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Michaela Broeckx

was born and raised in Borgerhout, an Antwerp city district, and a multicultural hub on all accounts - where Arabic and Berber on the street are at least as frequent as Dutch. But really falling for the Orient, she did when visiting Southern Spain as a teenager.

At University, she did Cuneiform and Arabic, later zooming out towards India and reading Hindi as well.

Her thesis (2003) on the Queen of Sheba (Bilqis in the Kitab at-Tijan fi Muluk Himyar by Ibn Hisam) contained an elaborate comparative study of the Queen of Sheba lore in Biblical, Roman, Greek, Judaic, Christian and Muslim traditions - a topic which continues to be on her mind even after so many years.

Having travelled to the Middle East immediately after her studies, she has finetuned her spoken Arabic and her intimate knowledge of Arab customs and manners, which serves her all the better now, in her role as the Middle East and Arab World Expert for Dunya, the intercultural business and intercultural management brand she co-founded with Francis Laleman and Eddy Van Hemelrijck in 2007.

Apart from Beyond Borders and Dunya, Michaela is also a partner at India Business Support, where she adds the female touch to intercultural training programs on customs and manners in India - a world she knows intimately, having extensively travelled and lived and worked in the subcontinent for more than a decade.