Alumni Stories: Stella Gonzales Vigil, Duke Fuqua

Over 80 percent of employers look to hire graduates who’ve studied overseas. It’s a fact: international experience can make the difference when it comes to an ultra-competitive MBA jobs market.

Stella Gonzales Vigil studied economics before starting her first full-time job in banking in Peru. She knew finance was her thing, but she’d never worked outside her native country. In 2010, she decided to take a leap out of her comfort zone and join the full-time MBA program at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in Durham, North Carolina, in the US.

Duke hands international experiences to its MBA students on a plate, as the school has exchange links with universities across 27 countries. The Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum sees students lead real-life consulting projects in emerging markets like Brazil, China, or South Africa.

Coming from abroad only added to Stella’s profile. During her MBA, she nabbed a summer internship at Deutsche Bank in New York. After the internship, she was offered a full-time job. Today, Stella is a vice president at Deutsche Asset Management, a world-leading investment management firm which manages a massive $700 billion in assets.

In 2017, 20 percent of Duke Fuqua’s graduating class went into finance, 89 percent stayed in the US and 80 percent got jobs thanks to the school. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are just two keen recruiters of Fuqua MBAs, but Fuqua is about more than just finance. The biggest employers of Fuqua MBAs also include Deloitte (hired 26 MBA students from the class of 2017), McKinsey (21) and Amazon (15).

BusinessBecause caught up with Stella to find out more.

When I started at Fuqua, I was immediately immersed in an environment that inspires you to try new things. After a few weeks, I decided my MBA was not only my opportunity to live abroad but also the perfect time to try something different. I decided to pursue two concentrations: Investments and Strategy.

When I saw the post for the internship at Deutsche Bank, I knew that was it. It was literally a combination of my background and my current concentrations. I applied and was lucky to be offered a position that turned into a full-time offer at the end at the summer. Six years later, it’s still a place I like to go every morning.