Maxime Catlin

I spent a summer embedded in the marketing and strategic insights team at EcoFoods, one of Central America’s largest food companies. My job was to help the team make smarter decisions about brand positioning and market expansion using actual data instead of gut feelings. I ran consumer research and competitive analysis across their fastest-growing product lines, dug into pricing dynamics, packaging design, and regional purchasing behaviors to figure out where the real opportunities were. A big chunk of my work focused on the La Chula brand, benchmarking it against competitors like Natura’s and building dashboards that tracked customer preferences, sales trends, and product performance across retail channels.

What made this experience special wasn’t just the work. The team in San Salvador was one of the most welcoming, generous groups of people I’ve worked with. They went out of their way to help me integrate into a fast-paced, Spanish-speaking workplace, and I left with a much deeper understanding of how consumer behavior works in emerging markets.

I’m certified to teach and certify divers across every core PADI recreational level, from Discover Scuba programs for kids all the way through Open Water, Advanced, Rescue Diver, and Divemaster. On top of that, I hold instructor qualifications in over a dozen specialties: Deep Diving, Wreck Diving, Sidemount, Enriched Air, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Coral Reef Conservation, Dive Against Debris, AWARE, Scuba Meditation, and more. I’m also an EFR Instructor, meaning I can teach CPR, First Aid, and emergency oxygen provision.

But the certifications are just the framework. What I care about is what happens in the water. Every course I teach starts with conservation. Reef-safe behavior, responsible diving practices, understanding the ecosystems you’re entering. I’ve taught people of all ages and abilities, managed risk in open water, and learned that the best teaching happens when you meet someone exactly where they are and help them build confidence one skill at a time. The ocean taught me patience, adaptability, and how to stay calm when things don’t go according to plan.

Working with the Cousteau Foundation was one of those experiences that felt bigger than me. I was based in the Costa Brava region of Spain, partnering with H2O Dive Center to assess ecosystem health in local ports and marinas. These are places where coastal development, boat traffic, and shifting water quality put constant pressure on Mediterranean habitats, and our job was to document what was happening beneath the surface.

I spent my days conducting observational surveys of seagrass meadows, benthic structures, and fish communities. I helped run dive operations, participated in safety briefings, and worked with recreational divers and students to make sure every dive left the environment better than we found it. A lot of the role was also education: talking to guests about marine protection, explaining why these ecosystems matter, and showing people that conservation isn’t abstract. It’s happening right under the boat.

 This was my introduction to hands-on marine research. I was working on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second largest reef system in the world, contributing to ecological surveys focused on fish biodiversity, coral health, benthic composition, and the growing threat of invasive lionfish.

Most of my days involved research diving with transects, identifying species, recording behavioral observations, and building datasets for long-term ecosystem monitoring. I also conducted independent research analyzing lionfish population patterns and how well different removal strategies were actually working. I put together a formal presentation of my findings and delivered it to the center’s staff, dive professionals, and visiting researchers. I earned my Invasive Lionfish Removal License through BICA while I was there.

What stuck with me most was how tangible the work felt. You could see the reef struggling. You could see the lionfish where they didn’t belong. And you could see, in real time, the difference that consistent, careful intervention made. That’s when conservation stopped being a concept for me and became something I wanted to do with my hands.

Ninety days on an 80-foot schooner with about 20 people. No shortcuts, no days off, no hiding from anyone or anything. We sailed the Caribbean handling every aspect of the vessel: navigation, sail handling, watch rotations, engine maintenance, anchor systems, cooking three meals a day for 30 people with completely different dietary needs, fixing whatever broke (and things broke constantly).

I completed accredited coursework through Florida Atlantic University in Marine Biology, Oceanography, and Leadership. But the real education was everything else. Learning to lead when you’re exhausted. Learning to resolve conflict when there’s nowhere to walk away to. Learning that a community works when everyone carries their weight and falls apart fast when they don’t.

This experience shaped how I think about teamwork, responsibility, and showing up for people more than anything else I’ve done.

Currently participating in McKinsey’s Forward program, which focuses on building the skills that matter most in professional environments: adaptability, structured problem-solving, and communication that actually lands. The program is modeled after the way McKinsey trains its own consultants, and it’s pushed me to think more rigorously about how I frame problems, present solutions, and work with people who think differently than I do.

I co-led a 30-student business club focused on entrepreneurship, case competitions, and professional development. When COVID shut everything down and most extracurriculars disappeared, I didn’t want the club to die. So I designed and launched a virtual speaker series from scratch, reaching out to leaders across venture capital, sustainability, and global development at companies like Bose and Accenture. I coordinated sessions for 40 to 60 students at a time, handling all the outreach, scheduling, and event planning myself.

It wasn’t glamorous work. But keeping that community alive during a time when everything felt disconnected mattered to me, and it taught me that leadership is often just being the person who refuses to let something fall apart.

For two years, I worked at the Ecole Française de Boston providing children ages 3 to 9 with an immersive French educational experience through summer camps and school programs. It was my first real teaching role, and it taught me how to communicate with people who see the world completely differently than you do. Working with young kids in a bilingual environment forced me to be patient, creative, and present in a way that no other job has.

Athletes Unlimited (Newton, MA · 2018–2020): Coached teenagers and adults with autism and Down syndrome in sports, games, and skill-building activities. Focused on building confidence, strengthening social skills, and creating a space where everyone belonged.

University of Barcelona Refugee Support Program (Barcelona · 2022): Tutored recently immigrated children and adolescents, providing homework help, language lessons, and a stable, welcoming space during an incredibly uncertain time in their lives.

Maximo Nivel Youth Summer Camp (Jacó, Costa Rica · 2022): Led daily operations for a children’s camp, managing activities, safety, and logistics for large groups. Stepped into leadership when things got chaotic and made sure every kid had a good experience.

Overland Community Development (Costa Rica 2017, Colorado 2018): Helped refurbish a school and taught English to 40 elementary students in a Costa Rican community recovering from a major fire. The following year, helped install electrical systems on an eco-sustainable farm in Colorado that provides food to underprivileged communities.

1 Lettre 1 Sourire (2020–2021): During COVID, exchanged handwritten letters with elderly French citizens who were isolated due to quarantine. A small thing, maybe. But connection matters most when it’s hardest to find.

March of Dimes (2003–2020): Team ambassador for the annual Boston walk for 17 years. This one is personal. My sister and I were born at 27 weeks. The March of Dimes funds the kind of research and care that kept us alive.

Harvard Longitudinal Study (2003–present): Active participant in a research study on prematurity and cognitive development, contributing data to support early-childhood development and clinical research. This has been going on for over 20 years now. It’s a small way of making sure what my sister and I went through helps someone else down the line.

I chose to study business not because I wanted to work in private equity or investment banking, but because I wanted to understand how business can be used as a tool to improve people’s lives. Microfinance, sustainable investment, social enterprise. That’s what gets me excited. Skidmore’s interdisciplinary approach was a perfect fit for that. I wasn’t locked into a narrow business track. I could explore environmental studies alongside strategy and finance, which is where I think the most interesting work is happening.

Some highlights: I coached a team of first-semester freshmen through their semester-long Paramount consulting project, watching them go from knowing almost nothing about business to earning an A on their executive presentation in front of a simulated board. That was incredibly rewarding. My own senior capstone focused on Anthropic, and our team presented to an alumni who works there. We got an A, and the whole process of pulling that together was one of the most fulfilling academic experiences I’ve had.

I also got to work with Professor Ben Hardwood on developing AI bots designed to support students and staff at Skidmore. That project taught me a lot about how to build effective AI tools, how to think about prompting, and how to break complex problems into manageable pieces. My favorite bot was one that builds fully custom, fully dynamic Excel spreadsheets. The task was too large and complex for a single approach, so I split it across multiple stages. The early work (understanding the user’s objective, clarifying assumptions, building the foundation of the model) runs on a lighter, more sustainable model. Once every inconsistency and potential issue is resolved, it switches to a more powerful model for the intensive modeling work. Figuring out that architecture was one of the most satisfying problem-solving experiences of my time at Skidmore.

Outside of class, I was involved in financial organizations on campus, hosted a radio show, worked with the Environmental Action Club, and spent my final semester on a Green Grant project focused on supporting local pollinators in the Saratoga County area.

This course examined how entrepreneurship and market-based solutions can address complex social and economic challenges in places where the traditional playbook doesn’t apply. I studied case studies across Latin America, Africa, and South Asia, analyzing how businesses scale impact when they’re working with institutional gaps, limited infrastructure, and scarce resources. It pushed me to think seriously about opportunity evaluation, business model design, and what it actually means to create social and economic value in communities that need it most. A lot of what drives my interest in microfinance and food sovereignty in Latin America traces back to this course.

This course examined how entrepreneurship and market-based solutions can address complex social and economic challenges in places where the traditional playbook doesn’t apply. I studied case studies across Latin America, Africa, and South Asia, analyzing how businesses scale impact when they’re working with institutional gaps, limited infrastructure, and scarce resources. It pushed me to think seriously about opportunity evaluation, business model design, and what it actually means to create social and economic value in communities that need it most. A lot of what drives my interest in microfinance and food sovereignty in Latin America traces back to this course.

Accredited coursework completed during my 90-day sailing program aboard an 80-foot schooner in the Caribbean. The classroom was the ocean. Marine Biology and Oceanography were taught through direct observation and fieldwork, and the Leadership course was less theory and more practice, since living and working on a boat with 20 people for three months doesn’t leave much room for hypotheticals.