10 successful Colombian executives working abroad has been written for people interested in furthering their knowledge of both Business English and business in general. It contains candid conversations with bright executives and entrepreneurs from which we can all learn about their professional and personal experiences. It also contains enough grammar and vocabulary information to be a document used as a stand alone text for a Business English course.
The book is divided into ten chapters, with an interview in each one. The process of selecting the people to be interviewed was a challenging one. The interviewees had to meet a certain set of criteria: They all had to be Colombian; have a career of more than five years in the United States; and use English as their main language at work.
Of course, I was very interested in how they learned and developed their use of the language and how it was adapted to meet their needs as executives. An exception to the criteria was made with Manuel Arango from Shell, since he lives and works in Europe. However, his experience in the oil and gas business was too good to be left out. Also, since the title of the book mentions interviews with "successful" executives I feel the need to explain that my definition of successful does not relate to the number of times an executive has appeared in business magazines or newspapers (although some of them have many mentions in this regard). What I was looking for were professionals who had been able to sustain a career in a different country and culture for a number of years.
