Our Team
The people behind Calypso
Calypso is intentionally small. We work closely with a limited number of students, which gives us the time to understand how they think, what motivates them and where their ambitions can be pushed further.
Our backgrounds are different, but we share the same conviction: strong applications and career decisions begin with people who understand what they want, why they want it and what they bring.
Céleste Vildé
Founder
Céleste’s education began in an international school in Paris before she studied Finance at Bocconi University and completed the Master in Management at ESSEC Business School, including a semester at École du Louvre focused on art history. She began her career in large cap M&A at Rothschild & Co before moving into private equity at Montyon Capital and later dedicating herself fully to coaching.
Her work with students begins with investigation. She likes to understand how someone thinks, which experiences have shaped them, what they are curious about and where there may be a stronger story or direction than they initially realise.
Céleste has built a wide international network across universities, finance, consulting, student societies and young professionals working inside firms. She uses that network to give students a more realistic understanding of the paths they are considering and, where relevant, to connect them with people who can offer perspective, introductions or advice.
Her interests in 17th to 20th century literature, early Italian Renaissance art and cinema from the 1930s to the 1960s reflect a broader fascination with human expression, behaviour and individuality. That sensitivity carries into her work with students. She encourages them to develop their own references and opinions, pursue interests beyond their immediate usefulness to an application and become more precise about what they genuinely believe in.
Carla Decombes
Head of US Admissions
Carla studied Cognitive Science and History of Art at Yale University, spending a year at the University of Oxford. She grew up between Paris, Zurich and Houston and later lived in New York, Milan and London, alongside extensive travel across Asia. That international background shaped a strong sensitivity to language, culture and the different ways people express themselves.
Her studies combined analytical reasoning with interpretation, writing and close attention to individual voice. That combination still defines the way she works with students. Carla is an especially careful reader and writer, attentive to tone, rhythm and argument, with a gift for helping someone express something difficult or personal without making it sound manufactured.
She began her career at Sotheby’s, surrounded by objects, specialists and conversations across art, history and culture. The environment constantly feeds her new intellectual references and perspectives, which she enjoys bringing into conversations with students.
Curious, empathetic and precise, Carla is particularly sensitive to the fact that ambition, confidence and personality are expressed differently across people and cultures. She often helps students realise that an experience they considered peripheral can be one of the most revealing parts of who they are.
Camelia El Alami
Head of Consulting
Camelia studied International Management at Warwick before completing the Grande École Master in Management at HEC Paris, with academic experiences spanning Cornell, Hong Kong, Berkeley and entrepreneurship studies with École Polytechnique.
Her professional experience has taken her from McKinsey & Company into entrepreneurship and start up environments. Moving between large organisations, younger businesses and different international contexts has made her particularly interested in how the same problem changes depending on the market, people and constraints around it.
That perspective shapes her coaching. Camelia is less interested in whether a student has memorised the right framework than in whether they can recognise what actually matters, form a view from imperfect information and adapt when the problem changes. She pushes students to connect analytical structure with commercial judgement and communicate their reasoning naturally.
Her range of international and professional experiences gives her a large reservoir of examples and perspectives to draw from. She helps students move beyond formulaic answers and become more comfortable thinking through unfamiliar situations for themselves.
A wider network around each student
Calypso extends beyond the core team. Over time we have built relationships with current students, alumni and professionals across universities, finance and consulting, as well as through the student societies and industry communities we work with.
We draw on those relationships when they can add something genuinely useful. That can mean a conversation with a student at a target university, insight from someone working inside a firm, a specialist mock interview or an introduction where appropriate. Their perspective also feeds into the bespoke preparation we create for students, from technical and case worksheets to interview questions, essay reviews and practical guidance on particular programmes or recruiting processes.
Some of that network is made up of former students who stayed close to Calypso after their own applications or recruiting processes. The aim is to give students access to perspectives, preparation and conversations that are difficult to reproduce through research alone.