Achievements and career highlights

Being a female flight attendant of colour in 1980s Brazil felt unimaginable, particularly when I had just turned 19. Becoming the first in my family to earn a university degree was a pivotal moment. From managing Carlsberg Italia’s Sales Conference (side by side with a Danish colleague, with whom I share a friendship that lasts nearly 30 years), to chairing UN human resources boards in post-earthquake Haiti, numerous memorable events shaped my journey.

Yet, what resonates most is coaching and mentoring female refugees in the arid Western Sahara, assisting them in managing a Canadian government grant, and guiding my Sahrawi assistant toward a master’s degree and a fulfilling international career. This assignment remains my highlight: hopefully fostering growth among these women, their families, and communities, for generations to come remains an enduring gift.

I believe we have all experienced how intersectionality, in its most acidic manifestations, can make our lives much tougher than necessary, particularly in our careers. One of my toughest challenges was dealing with false allies in diversity and inclusion, especially when they hold power and resort to tokenism. To overcome it, I refused to be tokenised and devised a clear, adaptable and well-scheduled exit strategy. The key is to detach yourself swiftly from the relationship with a mix of diplomacy and assertiveness.

In addition to being brave and embracing each opportunity and learning from them, I believe that one of the key contributors to my success has been my ability to speak seven and a half languages (Portuguese, English, Danish, Italian, French, Spanish, German and Swedish). Learning Danish was relatively easy because of the German skills I had already acquired, and it was less painful than expected because of the methodology used. I started in September and by December I was interviewing for a crew member position, in Danish (thank you SAS, I do not think my life would have been nearly so exciting if you had let me through that very last step in your selection process). Communicating with people in their own language whenever possible helps to bridge the cultural divide and cannot be understated.

Aspirations, motivation and advice
Our goals and dreams tend to evolve. What was my greatest dream eight years ago, or even two, is a thing of the past – either realised or outgrown. Today my goal is to establish my own consulting business in the course of 2024, ID4AL – Ingenious Design for Affordable Living – with ESG at its core. Coaching people on how to design the fulfilling life they want to live, e.g. how to let go, when you are convinced that you cannot afford retiring; how to change career paths and how to materialise harmonic living and working environments, eyeing opportunities in recycling and circular economy are some of the environmental, social and governance areas I intend to cover.

I find great inspiration and motivation in my children and grandchild. They are a mix of many cultures and I strive to make them aware of a world that is bigger than Denmark. We travel a lot and have always given preference to local accommodation, rather than hotels and resorts, to come as close as possible to the cultures that are hosting us. My children focus on the global world and how to contribute to it. I am inspired to see the impact of my life on their choices, and I want to strengthen the impact of my legacy in general. My home is an important space, where I welcome many people and where they feel safe and comfortable about opening up.

Upon reflection, one of the best pieces of advice that I have received is that I have the right to choose what is best for my life, and that this choice should be respected. This advice is particularly relevant for us who are expats and women, because we tend to feel that we are responsible for fixing everything back home. Others have expectations to us that we feel we must live-up to. We are expected to live a dual life – both where we are and where we come from. In truth, we have the right to live our own life and take care of ourselves. We can choose to say, “it is not my choice, and hereby not my problem” or to kindly say “no”, without any guilt.

Knowing what I know now, the advice I would give myself at the beginning of my career is to keep diaries and keep them safe, because you never know when you may want to write a book or a documentary.