In 2016, Ian Ortega joined Diageo on their prestigious Graduate Management Programme. As part of the requirements, each Graduate was required to write a profile that would introduce them to the wider Diageo group. This is what Ian Ortega had for his introduction profile:
Every epoch produces its revolutionaries, its thinkers, its dreamers, its actors. Ian Ortega is a Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineer standing at the intersection of the humanities and sciences in this great epoch.
I am passionate about ideas, I see myself as a constant idea machine, an avid learner but above all, obsessed about bold execution, and bringing these ideas to life. I am all for legacy, leaving a mark, creating impact in big ways whether through grand innovations or inventions. I am always thinking in terms of energy. How can we create more with less? Six Sigma, continuous improvement? How can we be sustainable in all we do? It’s signal over noise for Ortega, always breaking down things to their first principles.
My style is to keep it simple. To quote Steve Jobs; “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” I enjoy learning from other people’s mistakes for it takes humility to do so.
At the end of the race, I want to be remembered as a person who moved things, broke down walls, challenged the status-quo, pioneered new ways of doing things. Yet, squeezed out the beer out of life, celebrated life at every nano-second. It’s a path less traveled, it’s a path I choose to travel everyday.