Carlos Matallana got his first job flipping burgers during the summer of 2002.

He was 18 years old, and only stayed there a “couple months”. From there, he progressively worked his way up, exploring different educational and career fields in the process, among them finance, aviation, automotive, entrepreneurship, and entertainment.

He is currently general manager of Global Exchange Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago.

Matallana, who was the featured speaker at the career forum ‘Pathways to Success: One Man’s Journey in Business’ two weeks ago, used his journey to inspire business students at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus to explore the breadth of their potential as they build pathways to their own success. He listed seven gems.

“(1) Your successful career has nothing to do with where you are born, or who you are; (2) it has a final destination, which creates paths to follow, not the other way round; (3) it gives you what you negotiate and decide, not necessarily what you deserve,” said Matallana.

His fourth point was that a successful career can be impacted by the smallest choices. Fifth: careers do not necessarily have to be linked to an industry, but to projects. Sixth: they might look like Alice In Wonderland, but, are in fact more like Game Of Thrones. Seventh: education plus attitude equals success.

“Always remember aptitude adds and attitude multiplies,” Matallana stressed.

‘Pathways to Success: One Man’s Journey in Business’ was co-curated by the Embassy of Spain in Jamaica and Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) with a vision of allowing students the opportunity to tap into the experience and knowledge of a business professional. It was done in partnership with The University of the West Indies’ Department of Economics and The Spanish-Jamaican Foundation and was the first in a series titled “Conversations with Spain” which will include a panel discussion on tourism investments and a renewable energies workshop later this year.

“The goal of this forum was to open dialogue with the students who are looking for options and searching for career paths. They can look at Carlos and see how a company can start in a country and travel to other regions,” noted Chargée d’Affaires of the Embassy of Spain in Jamaica Carmen Rives Ruiz-Tapiador.

“Many who have achieved their goals will know that the road to success is often paved with many failures, setbacks, and doubts, which are all an integral part of the growth process. This is the basis on which we are targeting students of the University of the West Indies (Mona), and other post-secondary institutions,” the embassy adds.

Matallana, a native of Spain, holds a Master of Science in Air Transport Management (2010) and a Bachelor’s of Business Administration (2007).

According to his bio, he held a raft of middle management positions even before completing his degrees. He worked as an assistant finance administrator at airport managing company AENA; served as a screening coordinator at Precious Limited, which included coordinating security checks on pilots, cabin crew and airport workers; and then graduated to an aircraft remarketing executive at Skyworld Aviation in 2009 where he handled sales/placement negotiations with airlines, financial institutions, agents and maintenance MROs and served as Skyworld’s ambassador at summits, conferences and senior level management events worldwide.

In 2009, he founded Take Away Showlutions, a consultancy to record labels which also assisted with live music production and promotion and artiste management. He left it four years later for the automotive industry, accepting the post of export area manager for Africa and the Middle East at Cepsa. He was responsible for the day-to-day execution of sales of automotive and industrial lubricant products. He also developed business plans and strategies to expand customer/distributor base in new markets such as Morocco, Mauritania, Ghana, South Sudan, Angola and Turkey.

He began his journey with Global Exchange in 2015, starting out as director of operations for the Dominican Republic, before taking up the current position.

“This discussion aims to stress the value, for a target population in its 20s, of self-exploration, from the perspective of someone who started off with a dream of being a pilot, pursued it, shifted towards an automotive sales career, to finally be addressing the room as the general manager (Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago) for one of the world’s fastest-growing, most successful currency exchange platforms in the world,” the Spanish embassy said.