I am from Bogotá, Colombia, and I did my Bachelor's in Business Administration at Universidad de los Andes. When the school joined the CEMS Alliance, I was already deeply involved in campus life and close to the international students on exchange, so I was invited to take part in launching the new Master in International Management. I said yes immediately.
Few students get the chance to build something from its very first day, and that experience shaped everything that followed. Being a pioneer became my way of doing CEMS. It started with the community. I became the first President of the CEMS Club Bogotá, which meant creating the first events and the first traditions from a blank page.
My favourite memory from that semester is the weekend we rented a finca in El Peñón, near Girardot. A barbecue, a whole cohort under one roof for two days, and by Sunday a group of classmates had turned into a community. That is what a CEM Club is for, and we had just proven it could exist in Colombia.
Then CEMS took me to HEC Paris, in France, and the pace changed. Events, networking opportunities, chances to learn from people far beyond the classroom, everything moved fast. I made a point of building a relationship with each of my professors, staying after class until they knew my name and my background, because their experience was a resource I did not want to waste. And I kept doing what I love, this time as head of events for the CEMS Club, where our team organised the end-of-semester gala. Venue, food, music, and the opinions of eighty classmates to bring together. Making eighty people happy was the real project management course, and the night turned out beautifully.
Driving transformation
The Business Project pushed me into the heart of a global company. My team worked with Cartier; one of Richemont maisons, on their fragrance business, with a mission to reimagine the customer journey across regions. We visited stores, discovered the craft behind their perfumes, and interviewed people from every region our team could reach, since each of us brought a different home market to the table. At the end, the client told us the work was genuinely useful and that they would implement our recommendations. Watching a grande maison take ideas from a student team and decide to act on them taught me what driving transformation actually feels like.
We all leave with knowledge in our heads. The difference is made by those who put it into practice and go after their goals.
My CEMS journey closed in Rio de Janeiro, at the Graduation Ceremony, with my
family in the room and CEMSies from everywhere on the dance floor. In CEMS we work hard and we celebrate hard, and that day had both. What I carry most from the programme today is not on any syllabus. It is proactiveness. We all leave our Master's with knowledge in our heads; the difference is made by those who put it into practice and actively go after their goals.
Surrounded by classmates who were all pushing to become better versions of themselves, I learned to focus my energy on making things happen.
Change starts with the courage to act
That is what being a bold business transformation driver means to me. You spot what does not exist yet, a club, an event, a better customer journey, and you take responsibility for bringing it to life, through cooperation and co-creation with classmates, professors and professionals you admire. To students in Colombia and across Latin America who are wondering whether to apply, I will say this.
You will join a network of leading schools, leading companies and remarkably driven people, and you will feel the quality of everyone around you from the first week.
But the real gift is what it activates in you. I arrived as a student who liked organising things. I came back as someone who builds them.
