Anna’s working experience started when she was 14 – she got a job as a maid in a real estate agency that provided apartments on a short-term basis to visitors coming to the capital. However it soon became clear that the job of a maid could hardly become a serious start of a career. After entering the university, thanks to an excellent command of English, Anna at once obtained the position of a personal assistant in the Russian-Venezuelan company Rosinter (subdivision of Roservice) and managed to combine work and studies during all the five years of her education. Within that period of time she made a career from a secretary to a key customers manager. She realized that she reached a career ceiling because the next position was that of the general director. According to corporate rules, this position could be occupied only by a Danish citizen, therefore she decided to go ahead and build her career further.
In 2000 Anna took a preparatory course for MBA applicants and applied to Harvard and Wharton. Soon she received a letter confirming her enrollment. However at the same time Anna was offered to launch and become top manager of a centralized warehouse for several large entertainment enterprises in Moscow and to head a trading and procurement center based on it. Anna decided that education could wait and what she really needed was practice. Anna Vovk accepted the new offer and in a year she turned an unknown start-up business into a recognizable company at the market with offices in Moscow and St.-Petersburg. In two years the company could provide exclusive offers in Russia from worldwide providers. Four years later the company’s staff was already over 100 employees. In five years a subsidiary company started operating which was aimed only at large wholesale orders.
In 2007 Anna got married and started thinking about having children. She understood that it would be no longer acceptable for her to combine work and family. Soon, despite her pregnancy and the accompanying uneasiness, Anna launched a start-up of her own.
As the economic crisis of 2008 struck, her frightened partners fled with the money. At the same time her long-awaited elder son was born. All this occurred in such a short time span, and her business was literally on the brink of disaster. While some partners left, others came to their place. The projects did not start working at once, but only after Anna could resume her work. She had to curb her maternity leave to 2 months and plunged into work again. The result couldn’t be better.
