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The key to success is careful planning according to Karina Hedges who is hot on the trail of her latest adventure, opening up an upmarket champagne lounge.

Up until recently Karina and her husband Stuart ran their own successful fruit and vegetable wholesale distribution business.

Finding the long hours were impacting their family time, the couple sold up and are now ready for fresh pastures. While husband Stuart is immersing himself into a new business Karina is using the time to upskill so she’s ready to launch her dream.

“I know people might think I’m mad,’ she says completely unfazed. “The current economic climate would make it risky to launch something like that right now, but I know that by putting in the groundwork now, when the time is right my business is going to fly!”

The bubbly mother of three is passionate about customer service and the hospitality industry and confesses to having spent a fair bit of time over the years analysing where trendy hotspots go wrong.

“It’s all about doing your homework first, getting the details right and keeping ahead of the latest trends.”

Knowing she needs to boost her skillset, Karina signed up for a Certificate in Cafe Operations at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic where amongst other key skills learnt to make a mighty fine coffee and became used to being ‘front of house’ dealing with the public.

She’s also completing her Sale of Liquor Licence while seeking cafe work to give her more confidence with dealing with customers and suppliers.

Her accounting skills are already pretty sharp but she plans to complete a small business programme while continuing to researching design layouts and success stories of similar international businesses.

Fancy sipping a flute of fine champagne while enjoying smooth jazz sounds while overlooking the harbour on a Friday afternoon? Looks like you won’t have too long to wait.