Ghislaine (Gigi) Laraki

I attribute my success to being perseverant, being a hard worker, and being reliable. In this business, once you have a client, you keep them for years and years because it's a repeat business - they get audited every year, so they meet you every year. I have clients that still call me who I started with in 2010, which shows how much I'm reliable and that they can trust me. Being honest and trustworthy is very important, especially for repeat business like that. They call me anytime they have a problem, whether it's a government inspection or a client audit - even on holidays. My biggest value is prevention and protecting the health of consumers. Sometimes when I give in-person trainings, participants come to me afterward and say 'oh my god, I just learned so many important things that I was doing wrong, like contaminating people.' That's so important to me because in the end of the day, it's helping people. Having good health as my priority number one is what drives everything I do.

You have to be persistent and be a hard worker and perseverant. In food safety, there's no regular path like becoming a pharmacist where you do pharmacy studies and become a pharmacist. You can do so many different things and become a food safety consultant - I'm a microbiologist and it's not the regular way, so it's not easy to say 'okay, you do A, B, C, and you become a food safety consultant.' You have to like to learn new things and know how to research information. My master's degree was in biology working on viruses, but in the end of the day I'm not working on viruses now - but it shows you how to look for information, how to search the information, and that was important. You need to get these skills because if you're not a good consultant in the end of the day, they will not call you back. They are validated and audited by a third party, so if whatever you told them is wrong, they will know. It's not like something in other fields where anybody can do consulting and tell them different things. In this field, you have regulation like FDA and CFIA, and they change the regulation, so it's very demanding and very challenging.

The biggest challenge right now is prospecting for new clients as I develop my business in Florida. I'm more of a scientist, and calling new people and meeting new people is not necessarily my comfort zone - though I'm still very good at it compared to other scientists, because scientists are very introverted and I've been very extroverted for a scientist. The biggest opportunity in the field right now is online training and online consulting. It's really reaching more people because distance is a challenge sometimes - if you want to go to a client's location, you need to charge them for transportation and everything, and sometimes it's hard for them. With online services, it's so easy. I can have more clients and share my knowledge much more broadly.

My biggest value is being reliable for the client and protecting the health of consumers. In this business, reliability and trust are everything - I have clients I started with in 2010 who still call me because they know they can rely on me and trust me. That's very important, especially for repeat business where clients meet you every year for their annual audits. Prevention is also a core value for me - I really prefer food safety because it's about prevention, protecting people before they get sick, rather than in pharmaceuticals where I was looking for a drug but it's too late because the person already has the disease. The health of the consumers is so important to me, especially in this time where we're living right now. When I give in-person trainings and participants come to me saying 'oh my god, I just learned so many important things that I was doing wrong, like contaminating people,' that's so rewarding because in the end of the day, it's helping people. Having good health as my priority number one drives everything I do.