First Day of Work at Incalpaca

Today was my first day of work at Incalpaca. Although the company is walking distance (20 minute walk) from my apartment, I took a taxi to ensure I didn´t get lost. I think tomorrow I´ll be a bit more adventurous and walk to work.

The headquarters is a large piece of land just outside the city center in a suburb called Yanahuara. Instead of an office building, the headquarters is more of a small campus setting with several small colonial style buildings and gardens. Again, no need for heat or AC because the weather here is very pleasant (although it can get a bit chilly at night). As far as I can tell, all stages of production occur here at the headquarters (I´m getting a full tour tomorrow).

Campus entrance:


Just past the entrance:




The building I work in:






The Director of Marketing´s office is on one side of the courtyard (door on the right):


And the Marketing Team and I sit in a big room on the other side of the courtyard (the two groundfloor doors):


I started the day at 8am in Santiago´s office (Director of Marketing). Incalpaca is one of three divisions of the parent company Inca Grupo, and within Incalpaca is the company´s retail line called Kuna (http://www.kuna.com.pe). Although I have yet to receive the details of the project I will be working on, I believe it has something to do with expanding Kuna into the US via franchising.

Santiago gave me the background and history of the company. Then he introduced me to the rest of the marketing department (8 people in total consisting of advertising, analysis, graphic designers, window/store designers, etc.). I met everyone very quickly and I´m not exactly sure of what everyone does, but I´m sure I´ll learn soon enough.

I spent most of my day reviewing material about the Kuna brand and the textile industry, including how fabric is made from beginning to end. Tomorrow I will meet the CEO who I will be working with directly on my project.

For lunch, I went with the team to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Denise´s birthday. Then later in the afternoon I went with another intern from France to two of the four stores in Arequipa to deliver fragrances (I´ll write more about Kuna and the stores in another blog entry).

At the end of the day (6pm), we all had cake for Denise. Tomorrow I will meet with the CEO to discuss my project in more detail. Since I will pretty much be the only one working on it, I think I´ll have a lot of freedom... just the way I like it!