Alex Schmidt

Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University

Hometown: I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil but then moved to California, USA. when I was 18 to study and lived there ever since. I’m also an Italian citizen.

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have worked or traveled in 30 different countries. Hopefully, by the end of the year this number will be much higher.

Undergraduate School and Major: La Sierra University. Management, Marketing, and Political Economy.

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Elementa World. Founder.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:  Setting up my own business from scratch on my own.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? In addition to several incredible qualities my classmates have, I find our class incredibly collaborative.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key factor that led you to choose this programme for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? I applied for top MBA programs and knew that I would be happy, academically-speaking, anywhere I went. However, RSM was surprisingly amazing throughout my entire admissions and enrolment processes. It made me wonder if their program was as amazing as my experience with them had been so far. It turns out the program is even more amazing and I’m extremely happy I chose RSM.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school? I’m looking forward to participating in the Consulting and Marketing clubs.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? I reached a point in my career that I felt I could use a boost and an MBA seemed to be exactly what I needed to expedite career growth.

How did you decide if an MBA was worth the investment? I based my decision on talking to different schools, professionals who worked in the areas I was interested in, and (most importantly) alumni from different programmes.

What other MBA programmes did you apply to? Imperial College and SDA Bocconi

How did you determine your fit at various schools? I wanted to find a program that had values aligned with mine and found that RSM was internationally diverse, featured top talent in terms of students and faculty, focused on development of soft skills just as much as hard technical skills, and genuinely cared about the success of their students.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? I would say that going through college in the US on my own really tested and shaped who I was and what I wanted to become

What do you plan to do after you graduate? I plan to get a job in consulting or marketing and live in Europe for a while

Where do you see yourself in five years? In a leadership position and loving every second of it.