* What’s your background and how did you get into management?* What are the biggest challenges you face?* What are your thoughts on diversity?* What is your approach to hiring?* What’s your advice for managers who are just starting out?* What’s your workday like and how do you manage your time, emails, etc.?* What’s a personal habit that contributes to your success?* Share an internet resource or tool that you can’t live without.* If you could recommend one book to managers, what would it be and why?* What is your approach to mentoring and coaching members of your team?* Where can we go to learn more about you?Vidal: Well, thanks. Good morning, Juan Pablo. Thank you so much for speaking to me today.JUAN PABLO: Morning, Vidal. How are you?Vidal: I’m great, thanks. Could you maybe start, maybe tell people a little about your current role and where you’re located?JUAN PABLO: Sure. I live in New York City. I moved here from Colombia about 10 years ago. I’m currently the VP of Engineering at a company called Splice, which we like to say we’re a music company with a technology team. We build tools, software, and services for musicians and music producers.What’s your background and how did you get into management?Vidal: All right. I know you have a little bit of an unusual background. Could you share with people your background, and how you got into management?JUAN PABLO: Sure. Yes, it is more unusual than it tends to be. I do not have any formal Computer Science training, other than when I got my computer at 13 and started discovering the phreaking books, and the hacking books, and the [inaudible JUAN PABLO: I had to make a living, so I had dabbled in the culinary arts. I have a diploma in World Cuisine. I went back to the kitchen. I led the kitchen for an Italian restaurant, about 15 people, in Fort Lauderdale for a while, until the real state crisis also crashed us. And then, had to find a way to pay rent. So, I ended up making websites for people. I had already built a couple of Myspace pages and dabbled in HTML and CSS because I had a band back home. This allowed me to start paying the bills and I discovered there was a tech industry. I joined a startup in Miami, which was my first startup experience. It was a long distance startup. We offered free long distance in exchange of hearing ads and that was tailored towards Latin America immigrants, mostly.Vidal: Got it.JUAN PABLO: From there, I discovered an actual industry and realized that Florida wasn’t necessarily a center for technology, so I moved to New York. Since then, I’ve worked for a comic startup, for a advertising and publishing startup, for a ride-sharing startup and lately a music startup. In addition to that, around halfway through my tech career I kept bumping into leadership positions without really wanting them. As being someone who liked to be in the back of the house, the kitchen, I really didn’t … I like to say I didn’t like people,