A New Life: After 13 years in sales and marketing, Eva Acton's career as a floral designer is blossoming, writes Hélène Hofman.
Until two years ago there was little room for anything other than work in Eva Acton's life as a sales and marketing director. It wasn't until she decided to take a career break that she discovered her love of flowers and her flair for arrangements.
"It's true that flowers didn't really get a mention. I just didn't have time for flowers. I didn't have time for anything really," she says.
It was also by chance that Acton discovered her ability in sales and marketing. After finishing school, she left her hometown of Shrewl, Co Mayo, and did an honours degree in science at what was then University College Galway. She was then offered a job in the laboratory of a medical diagnostics company, Wellcome Diagnostics, in Dartford, Kent in the UK.
"That was back in the late 1980s and I did what everyone was doing and left Ireland. I was looking for a job and all the offers I got were in the UK. The lab work was good but it was quite monotononous and I quickly knew I needed something a bit more. After two years, I went into sales and marketing with the same company and worked my way up to director of sales and marketing," she says.
In all, Acton worked in the UK for 11 years. She left Wellcome Diagnostics after almost four years and, after a few weeks travelling in Nepal, began working in the sales and marketing department of another medical diagnostics company, DPC.
"I'm quite determined and ended up being quite good in sales. When I had an opportunity I would do everything in my power to convert it into a sale," she says.
Acton's technique proved successful and after four years she was sent to Ireland to establish a client base in Irish hospitals.
"I worked in conjunction with a distributor here, I headed up the whole production chain in Ireland and turned it around. We went from having one or two of the small machines to having 16 of the large ones and one or two big ones.
"In the end I was sales and marketing manager for Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the northwest of England. There was a period of 18 months to a year where I was in Dublin airport twice a week and I just thought 'you know what, I'm sick of this, this isn't working for me anymore'," she says.
Acton left DPC, took a few weeks off to travel around Peru and after a brief stint with United Drug in Dublin, she decided to leave the corporate business world for good.
"I knew then in my mind that it was time for me to take a little break. At that stage I'd been working for 15 or 16 years and I decided I was due a little break. Other women were off getting married, having babies and I thought it's my turn. But I had no idea what I wanted to do," she says.
She spent the next few months exploring her creative side. She tried painting and dancing and enrolled in a choir that she is still part of today.
"I did all these things and then, coincidentally, my brother-in-law opened a flower shop in Galway and I started helping out. I'm not going to say I always loved flowers. Everybody always loved flowers. But that got me interested and I enjoyed it. I decided if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it properly. I didn't want to be a mediocre florist, I wanted to be a good florist," she says.
After completing a course in flower arranging in Dublin she decided to learn from the experts and went to the Netherlands to do a higher diploma in Dutch Floral Design at the Boerma Institute in Aalsmeer. "I was blown away. It was just brilliant. I came back in mid-October and I started up Floral Expressions in November and in March I launched my website."
After a mediocre Christmas and a slow Valentine's Day, the highlight of Acton's year came in June when she was persuaded to enter the first Bloom flower show in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.
"Initially I thought I was fooling myself. There was all these rules and regulations but I decided to give it a try," she says. "I reeled in everyone I knew to help set up and on the first day I went in I hoped in the back of my mind I might get something. It could been bronze, it could have been anything but I went in and they had left the silver award on my stand. I was thrilled and I thought 'okay, people like my work'. Chelsea [Flower Show] judges like my work," she says.
Since then Floral Expressions has gone from strength to strength. Working from her home in Rathfarnham, Dublin, Acton acts as a consultant for corporate events, parties and weddings, as well as doing demonstrations and arrangements for most occasions.
"I don't want to be a florist who just makes bouquets. That doesn't interest me. A floral designer is someone who comes up with ideas. Bloom enabled me to that," she says.
"I used to make a lot of money and I could have gone into a shop and bought whatever I wanted. That's gone, but I don't miss it. I'm happier in myself. It's a major change, but I enjoy it and I'm definitely much happier," she says.