I was born and raised in Lima, Peru, but I am also half-Italian. Few people call me Maria del Pilar, and all my friends and family back home know me as Maripili. I come from a big family—I am the last of four sisters—so I love being surrounded by many people.

I studied communications at the University of Lima, and I never thought of doing an MBA. I wanted to be a journalist! But things change, and at some point in the middle of my career I began to enjoy marketing and I went fully for it. I started my career at IBM and after 2 years I moved to Repsol, a Spanish Oil & Gas company. I decided to pursue my MBA at Fuqua to acquire the cutting edge skills of the marketing industry, as well as obtain the deeper background in finance, general management, and leadership necessary to understand every side of a business.

In my spare time I like to swim because it is my favorite sport and Duke’s Wilson Recreation Center pool is awesome. I like to watch TV shows, and when doing so I love to look for product placements—one of my guilty pleasures. Although I’ll have to wait for the end of my first year at Fuqua to catch up with all my favorite shows. And one fun fact about me is that I have never touched snow, so I hope we have a cold winter in Durham. I am kidding I only want one day of snow!

Fuqua Activities: I plan to be actively involved with the High Tech Club, the Marketing Club, and the General Management Club. I am also handling the Twitter account for the Duke MBA Association (follow us! @dukefuquambaa) and you will see me every other day giving tours to prospective students and joining them for lunch.