience: Hong Kong is just the right balance between the ultra-disorienting experience that is China and the Western comfort zone to which I'm accustomed! At the weekends, I enjoyed visiting Hong Kong’s incredible beaches, islands and mountains to hike and spend time in nature. I also travelled around Asia a lot at that time (Japan, South Korea, India, the Philippines, China, Indonesia, etc.).

I returned to Paris at the start of 2019 and joined KPMG, where I stayed for 2 years. The first few months were rewarding as I was given more responsibility, my management trusted me and I was free to manage my assignments and my teams as I wished. The honeymoon quickly came to an end, however, when a few months later I was assigned to a project whose purpose made no sense to me, and which required me to give up my personal life completely for 3 months. Between the endless working hours (sometimes until 2 a.m. without even having time for dinner), the weekly trips to an industrial zone in the middle of nowhere, the vague client demands, and the team’s total confusion over the work to be done, it was HELL!

How and why did you make the switch from a promising career as an employee to freelancing?

Well, I’d always known (at least subconsciously) that I didn't like consulting (and, more generally speaking, that I didn't thrive “working for the man”). I had the impression that I was working on abstract projects that were disconnected from reality and which, for the most part, were never going to be implemented by our clients. I was spending my days filling in PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets, locked in a tower from 9 am to 8 pm. I was working for managers and clients whose work methods were very different from my own, and whose values didn't suit me (for example, presenteeism or the need to stay at work late even when you've got nothing to do, just for show and to prove that you're committed).

On 13 December 2019, after the hellish assignment I mentioned above, I had a sudden realisation. On that day, I made a promise to myself: that I would quit my job within 12 months, so by 13 December 2020. My goal was to find an occupation that suited me better and was more aligned with my lifestyle and what I truly wanted.

My first thought was, "OK I want to get out of this hellish circle by quitting my job but... how am I going to be able to live afterwards!?" In other words, how do I get out of this gilded cage I've been living in for 7 years!? Because yes, I hated my job, but I couldn't deny that it provided me with a certain standard of living and allowed me to fulfil most of my desires without my having to ask myself too many questions.

The financial question lingered in the back of my mind for several days, until I came across a TV interview of a real estate investor who started out as a self-taught entrepreneur several years ago and now generates an income that enables him to live off his investments.

This interview triggered an idea in me: what if I used my borrowing capacity to invest in a rental property that could generate a small income I could live on while I looked for an occupation that suited me better? I immediately contacted the investor to join his property investment training programme.

It was one of the best decisions of my life:

• 2 months later I found the investment property I wanted to buy...
• 10 months later, I signed the paperwork in the notary’s office and was handed the keys...
• 11 months later, the renovation work began...
• And 18 months later, the rentals started!
• A year and a half after watching the interview on TV, my first income from property investment hit my account!

Investing in real estate enabled me to quit my job. After that I did a skills assessment which made me realise that work wasn't (and never had been) important to me. I'm not the kind of person who is fulfilled by working; I don't need a job or social status. At this point, I realised that my only goal in life was to enjoy my personal life, to have time to do the things that are really important to me, like seeing my family, reading, travelling, cooking, gardening, etc. At that point, the question that came up for me was: OK, but how do I finance my personal life?

That's when I decided to create a "system" that would enable me to generate a semi-passive/automatic income using my skills. Real estate is one part of this system, so I decided to build others via entrepreneurship.

I couldn't imagine working in a team again, with managers who didn't share my working methods or my values.

In short, entrepreneurship seemed to be the best option for me!

How did you come up with the idea for "Elle investit"?

When I talked to people about my investment property and the fact that my income from real estate had allowed me to quit my job, it sparked a lot of interest in the women around me — my friends, my family, my former colleagues and so on. I thought to myself: if so many women around me are interested in what I’m doing, there must be a lot of women I don't know who are too. So I decided to widen my audience by setting up the Instagram account @elle.investit

What stands out for you about your entrepreneurial journey since leaving the workforce?

2 words on opposite sides of the scale: FREEDOM and INSECURITY.

The freedom to work on whatever interests me, whenever I want, from wherever I want (I've spent a few months living in Bali, for example).

And on the other hand... the insecurity (especially in the early stages of the first year) that comes with not knowing what's going to be coming in at the end of the month. Gone are the comforts of a permanent contract and a salary that lands in your account no matter what. It's up to me to generate my own income.

Personally, I like it because freedom is more important to me than anything else, but I understand that some people prefer the security of salaried employment.

What are you most passionate about in your current job/life?

When a client or a woman who follows me on Instagram comes to see me to tell me that thanks to the content I've created or one of my training courses she's had a breakthrough, she's dared to do something, that's really the most gratifying!

What's the life lesson you've learned from this radical change in direction?

You really can make a living from what you love to do, as long as you give it your all.

There isn't just one clear-cut path to follow: study → degree → career → promotion.

Anyone can break out of this pattern and ask themselves: what am I really good at, what is my zone of genius, what can I bring to others? And make a living from their true skills.

What did SKEMA contribute to your project?

The network that SKEMA gave me:

• the people I met at SKEMA
• but also the wonderful companies in which I've had the chance to work and to expand my network thanks to SKEMA

And I would also say: the self-confidence that my background has given me. It's hard to measure, but I don't think I would have been this confident if I hadn't done that course and worked for those big companies.

What are your expectations of the alumni/school network?

Helping each other, promoting each other's projects and, above all, showing the new generation of Skemans (via talks, conferences, etc.) that it's possible to forge your own path and not be confined to a model imposed by society.

Do you have any advice on how to become an entrepreneur?

Take care of those around you! It was essential for me to surround myself with people who believed in me 1000% (often more than I believed in myself!). They're the ones who gave me the courage to take the plunge and believe in the success of my project. All too often (and most of the time unconsciously), we underestimate the influence (both positive and negative) that those close to us can have on us. So, before taking the plunge, ignore the pessimists, defeatists and envious people around you and seek out the company of optimists, of ambitious types and of those who've already done it before you!

A final word...

Find your zone of genius; help others by doing what you're TRULY good at!

Contact: Camille Aït-Taleb - Entrepreneur Elle investit | Freelance consultant