Sharon Latour

Name: Sharon Latour
Job: Founder & Owner, Marketing Bee Digital Agency
Age: 30
Arrived from Mauritius, 2006

I’m the CEO and founder of Marketing Bee, a digital agency in Sydney. We are a fully-fledged marketing department for businesses. We take on a company’s graphic design and marketing functions and help with strategy and execution. I started Marketing Bee in 2013 as a consultant, and now manage a global team that helps me execute projects. We have clients in Australia, Denmark, New Caledonia, Paris and New Caledonia and Mauritius and plans to expand the business over the next two to three years.

Marketing Bee aims to plug in the gap between ideas and execution for businesses. We do this through a technology platform unique to the agency called Hivernate. It’s cloud-based marketing technology that gets businesses up and running with their marketing in as few as 24 hours. Companies can control all aspects of their marketing literally from their pocket. All they need is a phone and an internet connection.

I chose Australia because as a young person living in Mauritius I had heard stories of the ‘new world’ where you could get jobs, education and achieve better outcomes for your life. I arrived in 2006 at the age of 19, to study for a business degree at RMIT in Melbourne. I left behind the warm weather in Mauritius, the culture, my family and friends. It was a big transition for me. All the anchors I knew suddenly disappeared from my life, including a strong support network.

My first winter in Melbourne was a huge shock – I found it hard physically and emotionally. Then there were the different cultural norms, making new friends, speaking English instead of French and being responsible for myself. I was also working three jobs because I supporting myself financially, and studying full time as an international student. Those first two years were incredibly hard. But I stuck at it because my parents had made an enormous sacrifice in sending me to Australia.

What drives me is my work. I find comfort in it because I’m an incredibly creative person. My business has also helped me become independent, gain professional credibility and be recognised for my work. Marketing Bee is the opportunity that Australia has given me – I could never have done this back in Mauritius.

I love everything about Australia especially its efficiency, beauty and security. There’s technology for everything, and it’s all practical. I could drive just two hours outside Sydney and walk around on my own with not many other people around me. Migrating to Australia helped me uncover, develop and train my personal talents – it’s something that’s close to my heart. This fact becomes clear whenever I go back home to Mauritius and see how well my career has progressed for my age, which I am incredibly grateful for, all thanks for being in Australia.

As an immigrant, I’ve been welcomed by clients, collaborators, team members. I always feel like there are more things to do, more people to see and more goals that I can achieve here. The professional credibility and recognition you can get here for your work is incredible. I’m so grateful for this.

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