Monterrey to Copenhagen: Young Mexican dreams of bold entrepreneurship

At 8 a.m. on a Thursday in January 2026, Patricio Naranjo González sat down in the library at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) to try something he’d been putting off for a long time because he didn’t think he was “good enough.” 

He’d arrived in Denmark exactly one year earlier as part of an international exchange program on his Global Business degree to take a minor in law and entrepreneurship. 

Patricio knew he wanted to achieve something greater: to learn how to be an entrepreneur without fear of failure and to make his mark on the business world in Mexico. 

Having spent fifteen hours sitting at a computer in the library, the student submitted his application and went to bed with a hunch that turned out to be true: he would be awarded a scholarship from the Danish government to take his master’s degree. 

Before making that decision, he spent months reviewing the application guidelines for the CBS Scholarship (awarded by the Danish government to study for a master’s degree in organizational innovation and entrepreneurship) but ruled it out almost immediately. 

Twenty thousand applicants from around the world apply every year but only ten to twenty students are successful. 

“What are my chances with numbers like that?” wondered the eighth-semester student of Global Business at Tecnológico de Monterrey, who thought “It’s impossible.” 

Having finally decided to apply for the master’s program scholarship, he is now getting ready to begin his graduate studies next September at the university that served as his home during his exchange program while he was an undergraduate. 

Patricio Naranjo arrived in Denmark in January 2025 to spend two semesters there as part of an international exchange program. 

From that moment on, the Tec business student discovered a new way of understanding entrepreneurship. 

“One of the first things that made me fall in love with Denmark was how easy it was to create something. 

“I saw it when I started talking to CBS entrepreneurs, listening to their stories, and seeing the spaces where ideas are allowed to fail before they succeed,” Patricio wrote in his application essay. 

It was precisely that way of dealing with mistakes that changed his perspective after a year living in that country. 

“People are less hesitant to speak their minds over there. It’s more a case of ‘I messed up, so I’ll try again,’” he explains. 

With that vision in mind, he wrote his essay for the CBS scholarship and applied for the Master’s in Organizational Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

Entrepreneurship and business weren’t Patricio’s first career choice. 

Like his decision to apply for one of the business scholarships in Denmark, his choice of a major was also marked by a decisive shift and no longer being afraid to change his mind. 

“I didn’t know what I wanted to study; I was all over the place: one minute it was communications, the next medicine, then business. I started studying medicine because I wanted to give it a try before ruling it out; it was something that really called my attention,” he says. 

However, two semesters later, he decided that medicine wasn’t for him.  

Making the change meant starting over and acknowledging that the initial decision wasn’t the right one. But it was also the first step toward coming closer to what actually made sense to him. 

“I realized that global business was definitely the right fit for me. I was very happy with this decision and started getting more involved in all the degree-related activities,” recalls Patricio. 

Once he had found his place at college, a new concern arose: how to make his mark. 

“I had some concerns. In a place where there are so many wonderful people, I found myself wondering, ‘How am I going to make sure I’m not just another face in the crowd?’” 

The answer didn’t come in the form of a single achievement, but through a series of decisions: exploring, trying new things, and getting involved in a variety of experiences both inside and outside school. 

When he looked for opportunities related to languages and culture, he couldn’t find any. So, he took the initiative and founded Rosetta, the Global Language and Culture Committee on the Monterrey campus. 

In addition, the tutoring sessions offered by the Mentors of Academic Excellence (MAE) program allowed him to connect with other outstanding students in his area of study and from other disciplines. 

At first, Patricio was a student in those tutoring sessions; later, he tutored other students on business program core curricula. He says that enabled him to recognize the value of giving and receiving. 

While exploring the job market in September 2024, Naranjo joined the Trade & Investment Center at the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Monterrey, where he developed an entire product for the chamber. 

What began as research and the drawing up of new reports tailored to AmCham’s clients and partners evolved into the Market Insights division. 

This new division, which focuses on supporting customized research projects, will be officially launched in 2027. 

Slowly but surely, all these actions helped shape the image Patricio wanted to project of himself. 

When it came time to do his community service, Patricio set himself a goal: “If the Tec requires 480 hours, I want it to be something I believe in, something I enjoy.” 

Community service exposed him to a different reality. He worked with women entrepreneurs in vulnerable situations for whom starting a business was a necessity. 

“It’s a very versatile tool for getting ahead. Those women did it because it was the only way to care for their children and earn an income,” he explains. 

During his time on this project, the Tec student was responsible for developing and reviewing these women’s business plans, as well as providing online consulting services. 

Thus, program participants acquired the theoretical foundations of entrepreneurship while also clearing up any questions they had about running their businesses. 

Moreover, Patricio promoted this community service project on social media so that more students would join in and the women could continue to rely on the institution to grow their businesses. 

“I’m not sure what became of this project, but for me it was very important to hear the stories these businesswomen told and to be able to support them,” he says. 

That’s when entrepreneurship stopped being a theoretical concept and he learned something else: it’s not enough to want to start a business; you have to know how to do it. 

Patricio returned to Mexico last February after completing his exchange program and his minor, hoping to return to Denmark to take his master’s degree. 

It was the fifteenth again, but now of March. And there he was back in a library (this time on Tec campus Monterrey) waiting for the results of the application he had submitted two months earlier from another library 9,000 kilometers away. 

Excited but confident, he opened his computer, checked his email, and found the news: CBS had awarded him the scholarship to study for his master’s degree. 

The Danish government gives this support to a very limited number of non-European students each year. This scholarship covers full tuition and provides a monthly stipend. 

During his time in Copenhagen as an undergraduate, he had always thought it would be difficult to get in since the number of applications increases by about 10% each year. 

However, at the last minute he realized he might be one of the few selected. 

“I feel like I’ve always belonged in Denmark, that the place was calling me, that something was waiting for me there, and that I could make a difference there.” 

He knew this from the moment he decided, also at the last minute, to change his exchange year from Australia to the Nordic country. 

Even though he had already secured a spot at the University of Melbourne, Patricio decided that Denmark was the place he wanted to go for his study abroad program during his undergraduate studies. 

More than a year has passed since then, and a few months after that day at the CBS library, Patricio is getting ready to return to Denmark in the fall, this time as a graduate student. 

“When I found myself in places where everyone seemed twice as good as me, I felt I had to work twice as hard just to keep up. I have come to realize that my goal was never just to stay, but to grow, excel, and carve out a space of my own.” 

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