ONCE A CONDOR, NOW A RESILIENT LEADER!

Meet Belen del Amo, a former student at Lincoln and now a performance entrepreneur, author, and leadership coach with a mission to help current and future generations become sustainable leaders! Get to know where our alum is now! Class of 1998 Edition! 

At Lincoln, we always inspire our learners to be Agents of Change. Belen del Amo not only became one but embraced change from an early age and learned to thrive in it! Though she lived in 21 cities across 4 continents and studied in 8 educational systems, her one-year stop at Lincoln for her senior year (1997-1998) was as meaningful to her as to us!

Change followed Belen in her education and her career. After getting three Bachelor’s Degrees (International Relations, Italian Studies, and French Studies) from the University of Pennsylvania, she continued to specialize in her field at the London School of Economics. By then, she had worked as a banker, a consultant, and a Senior Director at a tech company.

While leading change in startups, private and public companies, and profit and nonprofit institutions, she got her MBA in General Management at the INSEAD. The next step? Entrepreneurship! In 2015 she co-founded Perez Fitzgerald, a global leadership resilience firm, and in 2019 she created 3vers: a company to help organizations, teams, families, and educators unleash their potential. Her passion as a leadership coach not only led her to a specialization in Child Development and Mental Health from Stanford University but also the publication of her award-winning book How to Thrive By Building Resilience: A Guide for You and Your Child.

What was this passionate leader like in her last year of high school? We interviewed her to learn more about her experience as one of our learners!

Can you remember an important moment or historical event during your time at Lincoln?

The death of Princess Diana at the start of her senior year (1997). I recall many of our teachers crying that day. Also, the Good Friday Agreement was signed in April of 1998. 

Who was your favorite teacher? 

My history teacher. He brought history to life in a way that reignited my passion for it. He would story tell. I rarely remember him utilizing the textbooks, and yet I learned more about history with him than in all my previous years of high school. I´d tell him thank you for showing me what passion for your craft looks like. He was the epitome of a person aligning their life with their intrinsic motivations. It showed how his love of history inspired all of us! 

What Were Your Favorite Classes?

I loved the yearbook class. It was a great opportunity to capture Lincoln moments and spend time taking photos of our friends from around the school, as well as learn more about other classes and promotions. I particularly enjoyed laying out the senior pages, as each person had the style they wanted to introduce to personalize their page. I recall struggling to get the River logo as a watermark on one of our classmate's pages (JuanPa|). We weren't that tech-savvy back in the day!  

What is the funniest event or anecdote you can remember of something you did with your friends?

Our entire class loved going clubbing together at night. We found an old little dive of a bar somewhere in the Recoleta area, where we all used to gather before we went out clubbing to the various spots we hit around the city. The owner took a liking to this "group of ex-pats." So this became our little nook to get warmed up for the nights ahead. I recall many salsa, merengue, and bachata lessons there from my friends from across Latin America. I still have memories of Peteco teaching me "el 8" which given my limited spatial intelligence, took a while to perfect!  
 
For memories inside the school, I remember that my bestie and I decided to start the cheerleading squad. We got extremely excited about the prospect of designing the uniforms, but once we went to put forth our proposal to the school principal, who felt strongly against us using the traditional short skirt uniforms. We wound up working with a local seamstress to design short tracksuits. As we had little experience in design, we wound up with a uniform that looked like bananas in pajamas! Needless to say, we focused on the choreography and getting the squad up and running. I am glad to see that the cheer squad has evolved and continues to exist!

Lastly, and I think this is important, I will forever remember our trip to Chaco to help build and paint schools for the children of that community. I was moved to see our entire class work together towards such an incredible cause. I thought it was magnificent of Lincoln to imbue in us a sense of social responsibility, aware of our privilege and driven to make this world a better one for all of us to live in. Thank you, Lincoln, for giving me so much.