After completing my vocational training as a bank clerk, I worked as a customer advisor at a savings bank in Lower Saxony. I then studied Business Education and French in Göttingen and Besançon, France. Including my teacher training, I taught for 13.5 years at the Vocational School for Freight Forwarding, Logistics & Transport in Hamburg. In 2008, I transitioned to the State School of Foreign Languages in Hamburg as Head of the Vocational School Department. In 2010, I joined the St. Pauli Vocational High School as a department head of the vocational high school.