Finding Creativity’s Dream Job

 I have always been involved in the creativity world and surrounded by people who belong to it. Latin America is a young and developing continent with millions of opportunities to offer the world. However, we still have not started to appreciate the creative industry and its labour. The idea of interviewing someone I look up to from the creative industry was exciting, especially because it is a a good way of showing the world who are and what we are capable of.

Alvaro Rojas is currently the Director of innovation of Alicorp Corporation Latin America (LATAM). He is based in Lima, Peru, but his job description suggests he coordinated Alicorp headquarters and smaller bases in the rest of LATAM. He started from the bottom and grew as his experience in the field allowed him to become the Director of Marketing and later on took on his dream job as Director of innovation. In the 20-minute interview I had with him, I got to know more about how creativity make you grow as a person and as a professional. 

As we know, creativity and numbers are considered opposites, but Alvaro, argues that while there is no ideal balance between the two, they both help accomplish dreams. This is something we are not taught in high school or university, that is what teachers and professor miss to tell us. 

Moreover, as part of the creative industry we get to experience different ups and downs in our life. For Alvaro, he did not feel like himself when he was running the marketing department. He needed more structure and boundaries, that if we are being honest, creativity and creative people do no know how to manage. But, the change in his career direction gave him something to learn. Rojas says “...this job has shown me to live in ambiguity, and that you have to be comfortable not knowing.”. 

Every year thousands of students graduate from “rare” degrees like Anthropology, sociology, design thinking, entrepreneurial thinking, etc., without knowing a path to follow. The interview with Alvaro Rojas has fueled hope inside me that the world and people’s minds are changing. More and more, companies are looking for fresh ideas, new technologies and different ways managing. Just like Alicorp Corporation has fostered the search for new talents, we have to believe our future has, yet, to start.

So, to all the creative students in the world, I will say to them that they must encourage creativity, find the logic of math and always challenge yourselves!