I came to Switzerland after my studies in Gothenburg, Sweden, with the idea to learn to speak French. After a few years with IKEA in Aubonne, work permit issues pushed me to enrol in further studies. I shopped around and found this great doctoral programme in International Economics at the Graduate Institute! Marvellous years ensued: lectures in the pink villa with a view of Mont Blanc, studying in the Rigot pavilions. Rigot created something of a Stockholm syndrome as I was actually sad to see those makeshift buildings go.

Learning in this environment was an utterly privileged affair; there were five students in my year, and we received very personal instruction from Hans Genberg and Alexander Swoboda, both most inspirational, as were the rest of the faculty and the guest lecturers, including Robert Mundell – I remember the day well.

Leaving Geneva for a job as economist at HSBC in London, I immediately appreciated the network of other former HEI (as we then said) students who were surprisingly numerous and seemingly everywhere.

I then moved to Paris as Chief Economist for France at Merrill Lynch, before taking ten years out of the markets to be able to see more of my three sons and to run my own small company working with horses and their equipment. In 2011, I returned to economics and now run the global research department of Indosuez Wealth Management, the private-banking arm of Crédit Agricole. For this I feel very fortunate because joining the labour force after such a long period away, having just turned 50 and being a woman to boot is by no means a foregone conclusion.

In my current role I continue to benefit from alumni connections, many of whom have had amazing careers and occupy key posts of great relevance for global economics and finance, such as at the IMF, the BIS, central banks and also in the private sector.

The Institute itself is obviously a heavy hitter in terms of thought leadership and agenda setting. It has been very exciting to explore areas of collaboration, and we jointly organised an event. I hope and trust that we will be able to pursue other common causes.

Causes close to my heart include improving data and making economics and finance more accessible to a wide audience. As a data user, I often find myself constrained to work with the data I have, rather than the data I need – an oddity, one might think, in this era of big data. How we talk about economics and finance also matters. On my level, I strive to empower rather than to impress. I think I caught that bug at the Graduate Institute.

I am also the founder and the chair of the International Steering Committee of the AIMS Next Einstein Forum, a global forum for science and the first ever to take place on African soil.

This article was originally published in Globe #22.