Ami Trivedi, MIB’21

- Undergrad: Bachelor of Arts (Political Science), Queen’s University
- MIB program: Double degree with the University of Mannheim (Mannheim, Germany)
- Ami’s MIB experience, in a word: “Community”
“The program was so eye-opening. I pushed myself academically. I got to experience a new culture and way of life. And I met people who became friends for life.”
Ami Trivedi was in a German boardroom, pitching a panel of Mercedes marketing executives on how a subscription-based ownership model might affect the automotive giant—a project she and a few classmates had been developing for months, as part of a consulting internship—when the full value of her Smith Master of International Business (MIB) experience hit her. “These leaders were prioritizing my presentation, and they wanted to hear me talk. It was such a great feeling,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is the kind of hands-on experience that no other degree would get you.’”
A few years earlier, Ami might have envisioned herself in a courtroom instead. She’d been studying politics in her undergrad at Queen’s, and was on track to go to law school, when a language exchange program to Germany rewrote her narrative. “I realized I didn’t want to be tied to a career that would keep me in one jurisdiction,” she says. “I wanted to move around.” Soon after, when she happened upon a brochure for the MIB program while passing through Goodes Hall, it felt like a sign. Business had always interested her, and she could think of no more productive way to satiate her nascent travel bug than to study it abroad. “It would get me back to Germany, and degrees from two top schools?” she says. “I thought, ‘This is it. This is what I am doing.’”
After attending to a few minor logistical details, such as completing a few missing prerequisite courses and passing the GMAT, Ami’s “180-degree pivot” took hold.
She spent the first stretch of the two-year program at the University of Mannheim, where she loaded up on marketing courses, got involved in student government, and delivered the aforementioned project for Mercedes AMG. When the COVID pandemic hit six months into her studies, she extended her stay, using the time to complete her thesis—an examination of the relationships between influencer marketing, parasocial behaviour, and buyer psychology. “The whole experience was perfect for me,” she says.
Ami completed the second half of her program in Kingston, where she burnished her leadership and collaborative chops, and broadened her perspective on all manner of business matters. “It helped a lot with understanding different cultures and different people,” she explains.
These experiences were instrumental in Ami’s post-graduation career, helping her to assume progressively senior sales and marketing roles with major consumer goods, non-profit, and tech organizations. “Since I learned to understand who I’m talking to, what the situation is, and how to filter myself accordingly, I’m able to build much stronger relationships,” she explains. “You can lose deals when you don’t connect with people. But with my understanding, I can find a way to get along with anyone.”
This particular aptitude helped inform another pivot, this time, towards entrepreneurship. In early 2025, Ami founded High Performa, a sales coaching and training consultancy, and launched Ask For It, a podcast about the ins and outs of high-performance selling. She credits the community she built during, and after, her MIB experience—in Canada, in Germany, and beyond—as key to her success. “The program was the best decision I’ve ever made in my entire life,” she says. “It gave me new confidence in myself. And it completely changed my career trajectory.”

