• Carlos Duelo, International Business Economics alumnus, Product Manager, AmazonBasics, and Marc Bachs, Economics alumnus, freelance management consultant, both in Sydney (Australia)

You could say that Carlos Duelo Soucheiron, an International Business Economics alumnus (class of 2016), and Marc Bachs Castán, an Economics alumnus (class of 2015), lead parallel lives. Both men went to the same school in Barcelona (Sant Ignasi de Sàrria), although they were in different years; both went to university at UPF; and, as part of their studies, both spent time abroad in California (Carlos at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Marc at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)), although, again, in different years.

But the coincidences don’t stop there. The two men again overlapped in Madrid, where, after graduating from UPF, they both went to work as consultants for a couple of years and played football together with Marc’s company team. The final stop on this parallel path brings us to the present, in Sydney, where Marc landed in early 2018, to work as a consultant, and Carlos landed in the middle of the same year, when Amazon (the multinational he already had ties to in Madrid) decided to open new markets in Australia and offered him the opportunity to go there to help with the launch.

Despite this shared path, each has his own career, personal interests and field: Marc works as a freelance management consultant, especially for Australian companies; Carlos is in charge of bringing the Amazon house brand (AmazonBasics) to Australia, including imports, marketing, finance and sales.

For now, both men are very happy in Sydney. ‘I came for the quality of life, which is infinitely better than in Europe, and because the country is growing quite a lot and there are very good professional opportunities’, Marc explains. He intends to become a permanent resident of Australia and, some day, to get citizenship so that he can stay in the country as long as he wants. 

“Australia offers a good balance between job opportunities and quality of life”

Marc’s professional goal is to continue improving as a consultant and to specialize in a field that gives him a competitive advantage. ‘Once I get citizenship, I’ll decide whether to go back to Catalonia or stay here. I miss my family and friends, but I prefer Australia in terms of quality of life and my career’, Marc says.

In contrast, Carlos is sure that he will go back to Catalonia some day (‘there’s no better place!’), but he says he still has some time left. ‘Australia offers very good job opportunities with a great balance and a good standard of living. I think the end of this stage of my life will come when I go back to settle down’, he predicts.

One trait the two friends share is that they do not mind moving to the other side of the world if it means improving on a personal and professional level. ‘We are a non-conformist generation with many concerns. Our (or, at least, my) personal fulfilment is linked more to emotional experiences than stability’, Carlos says. Marc thinks that there is a very deeply rooted, very Spanish and Catalan mentality related to having a stable job somewhere close to home. ‘More than 90% of the Spaniards here don’t even consider staying’, he says.

Photo gallery

Carlos Duelo and Marc Bachs together in the futsal team; Carlos Duelo in different situations in Australia, and Marc Bachs with a mate, Emili Vilanova, also UPF alumnus, who got married in Sydney