"I always wanted to make a difference," Emily Hikade, founder and CEO of luxury sleepwear and home company Petite Plume, tells Entrepreneur. "I wanted to make a change. I wanted to do something that meant something."

Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume. Emily Hikade.

Growing up in Central Wisconsin, Hikade was curious about the world from a young age. She biked to the library to teach herself French before high school. At 13, she convinced her parents to let her do a summer exchange program in the South of France — and returned home fluent.

Hikade went on to attend the University of Notre Dame, where she continued to study French alongside German and international relations. As her undergraduate career came to a close, Hikade accepted a job at the White House.

Related: He Started a Multimillion-Dollar Business That Brought Back the Espresso Martini — and Has Some Advice to Save Other Entrepreneurs Time and Money

In Washington, D.C., Hikade passed the foreign service exam and worked at the State Department's Operations Center, where she got an up-close look at the White House's Situation Room and navigated high-stakes calls with global leaders. Then another life-changing opportunity presented itself.

"Lights went out, people were screaming. All I could see were the faces of my three little boys."

"I got a tap on the shoulder to head over to the dark side [to the CIA], as we say," Hikade recalls. "I had the perfect cover because I really was a state department officer. I really did speak three languages at that point fluently. I really did take the foreign service exam. I could talk the talk."

Hikade joined the CIA and added Russian and Arabic to her language repertoire. She worked as an officer specializing in counterterrorism........

© Entrepreneur