Maria Pia Gazzella

I am Trade and Investment Officer at the British Embassy in Chile working for UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), a post I have held since 1998. I am a 37 year-old Chilean with Italian and Ecuadorian parents. After finishing school in Santiago I studied Corporate Communications in Rome, where I also began to work for an international news agency (IPS – Inter Press Service). Once I returned to Santiago, I started working for a Japanese Trading Company (Marubeni) as Section Manager where I was trained in international business. Following this, I was Marketing Manager for a telecommunications company while also studying for my Business Administration Degree in the evenings, graduating top of my class in 2001. Last year I had the honour of winning the Commercial Attaché of the Year award organised by the Daily Telegraph and sponsored by the Federation of Small Businesses.

I am currently studying for an MBA at the Universidad Católica in Santiago, and when this blog is launched I will be in Beijing with a scholarship from the University to participate in a Student Exchange Programme with Tsinghua University.

I have been happily married to Jorge Porras since 1997. We have three children, aged 7, 4, and 2.