Emma Bird
Italy Career Advisor
www.howtoitaly.com 
info@howtoitaly.com


Bio:
Emma Bird has lived and worked throughout Italy, including Abruzzo, Bologna, Milan and Naples, before relocating to Sardinia where she lives today.

She fell in love with Italy as a 19-year-old aupair in Naples and from there worked in a restaurant in Abruzzi and studied at the University of Bologna.

As a trained print journalist, she then became the Italian correspondent for a series of textile and fashion magazines and was based in Milan. But her work took her all over Italy.

But when her company World Textile Publications was faced with severe financial difficulties, she suddenly found herself out of a job – the day she came back from vacation.

She decided to immediately retrain as a TEFL teacher in order to get her back on her feet and provide an immediate income while she looked for another job in Milan. But she ended up loving teaching so much, she stayed. Since then, she has taught business English in-house to workers and managers at Unilever, Michelin, Unicredit, Sephora, Accenture and Reckitt Benckiser. She has also taught in six Italian public schools and two private language schools.

Emma is also the founded of Weaveaweb, the national network for professional Italian-speaking women. The association launched in Cagliari in June 2004, with offline groups quickly springing up throughout Sardinia and mainland Italy.

Emma set up How to Italy in 2005 with her business partner Mario Berri. They provide workshops on Building a Business in Italy, Figs on the Beach: Loving Life in Sardinia and Live Your Dreams in Italy.

Because Emma has experienced every stage of living in Italy – working but not speaking the language, studying, being sent on expat assignment abroad, teaching English, jobhunting in Italy and setting up her own company – she understands what her clients are going through.

Emma’s expertise lies in helping her clients develop a strategy plan for moving to Italy and finding a job, how to combine interests and skills for a new career, how to use teaching English as a launchpad for something else in Italy, how to network their way to success in Italy and how to join the ranks of the Italian imprenditori.

She can also help with resume/CV writing, interview advice, salary negotiation and business and industry research.

Emma is the author of the free ezine Want to Work in Italy which goes out to more than a 1,500 subscribers every month. She authors the monthly business page of Italy magazine and is a regular contributor to Transitions Abroad and Living Abroad. She has been interviewed for magazines Living Abroad and Woman, the 2006 Lonely Planet Guide to Sardinia and the Hobsons Careers in Europe Casebook (2006 edition) and mentioned in the Living Abroad Report. Her profile is included in the forthcoming book The Expat Entrepreneur.

Her clients praise her “friendly, enthusiastic and professional approach”.

Contact Emma at info@howtoitaly.com

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