Queen Máxima, née Zorreguieta, was born in 1971 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Thus, she started her studies in her birth country.
She studied at Northlands School, a bilingual school (English and Spanish) in Olivos, where she obtained her baccalaureate in 1988. After that, she enrolled at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, studying economics; she graduated in 1995. Queen Máxima met the current Pope Francis during her studies at the university. Indeed, Pope Francis is one of the members of the directory, along with other local bishops, and during Máxima’s time at the institution, he was presiding over the mass at the beginning of classes.
While studying at the university, Máxima was also working for Mercado Abierto, researching software for financial markets from 1989 to 1990. Afterwards, she worked for Boston Securities in Buenos Aires from 1992 to 1995 in the sales department.
Alongside her studies and her work, Máxima was also teaching English and mathematics to students.
After graduating, the future Queen of the Netherlands decided to study for a master’s degree in the United States. During her time in the US, Máxima worked at HSBC in New York, where she was Vice President of Latin American Institutional Sales from 1996 to February 1998. She then worked from February 1998 to July 1999 as Vice President of the Emerging Markets Division at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson.
Continuing with her impressive resume, Queen Máxima also worked as Vice President of Institutional Sales at the Deutsche Bank in New York before working at the EU Representative Office of the Deutsche Bank in Brussels until the announcement of her engagement to Dutch Prince Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange.
Given her degree in economics as well as her experience in finance from her previous positions, it was only natural that one of Máxima’s most important causes would be finance. Since 2009, Her Majesty is the Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development at the United Nations. She is also the Honorary Patron of the G20 Global Partnership for Finance Inclusion since June 2011. In the Netherlands, she is an advocate for financial inclusion and for micro credits, being a patron of numerous associations and initiatives as well as a member of committees about the cause.
Being an immigrant to the Netherlands herself, Queen Máxima is also very involved in the integration of immigrants into Dutch culture. She has been a member of a parliamentary commission about seeking better ways to include women immigrants in the workforce, and she was also involved in programmes helping immigrants learn Dutch.
Along with Spanish and Dutch, Queen Máxima is also fluent in English and speaks French at a conversational level.
