Other aspects

I have always liked to own my own business and, in fact, I started into business when I was 11 years old. I sold in my school beetles that I collected from plants in the school where my mother was a teacher; 1 peseta for the males and females for 5 pesetas. I perfectly remember that, in my peak day, I raised 36 pesetas (0.22 Euro cents now). A treasure for me. Then, when I grow older, I used to buy “Second Hand” (a local classified ads newspaper) very early in the morning on weekends and bought technology products at good prices (mainly Game Boys) and then sold them for a higher price.

While I was at the University I managed stock market investments for around 20 people in exchange of a percentage of the profits. Later I set up a company to export wine and olive oil to China with my that time Chinese language teacher: Chariades Exportaciones, named after one of the seven great ancient Greek cooks. It did not succeed but during that time I drank a lot of wine and never missed oil in my salads.

I also try it with the launching of a mobile application development company (Squeezing the minds) with which we come to develop a mobile application: a few simple one to learn.

Finally, some projects have gone well and in some have not, but in all of them I have learned many things and, above all, I have thoroughly enjoyed developing them.

A new and very exciting project I have in hand is a card game. This is a game which can be played by two people or two groups of people. Each player will represent a great warrior type of history (Roman, Samurai …) and the philosophy of the game is to make a fight between warriors to see what is the best ever. We are defining the rules and playability (I speak in plural because I do it with Jesús Alonso Guerrero)

My professional life working for others has always been linked to banking. I guess this comes from my family; my father has always been a bank employee (not a banker, there are many millions of Euros of difference between a title and the other). I started in telephonic banking at the late Banco Central Hispano (now Banco Santander); subsequently, after long to explain matters, I ended up as a computer programmer in many financial institutions in Spain (CajaMadrid, Servired, several small saving banks). Finally I oriented my career to consultancy and I have been focused in this area working for Banco Santander and BBVA, ending finally as employee of ING.

Not too long ago I started writing within LinkedIn a blog about entrepreneurship and business. I called it Diario de un emprendedor frustrado. On it I gave useful tips based on my own experience or I commented relevant economic news from a critical and totally personal point of view.

I also publish essays and articles in the blog group Masticadores.

As any writer, I love reading, mainly science fiction, fantasy and adventure and historical novel. I am also happy doing sports. In the past I mainly played basketball, now, after a knee surgery, I practice martial arts. Other hobbies, neglected by the work, writing and the family hectic, are hiking, diving, chess and cinema.