In April, I clicked on the ‘Leave Meeting ’ button on Zoom, and just like that, the MBA program came to an end. Over the next few days, it slowly dawned on me that I still didn’t have a job lined up and, with Covid-19 an ongoing concern, my prospects were fairly grim. I decided to leverage my creative skills and start a freelance business designing websites for restaurants, but had yet to build up a portfolio to show to clients.

Then I saw a request in a group chat by my classmate Sam Abazari who was looking for someone to design his start-up’s website, I jumped at the opportunity. It turns out Sam had turned three months of social distancing into three months of pure productivity as he continued to make progress with his HEC Entrepreneurial Project, which entailed a property management company called Ajan Management. Deep down, I was shocked, but in a good way. Anyone in the program knew Sam’s level of ambition and passion for real estate, but by the time we had connected, he was already at the final stage: to bring the brand to life.As I built Ajan’s website, my curiosity was piqued. Yet, with a background in finance, I knew almost nothing about real estate, and frankly, I never even interacted that much with Sam during the program. And so after I had completed the site, when he suggested “if you want to join a very brand new start up with $0 revenue, we’re always looking for talent,” I thought he was joking.Needless to say, life works in mysterious ways.

Serving now as the Chief Marketing Officer of Ajan Management, I’m granted the chance to learn every day. From the workings of the real estate market to the intricacies of Google Analytics, the learning curve on he job is steep, but I remind myself, a plateaued learning curve was precisely why I left my stable, corporate job in the first place. Sam and I now work together closely, despite the geographical distance, to promote Ajan’s goal to make real estate a simple, stress-free endeavour. A business created with inspiring personal values, a strong team spirit, and a sprinkle of serendipity, Ajan hopes to proudly represent the HEC Paris brand name in the United States, returning a favour for all that the school has provided for us.

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