ESEI Alumni: Mari Carmen Rosillo

Last week, we heard from one of our alumni in Colombia who had a unique story to tell us, here is Mari Carmen’s story:

“I first came to know about ESEI because Mr. Estera came to my school and gave us a talk about it, then studied the first 3 years of my Bachelor in ESEI and moved to Westminster University in London (partners with ESEI) to finish my degree. This is when the degrees were 4 years long, although now they are 3.

In London I felt that I wanted much more than a traditional life, I wanted to travel all around the world but I had to find the balance between travelling and working in business. In ESEI I enjoyed Corporate Finance more than the other subjects, which is why I looked for a job in this area. When I went back to Barcelona I had a good opportunity to get into PWC (finance + global opportunities company). They offered me a position in the company and a good chance to move to Mergers & Acquisitions in the next few years. The problem was that I didn´t enjoy at all working in auditing. Finally, I decided to quit and do a World round trip. I bought a one way ticket and started my trip in Australia, then Fiji, NY, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Argentina… and ended up in Colombia.

During one night in Bogota I saw a flamenco show and I went to talk to the guitar player when they finished the show and told him that I was Spanish. He said “do you sing?” I answered: “Just in the shower”. He said: “sing something for me”. I did it and suddenly the woman that was dancing on the show came to me and offered me the chance to be the singer for a show that she was arranging in 3 weeks’ time in a theatre. I just thought it might be a funny anecdote on my trip and so accepted the offer, and that was my first show. It worked so well that I got another offer to sing in another show the same day that i sang on the theatre.

I stayed in Colombia singing for 4 years, and then I decided to move to Mexico for 2 years. There was where I recorded my first album “Alma Viajera”. It is a tribute to that trip, and includes covers from different countries.

Nowadays I am doing all the promotion in Colombia so I can do a tour. Alma Viajera has reached number 2 in the top 100 sales of iTunes Colombia in Worldmusic, so I am really happy about the outcome, and working hard to achieve more goals.

I have no manager yet… I have been doing all this process by thinking about it like a company, and myself as a product, but everything done by myself. Thanks to my degree in ESEI and work experience in PwC I managed to do it. Business is in everything after all!”

You can find more info at www.maricarmenmusic.com or on Facebook, Soundcloud, Youtube.