Until early this year, 28-year-old Vera Kobalia was helping sell bread and pies in her family's bakery in Vancouver.
The European Breads Bakery continues, but Ms. Kobalia has moved on to become Economic Development Minister in the European state of Georgia - a post she secured after meeting Georgia's President while he was in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
As the country of 4.6 million people continues a tense relationship with its powerful Russian neighbour, the rookie minister herself has had to grapple with the fallout of bare-knuckle regional politics. Russian media this week ran Facebook photos suggesting she was partying with strippers, based on a shot that had Ms. Kobalia dancing atop a table with four other women.
To her father, Otari, the suggestion is beyond idiotic.
"From my point of view, it was nothing," he said, chuckling, Wednesday, sitting amid the tasty scents of strudels, pies and baguettes - including his specialty Georgian baguette - at his store in south Vancouver.
In fact, Mr. Kobalia said, the photo was taken at an innocent party held some years ago.
But Ms. Kobalia, appointed to her first purely political job on July 2, only months after finishing her duties as general manager at the family's European Breads Bakery, is up to defending herself.
"If the worst thing that the opposition or anyone else can find about me is my old picture from college, then I don't see anything wrong with that," the 2004 business-administration graduate of the B.C. Institute of Technology is quoted as telling The Independent newspaper.
Sitting across the table from Mr. Kobalia, account manager Alain Beaugrand who worked with Ms. Kobalia, said of the photo that "it's basically a bunch of girls at a bachelorette party" that has had its meaning distorted.
"It has been blown into this sordid, kind of ugly thing and it's meant to devalue her as a person and to denigrate her abilities."
If not for a meeting in Vancouver with Georgia's President, Ms. Kobalia might still be in B.C.
During the 2010 Winter Olympics, Ms. Kobalia was among about 50 members of the Vancouver area's Georgian community to meet Mikhail Saakashvili when he was in town for the Games. The Kobalia family fled turmoil in Georgia to come to Vancouver in 1996. She spent 15 years in Canada.
Subsequently, Ms. Kobalia went to work for a non-profit organization in her native Georgia when the President recruited her. Mr. Saakashvili, who was 36 when elected to his job in 2003, has reportedly been appointing many equally young cabinet ministers to bring energy to government.
Her father acknowledges he was a bit "shaken" at the news.
"It's a really big responsibility," he said. "It's not like a prize you get. … I hope she will be successful and do something for Georgia and make proud, not only Georgia, but Canada, too, because she was raised here and got her education here."
The odds are in her favour, he said, noting she is well organized and "a strong person," which he thinks will help her resist opposition attacks.
"She can handle these kinds of punches and can continue working, and not get upset, and not show her emotions. She's a kind of Iron Lady."
Mr. Beaugrand said she is tough. "She has got a very strong will and is able to push through her ideas."
At the bakery, those ideas included such green practices as biodegradable bags, which helped expand the company's reach into new retail opportunities. They now sell to dozens of stores in the United States. "She basically doubled the business this company does," Mr. Beaugrand said.
But is she qualified to be managing economic development in Georgia, which is locked in an antagonistic relationship with Russia? The two countries have been battling for years over control of separatist regions in Georgia. Her brief includes engineering stable, high economic growth for the country, and managing files that include privatization, economic deregulation and liberalization of tariffs.
A statement on her ministry's website says that if her to-do list is accomplished, Georgia should have stable GDP growth rates, job creation in the private sector and a reduction in poverty.
Earlier this month, before a cabinet meeting, she reportedly told reporters: "A lot remains to be done and we have [not]much time. We have to work hard to become Europe's Singapore. We can achieve that soon."
Her father is thoughtful when asked about her qualifications. "I can't say [she]is the best. Nobody can find best of best. There are a lot of people who exist, who can do [her job] but what is good in her is she is very energetic, and Western educated."
He agrees she is young for her responsibilities "and really nervous" about handling them, but he knows she will do well.
"She was ready for something big."