Maura McDuling

Founder & Creative Director Shimena | Scottish Borders, Scotland Shimena is a Scottish Borders-based lifestyle brand specialising in printed leggings, scarves, pashminas, accessories - sourced to bring colour, comfort, and a wee bit of joy to everyday life. Founded in South Africa in 2017 and relaunched in the UK in 2025, I run Shimena solo across the full business cycle: purchasing, merchandising, marketing, and sales - both online and in person. Starting with scarves alone, I have grown the range year on year to include winter wear, summer wear, pashminas, leggings, and bags. That expansion, combined with supplier diversification, cost management, and a stronger online marketing strategy, delivered 28% gross profit growth across 2019-2021. Day to day I handle: Purchasing and supplier management Shopify e-commerce, SEO, and merchandising Social media and email marketing Direct sales at Scottish Borders markets and pop-ups Wholesale and stockist outreach Small business, real results - built from scratch, one product at a time.

Leading a team of 12 European Language Specialists in the Delta Skymiles Account. Quality Analysis & KPI reporting to the client, GM & CEO regarding performance of the team. Quality Analyst, analyzing inbound calls and emails from Eurpoean Customers and Travel Agents, and training as required. Rotas & break schedules.

Taking Inbound calls, emails and Webchats from Qantas Airways travel agents & passengers for the Italian & European, UK and Australian Markets, booking, quoting, changing and cancelling flight itineraries with Native Amadeus GDS. Escalation Calls on all Markets were directed to me, as I proved successful in calming down difficult customers and assisting them with what they needed. Training was Provided by myself in areas of expertise, such as intricate Amadeus GDS workings and aforementioned Escalation Calls. Helpdesk Calls were also directed to me, where I would live assist other agents on difficult scenarios and intricate GDS problems.

Reservations for a busy long and short term Accomodation Agency, based in Bloubergstrand, Cape Town. I would respond to telephone and email enquiries as well as bookings made through Nightsbridge, and assign each booking to the required apartment/s. Check in and Out customers, dealing with keys and monies owed.

Retail Sales & Customer Service in Duty Free Stores on-board 2nd biggest cruise liner in the world at the time, Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas. Store front selling to customers Onboarding of all stock each Turnaround Day: bringing up the new stock to each store from the Docks, Merchandising each store every 2 weeks.

Management of 5 employees, delegating Sales targets & best methods of reaching them, Motivating & training staff on new makeup and skincare products and makeup artistry Organisation of staff rota. Make-up Artistry and Customer Services

I was a part-time Sales Associate in a Molton Brown Concession within the House of Frasers store Jenners in Edinbugh. This is a very high class department store, Edinburgh's equivalent of "Selfridges" in London. My duties included selling the products through informing customers of all the properties in the products, hand and arm massages and facials. I was also required to do the general concession upkeep, restocking products, checking and distributing deliveries, handling concession administration at day, week and month end.

Activities – Customer service; skin & make-up consultations, fill & tidy shop floor, cash up tills, basic administration work, open & close store. Skills Developed – Leadership – supervisor of other staff, while manager absent Problem solving – decisions to be made when in charge Persuasion – loyalty card to be sold to each customer, with targets to meet

MA Italian Studies

Erasmus Exchange for my 3rd year of University