Class of 2013

Olga Jordao

Although post-TRIUM Olga has remained a senior executive at her long-time employer, State Street, it’s fair to say the TRIUM experience helped her blossom professionally. Not just because her newfound confidence helped her garner a new role – Global Relationship Executive – in a new department or that she was recently asked to run a three-year, multimillion-dollar integration project for the financial services company. Rather, Olga says, “My horizon is much wider today. I know that I can learn complex new things that I never thought I would be able to do, and most of all I gained the belief that I can do anything if I set my mind to it.”

Since I joined TRIUM I feel that I know much better what I want for my career and I communicate my aspirations more clearly.

Born in Portugal, raised in Luxembourg, and now based in Paris, Olga personifies “global.” She speaks five languages, has vast expertise in business transformation and new business implementation, and excels at working with cross-border and cross-functional teams. Yet finance was a field she basically fell into, as the banking industry is one of Luxembourg’s biggest employers. After 18 years in it, she says, “I felt that I needed to expand my horizon and validate if that was really the industry in which I wanted to pursue my career.”

When she decided to pursue a global executive MBA, Olga chose the TRIUM program because it enrolled the most senior executives; promised a manageable two weeks out of every three months of class time; attracted a global cohort; and most important for Olga, “treated us like adults – no in-class exams.”

She found that TRIUM delivered on all that, plus more: she discovered an interest in entrepreneurship. For her Capstone Project, she joined a team that created a business plan to expand a fashion designer’s New York showroom to Latin America. “This experience taught me that I was able to get a totally new idea off the ground and confirmed how much I love working with people that are spread around the world: I learned that I could be an entrepreneur if I really wanted to.” And though Olga chose to return to corporate life, the entrepreneur bug is still biting: on the side, she is now working with a friend on a sustainable fashion startup. “I guess I must have missed that entrepreneurial creativity!” she laughs.

Having been active in Europe’s PWN Global women’s network, after earning her EMBA degree Olga was looking for ways to remain connected to TRIUM and to bring value to the program. She currently serves on TRIUM’s alumni steering committee, which aims to connect alumni through various types of events and advance the interests of the TRIUM community across the alliance schools – for instance, through its popular Module 7 annual alumni reunion, a two- to three-day collegial gathering.

Olga believes more women could benefit from the TRIUM program and is interested in forming an informal network of women alumnae who would share their experiences with prospective women candidates. As she puts it: “Since I joined TRIUM I feel that I know much better what I want for my career and I communicate my aspirations more clearly. I now believe that the possibilities are endless; it’s up to me to seize them.”