While my family roots are in Italy, I was born in the United States and raised in Switzerland. I finished law school at the University of Zurich with a master degree in law (lic. iur.). In addition, I completed the Swiss bar exam and am admitted to the bar as a lawyer in Switzerland. Subsequently, I completed a Master of Advanced Studies (UZH) in Finance (University of Zurich) and obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the Pritzker School of Law (Northwestern University; Chicago). I believe the HKU MBA gives me an important (and so far missing) tool that completes my education and thinking.

Since 2009, I have been working as a junior associate, associate and senior associate at a leading Tier 1 law firm in Switzerland. As a member of the capital markets team, I was advising major investment banks and other financial institutions with respect to capital markets transactions as well as financial services and products regulation. Specifically, I specialized in the areas of investment funds, structured products, and Fintech. Before I started working as a lawyer I  gained work experience as an intern at Lehman Brothers (equity derivatives sales) as well as with the Public Prosecutor Department in Zurich.

I am pursuing an MBA to strengthen my business knowhow, my management skills, my network, and, finally, to spend an exciting year in a – from a Swiss perspective – very exotic country such as Hong Kong/China. In addition, I am looking forward to completing the last term of the MBA programme at Columbia Business School in New York, another exciting city which is not far from my place of birth.

Business (especially, management, strategy, and marketing), finance and economics are still a blind spot for many lawyers and law firms. Although I am the only lawyer in my MBA programme, I believe it is an extremely valuable addition to the education of every modern and interdisciplinary lawyer. The HKU MBA is particularly interesting because it is conducted in a cross-culture environment with classmates from many different countries. Thus, all lawyers that are thinking about applying to an MBA should certainly do so – especially to a great programme such as the HKU MBA.