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Growing up in Germany, I loved to watch the planes land into Frankfurt–am–Main as a kid. I never could have predicted I’d now be living in Dubai, building companies and researching space, but that’s what can happen at McKinsey. I always had an entrepreneurial spirit. During my undergrad and master’s degrees, I started my own little company doing web design. From then on, every project I took brought new challenges. I was never quite sure at the start how I would solve them, but I always believed I could. I didn’t call it problem solving then, but I later realized that’s how I worked at McKinsey.

Why did I move to Dubai? It was chance –kismet as we say here. Before I joined the firm, I went to a business technology workshop McKinsey hosted for potential recruits in Germany. Everyone there touted Dubai as one of the fastest growing, biggest opportunities.

Christian inline 2
Christian inline 2

I loved Dubai immediately. I was excited about the work we do there, the spirit of the region, and the many different cultures that come together in the city. I started with an internship at McKinsey in Dubai, and loved it, but life called me back to Germany, where I switched to Proctor & Gamble as assistant brand manager for Pampers. Yes, the diapers.

It sounds funny but it was an amazing experience for many reasons. I learned a lot from my time at P&G but always felt something pulling me back into consulting.

Inline
Inline

I rejoined McKinsey in 2013 in Dubai and was the eighth person on the team. Now, there are 65+ of us in Digital McKinsey’s Middle East Office, and we’re growing quickly. Now I have a global network of colleagues from lots of different backgrounds in different areas of expertise.They give me the confidence to tackle any problem whether at work or not. For example, I’ve started learning how to sketch. I’m an amateur drone pilot. I’m fascinated by space, and, now, I’m watching Falcon Rockets land with the same sense of wonder I did with the planes at Frankfurt.

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