Hi, I’m Manny, an Analyst, project manager, UX person. It’s less of a mix and more of a pattern: I’m always trying to figure out what people need and get it built right. Photography is my side thing.

My journey here is very different than most to say the least. Born in Mexico but raised in Delaware, I am a first generation immigrant and am constantly reminded of it every day. Growing up I wanted to do two things: 1. Film/Photography 2. Psychology. At a young age you could find me writing and drawing “story boards” about a film that I wanted to create. By 12 I was reading psychology books because I wanted to understand “what drives people to be who they are and why do they do certain things”?

I started my professional career as a Jr. IT Business Analyst/Project Manager through an apprenticeship at a Fortune 500 company. This gave me first hand experience working on many complex projects, while also developing my analytical and management skills. This role happened to be the one that first exposed me to UX/UI Design and after some research I felt like I found a career that I knew I had to get into, though I didn’t know how. I had minimal experience in IT and definitely didn’t have a portfolio to back my design ambitions. A couple of years and a pandemic later I find myself working as Business Analyst improving the search bar capabilities for Chase where I am gaining an understanding for NLP, while being a content editor. This role led me closer to the UX teams within the company and when an opportunity presented itself to enroll into a UX/UI Design course, I took it without hesitation. I completed my UX Design Certification in 2023.

Today, I work on partner-facing systems at JPMorgan Chase, where I’ve introduced UX practices into operational work, including a user-focused Root Cause Analysis framework and dashboard that I prototyped in Figma and ran through UAT. I bring together what I’ve learned along the way: the analyst’s rigor, the project manager’s focus on delivery, and a lifelong interest in why people do what they do.

Outside of work, I’m still drawn to storytelling, hence the photographs.