She was in the telco business for 20 years. Then she entered a reality television cooking competition – Masterchef Australia Season 4, emerged a finalist, and that changed her life forever.
Audra Morrice decided then that she wanted to follow her passion, which is food, left the corporate world, and set up her own brand, Audra, which does all things food – from private catering to talks on food and producing her own book, “My Kitchen, Your Table” that contains recipes from various countries.
In relating her journey from a corporate executive to an entrepreneur at the WIT 2015 Conference in Singapore, she said it was not easy to reboot her working life.
Audra Morrice is passionate about food.
She had to ask herself difficult questions – was she ready to leave her high-paying corporate job and embark on the uncertain journey of being an entrepreneur.
After three years of soul-searching, Audra decided it was food that she was hungry to do. Thus followed the decision to leave her job to enter the unstable world of start-ups.
Her decision was also influenced by the six-and-a-half month stint in Masterchef Australia.
“The time away from my family made me realise I wanted to do what I love, which is to eat and breathe food,” said Audra.
She admitted while there was an element of fear in the rebooting process, her passion pushed her through.
“My passion for food overtook everything else. And with my strong business background, I was able to overcome the challenges. I have no regrets taking this road.”
The hardest part about leaving the corporate world is “not having a routine, balancing life, and knowing every day is different. You go from 9 to 5 days to 24-hour days”.
Audra has a new project – to start food tours or food experiences as she prefers to call them.
When asked what the ideal food tour is, she said: “My way of travelling is that everything revolves around food and the local culture. I love to research places like where chefs go to where the best restaurants are.”
The busy lady is also a judge on the inaugural Masterchef Asia.
Audra’s advice to young people wanting to be their own boss? “Get out to the world and experience it. Striking out on your own is not as pretty as you may think. It’s lots of hard work.”
