I was born and raised in Macau in China, which feels very small compared to many of Asia's mega cities. Back in high school, I could never have imagined studying global business in Lisbon with a semester in Central Europe. Yet here I am. My path was not a straight line. After high school I moved to Portugal for a bachelor's in Applied Foreign Languages and Business Relations, studying in Portuguese and learning French along the way.
When the time came to choose a master's, I wanted a full business programme, but I refused to give up the international dimension that had shaped me. Nova SBE in Lisbon offered exactly that: the CEMS Master in International Management, completed alongside a Nova master's. The decision was easy. Today I speak five languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Portuguese and French. People sometimes treat that as a party trick. For me, it is a working tool. Each language opens a way of thinking, a market, a set of references. In international business, that access is the job itself.
Five languages, and the agility to read any room
My term abroad took me to VŠE,Prague University of Economics and Business. It was not my first choice. I had never set foot in the Czech Republic, I knew nobody there and I did not speak the language. It turned out to be one of the best things CEMS gave me. I discovered a school, a city and a community I would never have picked on my own, and when the semester ended in December, I stayed an extra month simply because I was not ready to leave.
What strikes me most about CEMS is how concrete the international dimension becomes. In my Luxury Marketing class, I am often the only person in the room who knows the Asian market from the inside, and that changes how we work through a case: what succeeds for a luxury brand in Europe cannot simply be copied to China, and the room needs someone able to explain why. My background was an asset, never a gap.
I expected to make a few friends at school. Now I have friends all over the world, and the connection goes beyond.
The community made the experience whole. In Prague, the CEMS Club organised everything from networking sessions to a 24-hour bus trip to Oktoberfest in Munich, a small busload of us from every corner of the world, with German friends handling the logistics.
Those bonds did not end with the semester. One of my closest CEMS friends, a German student I met in Prague, is now in Brazil for his second term abroad. My network stretches across continents, and it keeps moving.
Global insight is a skill you practise every day
This, to me, is what a globally minded international business practitioner looks like in practice. Global-mindedness is a skill, and a very concrete one: reading a context, understanding why a decision that works in Lisbon needs rethinking in Prague or in Macau, and adjusting before acting.
Two schools, two countries, a cohort from everywhere: CEMS makes navigating different cultures second nature. In class, in projects, in life.
If I could say one thing to future students, it would be what I now tell everyone who asks.
Take the opportunity, even if it looks hard, even if you have never done anything like it before. Go beyond your comfort zone, even without the language.
Six years ago I was a girl from Macau who had never left home. Today my friends, my professors and my professional contacts are spread across the world, and I know that wherever I go next, I will not be starting from zero.
