Please meet Cosima, our Ambassador in the University of St. Gallen. Along with other Ambassadors in different locations, she has organized the Jobzippers Entrepreneurial Speakers Series in St. Gallen on November, 30, 2011.

Cosima is 21 years old. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor degree in Economics. Previously she has studied culture in Paris. This summer, Cosima has completed a summer internship at SUSI Partners, a fund advisor for sustainability investments based in Zurich. She is an active member of the board of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music in Cologne, Germany.

Cosima joined Jobzippers because she was looking for the great networking opportunities and self development experiences at three levels: her university, Switzerland and Europe. She wanted to widen her horizon through the connection to driven individuals from different backgrounds. Cosima also wished to share the wealth of opportunities created through the Jobzippers network with her fellow students.

One of the achievements Cosima is really proud of is the fact that she made it all the way to St. Gallen through the French preparatory school, then the entrance exam and after that the difficult Assessment year, having received a good GPA.

For the next year, Cosima plans to complete her Bachelors degree, go to Asia, find ideas for the new businesses and define her career path. In the next 10 years, she wants to have a family, friends and her own company.

Cosima’s favourite book is “Indignez vous” by Stephane Hessel. Her favourite food is chocolate. He favourite drink is Martini. Her favourite city is Paris and her favourite country to travel to is Norway.

Today we would like to introduce our Ambassador at ETH Zurich, Daniel Sutter. For Daniel, being a Jobzippers Ambassador is a great chance to get in touch with interesting students and companies. It also gives him an opportunity to play the active part in the great idea of Jobzippers – bringing together talents and jobs.

After having graduated from a business-oriented high school, he did his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering at ETH. He also spent a semester at the National University of Singapore. Following an internship at a Swiss company that produces equipment for food and chemical industry, Daniel finished his Master degree in Process Engineering at ETH Zurich. He wrote his Master thesis on Geothermal Energy at Cornell University, NY. Right now, Daniel is a PhD student at ETH Zurich working on CO2 capture.

One of his most meaningful professional achievements was an award for one of the highest scores in the exams during his Bachelor year. Just a few weeks before that he was not even sure whether he would pass it. The biggest failure that comes to his mind was in a sports competition: Daniel missed an important penalty kick.

In the next month, Daniel plans to reestablish and improve his hockey skills. In the next year, he is going to have a scientific publication out. In 10 years, he would like to have a family.

Daniel’s favorite book is Nathan der Weise, by Lessing. His favorite food is a Singapore-style food court. His favorite drink is a self-invented cocktail called “Scotty, beam me up”. His favorite cities are Montréal, Montpellier and Munich. His favorite country to travel to is Iceland.

Christy is our Ambassador in Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz in Basel who is doing her Master of Arts in Design. Christy spends most of her time working on her thesis in user experience visual design for mobile devices. She has received her Bachelor of Arts in Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she was also employed as a computer consultant, giving workshops in basic programming and in the Adobe Creative Suite. She hopes to find work as a digital publisher for eBooks and magazines in Switzerland as soon as next fall.

Christy became a Jobzippers Ambassador firstly to gain some work experience in Switzerland and learn what the job expectations are in this country. Also, she wanted the opportunity to become better acquainted with her university and connect with students in different disciplines.

Christy’s biggest success was making the jump abroad from California to Switzerland in 2010. After a year of applying for work and study opportunities, she was given one month notice to attend Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz. This was despite the fact that she held her interview during a two-week camping trip to Alaska! Christy doesn’t believe in failures in life. She believes everything happens for a reason. What can be mistaken for a failure could prove itself an opportunity for success. It all depends how on how you look at it.

Christine’s favorite book is Ender’s Game. Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. Her favorite drink is cream soda. Her favorite city is St. Moritz in Switzerland. Her favorite employer was Instructional Computing back in Santa Barbara. Her favorite country to travel to was always Scotland, but after the Bernina Express ride in 2008, it has to be Switzerland.

The name of our Ambassador in the University of Lausanne is Hector, but he prefers to be called Tito, which is short for Hector in Chile (he agrees that there is hardly any logic in the derivation from Hector to Tito, but this is the way it goes in his home country).

While in Chile, Tito attended a Swiss German school for 4 years where he got to learn some pretty good German. After he finished high school, he has moved to California to pursue a Bachelors degree in Business Administration. He got married to the love of his life (a Swiss girl that he first met in Chile and they stayed friends, and then she also moved to California to do her studies).

After 6 years of working, Tito and his wife decided to move to her native Switzerland. In order to give himself some time to learn French to stay competitive, Tito decided to go back to school and he is currently a second year Masters student in Management at HEC Lausanne.

As far as work experience, Tito had done things like organizing tour programs for foreigners at Hostelling International (Santiago, Chile). He had a cosmetics kiosk at a shopping center in California. After his bachelor studies, he joined a photography agency in California, where he was a management partner in charge of business analysis and development.

In the future, Tito sees himself working in a promising start-up, where his ideas can be heard and he can be an active participant in the growth and expansion of the enterprise. Eventually, he would also consider starting his own company.

Tito has joined Jobzippers to be able to work on a flexible schedule so he could still focus on his regular student workload. At the same time, he was looking for something that had an entrepreneurial flair attached to it. He got to like the Jobzippers idea of a more direct link between students, employers and universities. He also thinks that Jobzippers goes well with his personality since it involves constantly interacting with people, and it is a great way to start a professional network in Switzerland.

Tito’s major academic success was winning a social entrepreneurship award for his project at UniL. In terms of work, his had successfully led the growth of the photography agency in San Diego County. As for the failures in his life, Tito regrets not taking advantage of learning French in school when it was offered as an optional course. He is glad he is learning it now.
In the next month, Tito plans to recruit students for Jobzippers, to make good progress on his internship search, and engage in a thorough research for his thesis topic, which he plans to do in the area of entrepreneurship. Next year, he plans to to work for a company with a mission that matches his purposes. In the next 10 years, he would love to do more traveling and have a bigger family.

Out of many favorite books, he can name Rich Dad Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrant, the E-Myth revisited, The World is Flat, and Isabel Allende’s “Paula” and “La isla bajo el Mar”. His favorite food is pastel de choclo, a Chilean corn pie with minced meat. His favorite drinks are plain and fresh orange juice, coke and caipirinha. His favorite city is San Francisco. His favorite employer is Kiva (online platform where entrepreneurs, mostly from third world countries, can get interest free loans) and Facebook. His favorite countries to travel to are China and Singapore. Tito’s hobbies include traveling, spending time with friends, working out, doing outside sports, and photography.

Welcome to our new “Meet our Ambassadors” series! Every week starting today we will introduce one of our high-flying Jobzippers Ambassadors. They represent Jobzippers on campuses, so make sure to keep in touch with them in your university, or region!

Our longest-serving Ambassador’s name is Elias Mirza. He joined Jobzippers last year and became our very first Ambassador ever! Elias is from Lebanon, and so far he has lived in 3 different countries: in France for 7 years, in Lebanon for 11 years, and then in Switzerland for the last 4 years. Elias is a super positive person, who is always up for new challenges. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), and he is currently pursuing an MSc in Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship. After he has interned with a big corporation, Nestlé, he decided to try something new and thought, why don’t I try myself in a startup? He ended up working for Jobzippers, and he thinks that the mix between these two different experiences was very enriching.

Elias is currently planning his future career path, which he will follow a year from now. With such variety of opportunities, it’s not an easy choice, but he has already learnt that the most important thing is that one must search for a career that he or she would be passionate about in order to excel and succeed in achieving their life goals.

Elias has met our founder and managing director, Peter Vogel, in one of the courses he took. Peter talked to Elias about Jobzippers, and Elias decided to do a summer internship with Jobzippers. After that, Elias stayed in the company to work as an Ambassador. He is sure that Ambassadorship is a perfect way to grow his network on campus, gain some corporate experience, and make some pocket money.

Elias’ biggest achievement in life so far was his arrival to Switzerland after his baccalaureate in 2007. His whole bachelor path was a real success, too. With some friends at EPHL, he has founded a student association – the Consulting Society. After less than a year they were able to get multiple partners and, with almost no resources at hand, organize a first event engaging 4 companies and more than 50 attendees. His biggest failure was when Elias decided not to go on exchange program during the third year of his Bachelors, thinking he would go abroad during his Masters. As Elias switched faculties from Computer Science to Management, he was not able to leave anymore.

During the next week, Elias plans to organize his activities and decide which of the numerous options he should choose to be doing this semester. During the next month, he plans to attract a lot of CVs to the Jobzippers website. During the next year, Elias will finish his Master’s degree and decide what career he would like to pursue. In the next 10 years, he plans to travel and dance tango in every single city in Europe as well as have his own company back in his country.

Elias favorites…
- Book: The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management, by Tom De Marco.
- Food: Lebanese food, you should try it! It’s delicious!
- Drink: Whisky on the rocks.
- City: Beirut, a melting pot of Orient and Occident, the Capital of his country and of his heart.
There is a city he hasn’t visited yet, but he will do so in the near future: Buenos Aires! He’s totally crazy about tango dancing, and there hardly is a better place on Earth to live and dance all day long.
- Employer: Jobzippers!
Elias also gave lots of private math courses, and he really enjoyed it – “Maybe my students were my best employers”.
- Country to travel to: Argentina!