Where I am headed
It would be impossible to look at my future without looking at my past. What I have done has shaped into who I am today both personally and professionally. Looking back at my education and professional experience, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.
So let’s start with my college education. Being an athlete while earning my three undergraduate degrees was no easy task. But I can strongly confirm that it taught me how to be a better person and how to deal well with people around me. I can name hundreds of traits I have developed from being an athlete. Adaptability, commitment, communication, confidence, determination, diligence, discipline, drive, focus, hard work, leadership, maturity, patience, teamwork, time management... The list goes on and on. But how do I apply them to my everyday life? Well, I always make sure to be the best team player I can be – no matter what environment I am in – because I know what a big role teamwork plays in trying to get somewhere.
Being an athlete also made me understand what true leadership really is. People have this idea that leaders are always leading from in front, but I have learned that true leaders lead from within, with the only objective of helping the team to get closer to a common goal. Today, when I am in a team environment, I always try to lead from within and make sure I am helping my peers to get closer to a common goal.
As far as being a college student, I was always multitasking. I started with Business Administration degree, but felt that my technical skills weren’t being put to much use. That’s when I decided to add a bachelor’s in Management Information Systems (MIS). After a year, although MIS was indeed a more challenging field, I didn’t have the opportunity to use my creative skills – which I always had ever since I was a kid. So, with a background in Business and Technology, what could have I dived into? Marketing! Marketing opened up my eyes to what I could truly do. Using my creativity to grow companies or to sell a message, a product, or a service fascinated me. With the proper research and using the right tools, I could help companies take off.
When I learned that Marketing was something that really excited me, I started doing it with pleasure, almost like it wasn’t really work. So getting a job after college wasn’t hard given the passion and the extensive schoolwork and accomplishments I had acquired.
After working for two years, I decided it was time to expand my knowledge and go back to school for something that had caught my attention during many years: Design. During the years I was working in Business and Marketing I realized that there was a huge gap between creativity and business operations. I wanted to learn how designers think so I could apply their process to the business and marketing side of companies. I knew that each business unit (operations, accounting, marketing, r&d, finance...) of a company could hugely benefit from some creativity.
Well, I couldn’t have picked a better master’s program. The MPS in Design Management is all about design thinking, or like some people like to say: the business side of design, or the design side of business. For me, the program has been teaching me exactly what I wanted to learn, which is the process designers use in their creative activities applied to business.
So after all of this backstory it’s easy to see where I am heading. I want to fill in the gap between business and design. Companies have so much to learn from the creative process designers go through in their activities. Unfortunately creativity is neither properly used nor rewarded in many companies nowadays, and I want to change that. I believe companies are missing a huge opportunity to positively affect their triple bottom line (people, planet, profit). With the proper education and with the passion that has always driven me to achieve anything, one by one I will get companies to think differently.
So let’s start with my college education. Being an athlete while earning my three undergraduate degrees was no easy task. But I can strongly confirm that it taught me how to be a better person and how to deal well with people around me. I can name hundreds of traits I have developed from being an athlete. Adaptability, commitment, communication, confidence, determination, diligence, discipline, drive, focus, hard work, leadership, maturity, patience, teamwork, time management... The list goes on and on. But how do I apply them to my everyday life? Well, I always make sure to be the best team player I can be – no matter what environment I am in – because I know what a big role teamwork plays in trying to get somewhere.
Being an athlete also made me understand what true leadership really is. People have this idea that leaders are always leading from in front, but I have learned that true leaders lead from within, with the only objective of helping the team to get closer to a common goal. Today, when I am in a team environment, I always try to lead from within and make sure I am helping my peers to get closer to a common goal.
As far as being a college student, I was always multitasking. I started with Business Administration degree, but felt that my technical skills weren’t being put to much use. That’s when I decided to add a bachelor’s in Management Information Systems (MIS). After a year, although MIS was indeed a more challenging field, I didn’t have the opportunity to use my creative skills – which I always had ever since I was a kid. So, with a background in Business and Technology, what could have I dived into? Marketing! Marketing opened up my eyes to what I could truly do. Using my creativity to grow companies or to sell a message, a product, or a service fascinated me. With the proper research and using the right tools, I could help companies take off.
When I learned that Marketing was something that really excited me, I started doing it with pleasure, almost like it wasn’t really work. So getting a job after college wasn’t hard given the passion and the extensive schoolwork and accomplishments I had acquired.
After working for two years, I decided it was time to expand my knowledge and go back to school for something that had caught my attention during many years: Design. During the years I was working in Business and Marketing I realized that there was a huge gap between creativity and business operations. I wanted to learn how designers think so I could apply their process to the business and marketing side of companies. I knew that each business unit (operations, accounting, marketing, r&d, finance...) of a company could hugely benefit from some creativity.
Well, I couldn’t have picked a better master’s program. The MPS in Design Management is all about design thinking, or like some people like to say: the business side of design, or the design side of business. For me, the program has been teaching me exactly what I wanted to learn, which is the process designers use in their creative activities applied to business.
So after all of this backstory it’s easy to see where I am heading. I want to fill in the gap between business and design. Companies have so much to learn from the creative process designers go through in their activities. Unfortunately creativity is neither properly used nor rewarded in many companies nowadays, and I want to change that. I believe companies are missing a huge opportunity to positively affect their triple bottom line (people, planet, profit). With the proper education and with the passion that has always driven me to achieve anything, one by one I will get companies to think differently.
