Tell me about how you became a sushi chef.
I discovered sushi in the middle of a December holiday season; the shop was very busy, and we needed extra sushi chefs. I was right there to fill the gap. I am always up for a challenge and did not think twice. Also, I have a burning passion for art, and thought this was a chance to use art in food.
I was inspired by colleagues who taught me how to roll my very first sushi roll, and from there it was swim with the sharks or drown and get eaten.
You are now in management at Ocean Basket. How did you get there?
I won a sushi competition and then travelled to Cyprus with two other sushi chefs for a master class training programme, and was promoted to a management role a few months after I returned.
I finally earned the opportunity to work at head office. I love being able to support the franchisees, business owners and managers, and the crews in our restaurants.
What makes you good at what you do?
It is my passion, commitment, determination and love for my work, because I believe whatever I am doing, it has to be done to the best of my abilities, so I always strive to do my level best at any given task.
What advice do you have for young people about to begin their careers?
Be ready to learn. To excel in your career, you have to be willing to learn to become a leader and accept constructive feedback. No matter what university you graduated from or what grades you have, professional life will be very different from college.
One of the best ways to achieve career success is to keep assessing your performance. Don’t wait for your annual appraisal — do it yourself.
An ideal way to do this would be to identify achievable goals and set a timeline for achieving them. Start with setting short-term goals when you’re new to a job. Create a detailed plan to achieve these goals. Break the tasks down into weekly or even daily tasks and fill out a short form at the end of the week to assess where you’re headed and whether you need to change your strategy.
You can even show your own performance report to your managers to show how you’ve progressed. This will show that you understand the importance of self-evaluation and improvement and being curious.
What is the best career advice you have received?
I have received advice from many people, including colleagues, my parents, schoolteachers, my best friends and my partner. Advice like: be proactive in seizing career opportunities; don’t settle; honour your instincts; get a mentor; seek happiness instead of money; no job is too small; live your dream, not someone else’s; network to help you advance; learn to set boundaries from the get-go; set aside time for yourself to avoid burnout; and be 15 minutes early for all appointments.
Work to learn rather than to earn; that is the best career advice I’ve ever been given, and it’s something I try to live by every day.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
I always wanted to be a professional dancer and an electrical engineer. Because I love teaching and dance is a powerful impulse. The art of dance is that impulse channelled into something that becomes intensely expressive and might delight spectators who feel no wish to dance themselves.
In terms of electrical engineering, I simply wanted to step into the footprints of my father to work with electricity/electronics.
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