Having always dreamed of owning her own business, Katherina Ansink decided to take the plunge after completing an executive MBA from Cornell University. With Kika Villareal, a range of intimate apparel celebrating the Latin American beauty ideal, she’s targeting a fast-growing market that may just represent a perfect opportunity.
While Katherina is still a novice in the world of fashion, there is one thing that she has known for many years: the vast majority of innerwear companies do not cater to her taste and body type. “As a Colombian-American, I am petite and curvaceous,” she says. “Most American lingerie is cut for taller women.”
Moreover, creative design tends to be an afterthought. “American women usually prefer comfort and muted colors like beige, pink or white, while Latinas seek style. There are no brands that offer style and color and also provide a good fit.”
A dream becoming a reality
For more than ten years, Katherina’s ideas of starting a business remained on the backburner while she pursued a career in investment banking, working on structured bonds and other loan products for Latin American governments. “That sounds exciting, because it pays well and you can be on a plane to Sao Paulo at a moment’s notice, but after a while it gets boring. There is no creativity.”
Completing her executive MBA brought these dreams back to life. In her private equity class, she decided to write a business plan for a lingerie line for Latinas. “It was received so well that my professor offered to put me in touch with an investor. That’s when I started to realize that this could actually be a business.”
Taking the leap into entrepreneurship had, by that time, become less daunting: the year before, Katherina’s bank had restructured her team and she had been laid off. “Being unemployed was a luxury as it gave me time to decide what my next move should be.”
Since June 2006, Katherina has been working on her first collection while developing a member-owned bank for the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association, an NYPD police union. “The job is very flexible. I can work from home and choose my own hours.”
With a factory in Colombia now ready to produce samples, Katherina is gearing up for her first industry test, the Lingerie Americas show in August this year, where she hopes that her idea will strike a chord with buyers.
Seal of approval
Katherina saw an article on the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards in Women’s Wear Daily, a fashion industry business magazine. “I thought I had everything to win and nothing to lose. I figured that the entry process alone would be an opportunity to refine my business plan.”
Even so, Katherina was surprised when she found out that she had been selected as a finalist. “It was more than I ever imagined. I knew the competition had to be extremely tough so it’s a real seal of approval for what we’re trying to do.”
