Szabolcs Szekeres arrived in Argentina with his parents at the age of six, in 1948. He completed his elementary and secondary education there and attended the technical university for one year. Although he studied in Spanish, he actively participated in the life of the Hungarian colony in Buenos Aires. He attended the bilingual Spanish/Hungarian elementary school run by the Hungarian Sisters of Loreto for two years, and afterward, he regularly attended Hungarian Sunday classes organized by the Zrínyi Circle. He became a member of a Hungarian scout troop and earned the rank of scoutmaster in 1962.
Between 1963 and 1970, he studied at Columbia University in New York, where he earned two degrees in economics. He joined the Hungarian scout troop in New York and became its leader. He was one of the founders and the first director of the New York Weekend Hungarian School, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2023 under the name Arany János Hungarian Kindergarten and School.
From 1970 to 1977, he worked at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC, during which time he traveled extensively throughout South America and rose to the rank of senior economist. He then founded and served as CEO of Information for Investment Decisions, Inc., based in Washington, DC, which provided economic and financial consulting services to clients in South America, Asia, and Africa (1977–1992). On behalf of the World Bank, he conducted cost-benefit analysis courses in more than 20 countries across nearly every continent.
After the political transition in Hungary, he returned home and became the chairman and CEO of the Hungarian State Holding Company (1993–94), where he led the privatization of MATÁV (Hungarian Telecommunications Company). He headed the forced investments department at Budapest Bank (1994–1997), and later worked as a transactions officer in the Special Restructuring Programme supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (1997–1998). As CEO of IID Economic Consulting Ltd., he provided financial and management consulting services (1998–2002).
In 2003, he launched a village development program for Mezőmadaras in Transylvania, the ancestral home of the Szekeres family. Through this initiative, he won more than ten grants, which funded economic development and cultural activities, and even allowed for improvements to part of the village’s access road.
Between 2002 and 2004, he served as deputy executive director of the Kosovo Trust Authority, the state property management organization of the UN mission in Kosovo.
From 2004 to 2009, he led the Sustainability in Industry, Energy and Transport Unit of the European Commission in Seville, Spain, until his retirement. Afterward, he continued working as an economic and financial consultant.