Jason Rosado

When I was 10 years old, I moved my own bed (without any help) out of the room I shared with my older sister, in the basement apartment in the Bronx where we lived in as the children of “The Super” of the building, and into a different, smaller room about the size of a walk-in closet, with a window facing a brick wall.  In this moment is an example of my earliest recollected self-definition. It’s a moment of which I am proud because I think it illustrates my earliest notions of independence, leadership and ambition.  This moment also shares that I’m the product of hard work and optimism and humble beginnings. I remember this moment every time I consider what I have accomplished in my life to date, and what yet there is for me to accomplish.

As a result of my participation (and strenuous support of my parents who shuttled me to and from The Bronx to Manhattan 2 days a week) in a competitive extracurricular academic program (Prep for Prep) while in public elementary school in The Bronx, I was offered an academic scholarship to the Fieldston School in Riverdale, NY.  There, I was introduced to a completely different world of opportunity and advantage (and culture shock!).  I went from a social dynamic of having friends who lived in the Projects to friends with country homes in Greenwich, CT.  But rather than hide myself amongst the social margins, I learned to adapt and thrive in this new environment.  At Fieldston, I explored the arts – music, performance and design – that were previously unavailable to me in Public School, and received an academic and social education that has allowed me to continue to quickly feel comfortable in new environments in order to acquire knowledge and quickly accomplish goals. 

At Wesleyan University, I charted my course curriculum to reflect the diversity of my surroundings and expanded the breadth and depth of my education through action.  I double majored in distinct courses of study, African American Studies (AFAM) and Government.  Learning about the history of African American culture and community shed tremendous light on my own personal experience as a Latino/Puerto Rican man.  It empowered me to connect further to my own community and to become involved in establishing organizations and events at Wesleyan that further expanded the definitions of my identity.  I participated in student government (I was elected Treasurer of the Student Body), musical performance, journalism, and political movements.  In my junior year, I helped to establish both a chapter of La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Inc. on campus and a non-alcoholic on campus social venue for events and gatherings which both exist to this day.

The management training program at JPMorgan Chase into which I was hired right out of college (despite my minimal academic experience in finance) provided internships in product management/development, marketing, sales and customer service.  This experience laid the groundwork for a broad skill set across multiple job functions in banking technology to support a customer base of large corporations and financial institutions.  I focused on not only what my particular role required and the traditional products I supported, but I also looked ahead to how the Internet would dramatically change much of that paradigm in hopes of building additional expertise.  The Certificate in Web Business Development at the NYU School for Continuing and Professional Studies helped me lead my bank peers in implementing image and web based technology to transform traditional business processes (such as the presentment of bills and insurance claims) into electronic content and financial transactions.  

I balanced my time working at the bank, with participation in community organizations.  In 2000, as a result of my leadership in coordinating several large annual fundraising events as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of my fraternity, I participated on the inaugural Board of Trustees for the La Unidad Latina Foundation, a scholarship and grant fund that financially assists Latino students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees of study.  This extracurricular work provided valuable lessons in organizational leadership. It taught me how to gain consensus, mediate and negotiate multiple parties towards resolutions, and improved my skills of communication.

The events of 9/11 reminded me that life was too short and that I again needed more “room” for myself.  A year later, I resigned from my position as Vice President to travel and reside in 9 countries in Latin America.  In addition to the profound experience of life in various foreign countries, I charted my own course of creative development and turned nascent skills in web development, graphic design, painting, dance and music into various forms of personal expression.  As a result, I improved my proficiency in Spanish and learned Portuguese.  My experience abroad is another example of my taking the initiative to expand the boundaries of my identity.  Now that I’m back from the time I spent living abroad, I often think of many different ideas I initiated but didn’t complete.  I think of what more I could have accomplished had I additional skills or had I done some thing differently.  However, when I let the concept of my failure creep into my consciousness, I again remind myself of that little room, with that brick wall and I remember what I have done and what I have yet to accomplish. 

While living abroad I was invited by a fellow ex-pat, who had knowledge of my business experience and desires to explore my personal creativity, to Argentina to start up a project which resulted in the launch of www.whatsupbuenosaires.com.  In my first ever role as a Creative Director, I led a team of artists, tourists and business people towards creating a multimedia tool useful for cultural navigation throughout the city. I used my improved language skills to work with local designers to create a Flash and PHP website that offered: free downloads of local music (secured contractually); a link browser allowing users to navigate through locally focused websites; an online language instruction dictionary; and slideshow movies with images of areas and events of the city with an audio soundtrack.  Images from the website’s content were used as visual displays projected on large screens at promotional events and concerts.  Many of the site’s accomplishments were a result of ideas I had while working at the bank in New York. My time abroad gave me the space and time to realize ideas that I held in my mind but didn’t have the resources or time to achieve.  This start-up experience not only allowed me to apply improved language and technical skills but also taught me valuable lessons in working with others in and from different cultures.   The tough lesson learned in this experience still ultimately brings me back to the humility of my first bedroom.  In some aspects of my experience with the WhatsUpBuenosAires project, I let the high expectations we had for our project get in the way of my ability to remain humble.  As a result of this experience, I often remind myself how strong my personality can be, and how it is just as important to give someone else the space to grow and as it is to take it for my own. 

After almost 3 years of living abroad, I returned home and found employment at the Bank of New York Mellon that seemed to leverage all that I had learned from my previous experiences. At the Bank, I am the only Product Manager responsible for the “Image Deposit.”  Recent congressional legislation allows the scanned image of an original printed check to be accepted by a bank as the legal equivalent of the original item.  As a result of my efforts, financial institutions and corporations now transmit over $3 Billion a month of image deposits to the Bank of New York Mellon.  My current responsibilities require thought leadership and innovation in order to continue to develop the platforms and determine new business methods to capture more revenue.

Who I am is not only a reflection of what I’ve done and where I’ve been but also where I want to go. My travel and employment experiences have provided various opportunities to develop my interest in art and technology. I have a fascination with technology and its ability to change the social, political and economic paradigms in our society.  Technology offers the potential for any individual to make a financial transaction to anyone anywhere at any time in any amount. Handheld devices digitally deliver audio/visual marketing campaigns in real time and will couple with small value payment platforms to allow users to execute electronic transactions at the peak of an impulse. Not only can these developments create new ways of doing business, they will open the door for greater global distribution of wealth.  I am inspired and motivated by the opportunity to make it much easier and financially feasible to convince a million people to donate one U.S. penny, than to ask one person to donate one million dollars.  My participation in the Interactive Telecommunications Program will provide me with not only the technical skills to realize this goal of impulse philanthropy, but also the analytical, collaborative and management skills to engage this movement.