Life as an Expat
Globetrotting Alumni


An Argentinean in France, a Chinese in Spain, an American in the Netherlands … Six globally-minded IESE MBAs explain why they have chosen to live and work abroad. While all the former students benefited from IESE´s introduction to international business life, it was destiny, they say, that led them to pursue a global career.

José Luis Carbonell’s (MBA ’78) eight children were born in London, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Stamford (Connecticut) and Paris. An Argentinean finance executive, Carbonell is one of a growing number of IESE alumni who have made a life of living and working abroad.

IESE itself could be called a microcosm of international life. For example, the MBA Class of 2005 represents 44 nationalities. The students have come to Barcelona from every corner of the globe; from Belgium to Belarus and from China to the Czech Republic. Over a third of the class members are from Western Europe – a sign that the region’s borders are dissolving. And while the leading U.S. business schools are made up of 70 percent Americans, only 30 percent of IESE’s student body is from Spain.

Such international diversity has been and continues to be a strong factor in many students´ decision to choose IESE. Many see their time in Barcelona completing the school’s full-time MBA program as a way to extend and enhance their global outlook.

After jobs in various nations, José Luis Carbonell is now a board member and CFO of Eurodif, the European partnership for uranium enrichment and a subsidiary of energy giant, AREVA. Based in Paris, Carbonell and his family reached a point when it became important to put down roots and they have lived in France for the past 12 years. “We did not want the children to move so much during school and the French educational system is excellent,” said Carbonell.

Back as a student, Carbonell was so keen to add an international aspect to his education that he raced through a five-year degree in accountancy at the University of Tucumán in Argentina in only three and a half years. "I was already looking forward to an international career in high school so I took the fastest route possible to the MBA,” he said.

Carbonell received offers from several U.S. business schools but he was drawn to IESE for its approach to decision-making. In the 1970s, some 60 percent of IESE’s MBA student body was Spanish, but Carbonell was attracted to the diversity of the future business leaders’ background. “It was the opportunity to work with people from different disciplines that was very enriching. An engineer may have taken a very quantitative approach to a case, while a lawyer saw things very differently,” he noted.

In the years since, the finance director has worked extensively with professionals from different cultures. Carbonell met his Catalan/Paraguayan wife while working as a management associate in Schering Plough in Switzerland, his first post after the MBA. “If you are married, the most important thing to make an international career work is to make a good team with your wife,” he said.

Carbonell also appreciated the support he received from IESE’s international faculty in his drive to work overseas. “There was a German professor of international finance, Harald Burmeister, who was a great mentor in my search for an international career,” he added.

German alumnus Michael Brandenburg (MBA ’89), now vice president of Capgemini Deutschland in Munich, said that classes taught by Professors Paddy Miller and Nuria Chinchilla of the Department of Managing People in Organizations were particularly useful in preparing him for the challenges of living and working in another culture.

Brandenburg left what could have been a lifelong job with Germany’s RWE to earn his MBA at IESE. The nuclear engineer had broken several company production records and had been promoted to head RWE’s Mühlheim-Kärlich power plant after just two years with the company when he decided to go back to school and strengthen his understanding of business administration.

Following his MBA, Brandenburg took a position as an assistant to the board of directors of SEAT in Spain, just as the company kicked off a €4 billion restructuring program. The German adapted quickly to the change in business practices: “Spain’s managers and workers impressed me with their agility and ability to implement changes rapidly,” he noted. “It was quite different from Germany.”

These days, Brandenburg´s career has taken a modern twist. Following his switch to consultancy with Capgemini five years ago, Brandenburg now lives in Barcelona with his Catalan wife and two daughters yet he works most of the week in Munich. When away from home, he uses technology to keep in contact with his family, including telephone calls and the family website.

American Kathleen Malaspina (MBA ’01), a marketing manager with Philips in the Netherlands, feels IESE´s diverse class profile taught her a lot about the United States, her native country. “Everyone has an opinion on the U.S.,” she said, “and through encounters with other nationalities over those two years, you come to reflect and learn about yourself.”

Malaspina joined Philips’ marketing associate program shortly after completing her MBA. The young American was one of four MBAs who spent two years working in the Dutch company’s varied product divisions with the aim of transforming Philips into a world-class marketing organization.

For the marketer, the move to the Netherlands was not much of a culture shock, since Malaspina had already spent eight years in marketing, sales and business development with Sanyo in the U.S. and Motorola in Singapore, Australia and the United States. “Having lived in Asia, it was not as drastic a change. Holland is kind of ‘expat light’; it is a pretty open culture,” she said. Malaspina´s only complaint is the northern European climate. “It just rains so much!”

The IESE graduate believes learning the local language – Dutch, in her case – is crucial if you are serious about integrating into the local culture.

While Malaspina’s move to the Netherlands was fairly smooth, her Chinese classmate, Yongsheng Wang (MBA ’01) had a tougher time adjusting to Spanish culture as a manager at Tecniacero, the automotive parts manufacturer near Barcelona. “The Latin culture is very different from Chinese culture. Furthermore, it sometimes contradicts another European culture, German, that I was already familiar with.”

The MBA alumnus first visited Europe while working for a joint venture with Volkswagen in China. “I grew up in northeast China and spent five years studying in Beijing. I was attracted by the differences in cultures. In a professional sense, Spanish people are very easy to get along with. And out of the office, they live relaxed, happy lives.”

Yet, in the small Catalan town where he lives, Wang has found it harder to integrate. “People are more introspective than in large cities,” he noted. “My wife has begun Spanish lessons, one of the most effective ways of adapting to a new environment.”

On top of IESE’s diverse class profile, MBA students also have the unique opportunity to further their international horizons through the exchange program. Argentinean Miguel Ángel Rebolledo (MBA ’94), director of investments at Skanska BOT in Washington, D.C., said that his time at London Business School “boosted the already international exposure at IESE.”

Like many of IESE’s globally-minded MBAs, Rebolledo’s studies in Spain represented a stop-off on an international itinerary rather than a springboard for an international career. The former civil engineer had spent time working in Colombia before earning his MBA and returned there afterwards to a higher position. Following periods in Saudi Arabia and back in Argentina, Rebolledo moved to Washington, D.C., five years ago to take up his current position at Skanska BOT, the Skanska Group´s private finance company for infrastructure projects.

“The United States is quite a different culture from Latin America and Europe, where I have always felt quite at home,” he said. However, the investment director was enthusiastic about American business culture. “[Working in the U.S.] offers limitless access to the best professional practices and technologies in the world, as well as a pragmatic approach to business.” The Argentinean is also grateful for the opportunities to further his studies in the U.S. Rebolledo is finishing the first year of a master’s degree in finance at George Washington University. His Colombian wife, Monica, recently earned a master’s in law from American University.

Almost all of the IESE alumni who chose overseas assignments said that it was the opportunity rather than the host country that attracted them to their posts. Nevertheless, Rebolledo faced a number of cultural challenges in Saudi Arabia, where he followed a new job opportunity. “During that period, my wife remained in Colombia, as women face many restrictions in Saudi Arabia. After a year and a half, I chose to exit the country,” he said.

On the contrary, Leslie Baxter (MBA ’01) selected a host country before finding a job opportunity. When Baxter married Gianluigi Casetta (MBA ‘01), an Italian colleague from her MBA class, the two headed to Turin. “I turned down a job offer in the United States and I worked very hard to find a job in Turin,” she said.

Baxter worked as a consultant for her husband’s family firm, Laghi Baite, for a few years before taking up a post in the organizing committee for the XX Winter Olympics, which will take place in Turin in 2006. Yet, Baxter said, she would have chosen to stay in Europe regardless of personal reasons. The IESE alumna grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and traveled to Europe for the first time when she was 17. “After that trip, I made it my goal to live around the world and visit other cultures.”

Baxter said the IESE MBA helped ease the transition to working in Italy. “Because the program is so international, there is a respect for various approaches and different cultural attitudes and time to explore these differences,” she said. For example, Baxter said that interacting with colleagues is quite different in the Anglo-Saxon culture than in the Italian culture. “I have to be careful not to be too informal, which could be seen as disrespectful. But luckily I already saw these differences in the MBA."

Harmonized Global Practices

As the globalization of business continues, we asked IESE international alumni if management practices are becoming more harmonized. “I agree that work environments are increasingly homogenous across the world, but local culture still dominates,” said Wang.

Carbonell believes there will always be differences between business leaders, something he has experienced firsthand as a member of the board of EMANI, which represents Europe’s five largest nuclear operators. “You have to adapt and adopt new ideas to get the job done. You can’t steamroll people into a decision. You have to show everyone that it will work and keep them on your side,” he said.


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