Adrian Giraldo and Arnaud Lecuyer have spent the past ten months in the coffee producing region of Colombia setting up a travel agency, Cocora Aventuras, specialised in sports and culture.
Among the activities they offer are rafting in tropical forests, hiking in the mountains, canyoning through coffee and banana plantations, homestays in the hacienda of your dreams, and more.
The agency offers ready-made customised trips between Medellin and the famous coffee growing region, as well as offering travel advice.
Adrien describes his path through SKEMA and up to the creation of the travel business:
“Arnaud and myself became friends during the first year of the Master in Management on the Paris La Défense campus. We also spent one semester abroad on the same campus, NCSU in Raleigh, NC, USA. We then spent one year as an intern and one year as an apprentice (Adrien: General Electric for two years; while Arnaud did six months at General Electric, then six months in tourism in Chile and one year at Thales as an apprentice).
Spending some years SKEMA gave us the opportunity to gain significant experience (for example, I remember that the first of three different positions I had at General Electric was advertised by SKEMA’s Career Centre) The school does great work developing relations with big groups.
Arnaud was an MSc International Marketing & Business Development student at Sophia while being an apprentice at Thales.
I did the MSc Auditing, Management Accounting & Information Systems in Paris La Défense and worked at General Electric as an apprentice.
Thanks to the knowledge and experiences acquired at SKEMA, we decided to take our chance abroad by creating this agency.
Entrepreneurship can only be positive. If you fail, it will be a great experience. If you succeed, it will be a dream come true. We still have a long way to go, but at least we will have no regrets.”
Arnaud’s point of view on SKEMA:
"I found welcoming classmates, engaged faculty, and a built-in community in SKEMA Business School. My study-abroad and internship experiences (in the USA, Chile) helped me to develop my skills to act, innovate and create, and gave me the will and capacity to launch Cocora-Aventuras in Colombia!"