Duke Global Executive MBA Student Blog

I have a bit of a mixed family history: I was born in Belgium and then lived in Germany for 5 years. We moved to Cincinnati when I was 7, and when I was 18 I went off to Pittsburgh to study Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. My mother is Bolivian and my father is French-Mexican. I grew up speaking French at and Spanish as I traveled to Latin American to spend most of my summers with my grandparents and cousins. As I have most recently spent 7 years abroad in Austria and Switzerland, I’ve had the chance to perfect my German as well. I now live in Zurich with my boyfriend and two kittens.

I started as an engineer at Bombardier Transportation, the leader in manufacturing of railway equipment. I moved through different product lines and countries in my engineering roles before eventually transitioning to sales, where I was responsible for Light Rail Vehicle (tram) sales in Switzerland. Shortly after the program, I started at Boston Consulting Group in Switzerland.

I love animals, and remain committed to living a lifestyle without any animal cruelty. I am a vegetarian, I no longer buy leather (which is tough on my shoe and purse addiction!), and I do my best to use cruelty-free (no animal testing) beauty and household products. I also love the mountains, so I spend free time snowboarding and climbing. I played a lot of soccer and basketball when I was younger, but now I've turned more to endurance sports like running (which I actually really hate, but it's a good way to burn calories!), biking and swimming and combining them all in triathlons. Besides that I enjoy traveling and visiting my family that is spread out all around the world. Oh, and I also really love cheese and chocolate—I’ve found a real home in Switzerland!

Coralie was a Cross Continent MBA student prior to the program's merger with the Global Executive MBA program.

Posts by Coralie:

• After Graduation: Enjoying Being a Consultant - December 13, 2016

  Now that I have the job with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), what’s it like? It’s actually really similar to the program: the travel, the international projects and teams, the (occasional) long nights solving complicated problems, wondering where to even start

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• How Duke Helped Me Land a Job at Boston Consulting Group - November 22, 2016

  If you are anything like me, you began your MBA not knowing what you wanted to get out of your educational experience. I was relatively happy with how my career was proceeding. I liked my job and wanted to use my MBA to move up within my company. Then I met my classmates

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• Corporate Visits Provide Unique Business Insight: Part 2 - July 15, 2015

  This blog was written prior to the Cross Continent MBA program merger with the Global Executive MBA program.  Part 1 of the blog can be read here. Bhane: An Up-and-Coming Fashion Brand, Designed in…

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• To the Great Wall and Back - December 29, 2014

  This blog was written prior to the Cross Continent MBA program merger with the Global Executive MBA program.  To make the best of our residencies abroad, many of us often choose to do a…

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• Break a Leg. No Really, it Helps. - August 11, 2014

  This blog was written prior to the Cross Continent MBA program merger with the Global Executive MBA program.  I don’t quite know when I decided that I wanted to do an MBA. I always…

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