1. What did you do after Global Governance?

I attended a Master at the London School of Economics (LSE) in International Political Economy, and worked part-time as consultant in a company conducting investment research on the sustainability of the copper industry. After that, I realised it was a bit too much of a niche and technical for me, so in January I started a new role in KPMG.

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2. What are you doing now?

I work in risk consulting and political risk and investigations at KPMG in London. After my MSc, I decided to stay here in the UK.

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3. What was your motivation to apply to the London School of Economics?

I had two reasons that gave me a strong motivation to apply. First, after my oversee in Argentina during GG and after choosing the Data Science major, I developed an interest in monetary politics (exchange rates, political economy, and financial markets). It is a very specific field if you want to approach economics from an interdisciplinary perspective. I noticed there were very few universities offering courses in political economy, but LSE stands out as one of the universities that founded the discipline: most of the “big names” that would come up in that field are also teachers at LSE, and they wrote the textbooks we studied from. It was in line with what I wanted to do, and at the same time LSE was very prestigious in the discipline. In the longer term, I also felt I would have had more professional opportunities in London.

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4. How did your time at Global Governance contribute to your academic and personal development?

I think GG was very useful for me. From an academic perspective, it was so interdisciplinary that I had the opportunity to explore different subjects and career perspectives. I participated in the Global Observer blog and the GG United Nations Model, and all these opportunities came because we were supported by the GG staff. It really helped me in figuring out what I wanted to do, both in my personal life but also towards my Master’s. When I arrived at LSE I already had a lot of experience, which was also appreciated when I moved in the job market. Some companies really appreciated the interdisciplinarity I had, I was able to move with ease between different jobs and sectors. For example, I had a job in sustainability although I have never really dived into the subject except from GG. I had the technical knowledge from our Environmental Engineering course and my employer was very impressed by my major in Data Science: they needed someone that could integrate a qualitative with a quantitative approach, and it would have been very difficult without that interdisciplinary education. In general, the exposure to so many topics also developed my interest in various fields, and this helped a lot with my current job: when we conduct investigations, we work everyday with companies from different sectors; having the curiosity and an interdisciplinary knowledge base to build upon really comes in handy.

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5. Is there any work, project, or challenge you started or overcame thanks to what you learned at GG? 
Looking at the soft skills, GG is very multicultural and I found in London a quite similar environment. I realised several times that I was able to deal with specific situations at the workplace because I have been exposed to this multiculturality, which is helpful and relevant when working in an international company.

More specifically, I realised how the Environmental Engineering course has been helpful for my career. I thought it was something remote from my professional career, and I was planning on attending that course during my oversee in Argentina instead of Tor Vergata. Then, in my first job I had to go through pages and pages of how to do carbon accounting. We learned a lot of those things in the GG course, so I felt more confident in having an adequate knowledge base.

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6. What were the major challenges you faced when you started to study International Political Economy at LSE? 

When I started my MSc, I felt like I had a bit of an “impostor syndrome”. Everyone around me was so brilliant, and some of my colleagues were already experienced professionals (for example, one person had been working on the US-China trade deals and they even felt comfortable correcting our teacher!). For me, being in that environment made me wonder (wrongly) if I deserved to be here. It was challenging at first, but I soon realised that the university programme accepted my candidacy – for some reason, they wanted me to be there.

The other challenge is that in GG some things were a bit easier. For example, the administrative staff at LSE was so much worse than GG! I had to do everything myself and chase them. I felt that people were more friendly in GG and I missed that familiarity you had with staff, professors, and students. At LSE I felt like being a bit more on my own, with more responsibilities which were at first hard to manage.

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7. What is your fondest memory from your time at Lund University? It was overall a great experience. My fondest memory is that I had this very niche topic and I was able to cultivate it also thanks to having genius classmates and professors who were also interested in this topic and supportive all the time. For example, I did my dissertation on the Chilean economy and I was able to write it together with the former President of Chile, which I never thought possible! My academic curiosity was fully satisfied. It’s similar to being a GG student and meeting all those Ambassadors at the Diplomacy Festival or during conferences, maybe magnified.

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8. What advice would you give to a prospective student considering studying in Global Governance? 

I would say just take advantage of every opportunity that you are offered. While you are attending GG, you may not realise how many opportunities you are offered and how lucky you are. Maybe it does not seem relevant to you now but looking back, 2 years ago, you will wish that you had taken it or maybe something relevant to you. That is very important because also during my time at LSE I missed some of those things that I really appreciated of GG: how many opportunities we could get and everything that we were provided.

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9. Which advice would you give to GG alumni about to start a project or a new job? 

Professionally speaking, the thing I struggled the most is realising that it is never too late to make a change. I was not sure about the feasibility at the beginning, but I think we should normalise that at the start of the career we should be explorative, that it is possible to change and move to something that you like more. To realise that you are not stuck in life.

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10. What is coming next for you? 

I think I am very happy with my job now. This is what I want to do, so I will try to move towards the sectors of EST and human rights. I feel these may be more relevant to what I want to do and I think they could be “more meaningful” jobs. In the short term this is my goal, and for the near future I really like this professional environment and the context I am in now. The nice thing is also that KPMG is such a big organisation so I might also try to move to another office. In the longer term, I think I will consider the possibility of moving to the public sector or in another country, but I am still figuring out the kind of specialisation I would like to acquire in the human rights sector.

Please feel free to connect with me in case you want to have a chat!

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We are very proud of your achievements Tanya, and we wish you the best of luck for whatever will come next!