Denise Sandquist was born in Hanoi and adopted at three weeks old to Stockholm. She had a grounded, warm upbringing — and one defining tragedy: her mother passed away from cancer when Denise was nine. It taught her, early and permanently, that life can end at any time. The only response is to make the most of it. To not be afraid. To go for it. Because in the end, we don’t regret the things we did — we regret the things we never tried.
She trained as a Military Interpreter and Interrogator in Russian at the Swedish Armed Forces Military Interpreter Academy, worked at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow, studied Mandarin in China, and graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics. She has lived in six countries — Sweden, Russia, China, Vietnam, the United States, and Australia — and speaks six languages: Swedish, English, French, Russian, Mandarin, and Vietnamese. Every move taught her the same thing: a social life is not a luxury. It is the first thing you need when you arrive somewhere new, and the hardest thing to build. And despite every cultural difference, people everywhere want the same things — love and belonging.
