Career Path of a CEO and Co-Founder at Nuñez, The People's Agency

I'll give you the whole origin story. I first started in this career formally, legally, when I was 13 years old. I started my first business doing design work.

I always knew I was creative and wanted to go into something in the arts. I didn't know about marketing or advertising, so design made sense for me. I wasn't doing anything crazy; it was like posters for businesses, flyers, that kind of stuff.

More formally, I went to a technical school in high school. When I was a sophomore, I started working at a print shop. That was like my crash course into everything: sales, design, printing, marketing, all of it.

I did that until I graduated. Then I went to Johnson Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, where I studied graphic design with a concentration in digital media and communications. While I was there, my dorm room became my office. I was continuing to do freelance design work out of there.

I worked the whole time I was in college and finished my bachelor's in three years. I didn't do any internships. The school was built around a model of experiential education, so every semester, we had some sort of real-world connection.

But I did start a program with a leadership organization that connected me with a full-time role straight out of college. My first job, ironically, wasn't in design or my major. It was doing communications and fundraising for a nonprofit.

Immediately, the path split. I fell in love with the nonprofit space; something about it really attracted me. As a first-generation college student and an immigrant, doing good felt fulfilling, and getting paid for it was even better.

I quickly moved up in that space, becoming the person in charge of events, communications, fundraising, and alumni engagement. That opened doors for me to jump to other spaces.

Around 2019, I realized I wanted to try something else. I had been freelancing and building good networks the whole time. I decided to apply for a job at a magazine called Commercial Architecture Magazine, for their Chief Marketing Officer position, which was pretty bold.

I went from a managerial level to CMO and went through all the rigorous interviews. People from Forbes, Adweek, and all these big publications interviewed me. I was sweating; it wasn't something I was super confident in, but I knew I fit everything they were looking for.

I could innovate in a space I didn't know much about, but I knew how to tell a story and understood design and marketing. They were looking for someone who could engage a younger audience, which I knew I could do.

I landed that job in 2019 and did that for a year. I quickly realized it was a whole different world. I went from fundraising at a nonprofit to getting flown out to conferences and staying in nice hotels. It was cool, but it wasn't really for me; I was missing the fulfillment side.

I transitioned out of that role in 2020 and launched my business. In February 2020, my wife and I launched a marketing agency called Nunez, focusing on helping nonprofits and small businesses, specifically minority-owned businesses, tell their story, grow their venture, and generate more revenue.

We've been doing that for five years, and it's the best job I've ever had. I have a dope team, and we're growing. If anyone is looking to get into this space, now is the time. We do a lot of really cool work.

I know I work a lot, and I have two young kids. I've always tried to prioritize balance, but my career has landed in a space where I'm comfortable. I get to help people tell good stories while flexing all the creativity I've always had. It was a pretty short ladder climb to get here, but it's always been focused on telling good stories and helping people communicate their impact.