Monique was born in 1966 in Switzerland; and prior to the start of her kindergarden year, Monique and
her family moved from the French part to Zurich, the Swiss German part. At the age of sweet 20, graduated with a Master Degree
in Business and Administration, she began worldwide traveling. Her first destination to Australia included working for
Adilam Electronics in Melbourne followed by an unforgettable journey to the breathtaking underwater paradise of the Great
Barrier Reef and the deserted sands of the Northern Territory where she spent several weeks with Indigenous Australians and learned
all about living off the land, in harmony and in balance with the environment.
In
1998 Monique went to Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu to get her English proficiency diploma in academic speeches. Although
the diploma was very important, surfing became her new passion & the Aloha spirit tremendously inspired her
lifestyle and future artworks. She later worked severall years for Swissair where she gained valuable experience in
human resources and office management. Besides her official job, she took flight lessons and also joined the
Swissair Emergency Care Team as a volunteer - first aid & disaster relief care-giver to support families who lost
their beloved ones in plane crashes and in other tragic incidents. She got deployed to Halifax in 1998 after the plane crash incident;
to New York after 9/11, and was sent to Thailand after the Tsunami hit in 2004. Monique supported staff & families during
the mass-dismissal within SAirGroup-Swissair and during its dissolution in 2001 and 2002.
After Swissair was closed down
she took a sabbatical and traveled one more time to Australia and Hawaii with a stopover in California and Mexico. When
she returned to Switzerland she was offered the position of executive assistant, human resources- and office
manager at Moneyline Telerate; responsible for Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France & Hungary.
In 2005 Moneyline Telerate
was then taken over by Reuters and that was the moment Monique decided to go abroad. Monique moved to
Miami Beach and started working as personal assistant for the rich & famous and then started her own business
'The Etiquette Expert' in Miami and trained and coached potential personal executive assistants in corporate tasks: How to
assist professionally VIPs and C-level managers, prioritizing projects, budgeting & accounting; supervising household
staff, butlers, nannies, landscapers and vendors. The workshop also included table manners, dress for success and how
to apply a perfect, natural looking makeup. 'A well-dressed professional doesn’t mean you need to look like you walked
off a magazine photo shoot but you need to make smart decisions about what you wear for work depending on the industry.
She studied Taoism & Feng Shui and the 'ancient chinese art
of placement' guided her into the world of interior design. In 2007, she graduated as interior designer from the Institut
of Interior Design New York.
In September 2007 she packed
her belongings and drove from Miami Beach to Los Angeles, crossed eight States and attended vocational training in film editing
and motion graphics at Video Symphony in Burbank (Los Angeles); and learned also the craft of old age- and prosthetics makeup
for film and video. Besides classes she kept on coaching young personal executive assistants.
Monique registered her film
treatment 'Mahalo Sunrise' with the Writer's Guild of America West, Los Angeles on December 31st, 2008. (Registration
No: 1322103)
A month later she was spotlighted in the January
2009 edition of the film maker's magazine Los Angeles as a newcomer screenwriter (page 49), featured with 'The Wrestler'
and 'Slumdog Millionaire' screenwriters.
Monique
published in 2009 her book 'Mahalo Sunrise' in German and English. A true story - She got involved with the largest FBI stingray operation in Hawaii's history. Please find the
synopsis and other details on page: Mahalo Sunrise E - and - on page: Mahalo Sunrise D.
