By Heream Yang
Alejandra Martinez
For Alejandra Martinez (MBA ’19), landing a spot at one of the world’s top consulting firms wasn’t part of her original plan. After working for four years as a financial risk manager in her home country of Ecuador, she decided to further her career by earning her MBA in the U.S. “I wanted to keep growing, and I was kind of stuck in my career at that point,” she said.
Martinez entered business school with plans to leverage her finance background into an investment banking career in the U.S. She landed a summer internship at Bank of America’s Charlotte office, but as she thought more deeply about her post-MBA career, she realized that — despite her positive experience in America — she ultimately wanted to return home and give back to South America.
When she learned from a fellow intern that McKinsey & Company was specifically recruiting Latin American candidates for their Bogotá, Colombia office, Martinez decided to apply. She ultimately landed a full-time offer at McKinsey’s Bogotá office, where she will begin working after graduating in May.
“Going back (to Latin America) with an MBA, you come in with more seniority than other people and I think you can have a bigger impact depending on where you land,” she said. “You can go into a really small organization and have a really big impact and that’s something that I really look forward to.”
Click through Martinez’s timeline below to find out how she landed the offer.
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