"Why consulting?" is a question I get all the time, and not surprisingly. My background isn’t the first thing you’d expect for someone partnering with business leaders to forge the future of marketing, advertising, and ad tech.
Born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, I left sunshine and palm trees for more sunshine and palm trees at Stanford University, where I was a first generation college student looking for visual reminders of home. I studied mechanical engineering from bachelor’s through to my PhD. My doctoral research focused on the biomechanics of brain injuries, using novel wearable devices to measure head impacts and design better protective equipment to prevent them. Along the way, I applied what I learned designing animatronic robots at Walt Disney Imagineering and safer airplane seats at Boeing.
After years of study and research, I was hungry to broaden my impact and network, which drew me to consulting at McKinsey. I wanted to marry the rigor of academic investigation with the pragmatism of business; I wanted to understand how products are taken to market as real solutions for real customers. Second and perhaps more importantly, I wanted to work with the smartest people I could, and McKinsey was chock-full of bright, diverse, driven, empathetic colleagues. I wanted to learn from them about every discipline of expertise imaginable.
I’ve been fortunate to surpass these goals in spades. At McKinsey, I’ve translated my experience working with complex data sets as a PhD researcher to advising one of the world’s top ad tech companies on the role they play in powering data-driven advertising, all while working with brilliant leaders in our Tech & Marketing practices.
Among those colleagues with whom I’ve been most fortunate to connect are my friends in our Hispanic & Latino Network. With them, I helped launch McKinsey’s Hispanic & Latino Economic Forum tackling the biggest challenges facing our community, including the future of work and the economic recovery from COVID-19. It has been my privilege to share these experiences inside and outside of the firm, with clients and recruits via programs like Diversity Connect for underrepresented groups of advanced degree professionals like me, who might also be wondering why consulting might be right for them.