From the Anges de Sucre archive: Reshmi originally wrote this piece about moving from investment banking into baking and building Anges de Sucre. It is preserved as founder history rather than practical baking advice.
Before Anges de Sucre, I worked as an investment-banking analyst. The hours were long, the work was exacting and there was an extraordinary amount of financial modelling, presentation-building and deadline management. It looked nothing like a bakery, but quite a lot of what I learned became useful when I started one.
Six lessons I carried from banking into the bakery
1. Work ethic matters, but so does choosing the work that matters
A young business gives you more jobs than hours. In the early years I baked during production time and dealt with accounts, procurement, marketing and the website around it. Banking had trained me to keep moving through a long task list; running a bakery taught me that prioritising the right tasks matters just as much as tolerating the hours.
2. Good businesses are team sports
Banking taught me how quickly a project falls apart when people do not communicate or respect the colleagues doing the less visible work. The same is true in a kitchen, where decorators, bakers, drivers and customer-service work all have to meet at the same deadline.
3. Presentation is part of the product
Years of scrutinising presentations gave me an intolerance for sloppy detail. In cakes, that instinct shows up in the finish, packaging, photography and consistency. It also became important in our corporate cake work, where the brief and brand details matter as much as the flavour.
4. Systems beat heroics
When you are doing production, finance, marketing and operations at once, the useful question is not how hard you can work once; it is how repeatably the business can work tomorrow. Templates, checklists, standard recipes and clear processes are less glamorous than a last-minute rescue, but much more valuable.
5. Numbers are a useful antidote to sentiment
It is easy to love a product that makes little commercial sense. Knowing margins, labour requirements, delivery costs and demand helps separate a personal favourite from something the business can support consistently.
6. Confidence is more useful than swagger
Starting a bakery after another career means becoming a beginner again. Banking gave me confidence with pressure and numbers; baking required craft, judgement and a willingness to keep learning. The second part has been rather more humbling.
That unlikely route from banking to baking is part of the story of Anges de Sucre. You can read more about the business on our About page and in the Brand History.
Love,
Reshmi xoxo
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