Making Culture a Priority from Day 1: Productivity Mastery #108 with Mario Calderón & Victor Sánchez

In episode #108 of Productivity Mastery, we welcomed to the podcast the dynamic co-founder duo, Mario Calderón & Victor Sánchez. We talked about Making Culture a Priority from Day 1, and also about the origins of SkillMapper! Mario and Victor shared a bunch of practical lessons and stories, including:

💡 Teaming up with the right person - and why,

💡 How they deal with F-ups in the company,

💡 Methodologies vs. Reality,

💡 How to build a company culture that even competitors want to join, and much more!

Mario Calderón is the Co-Founder & CEO of SkillMapper, an AI-powered ed-tech building the bridge between education and employment for young professionals. Mario has believed that education is the ultimate equalizer, and has always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Thus, his transition from the corporate world to an ed-tech founder became very natural as the world was amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In early 2021, he co-founded SkillMapper with a mission to empower young professionals to achieve their full potential through education.

Before SkillMapper, Mario worked in Data Science and Partnerships for nine years at Meta (former Facebook). He was among the first Peruvians to join this juggernaut in 2012 and worked across various teams during his stints, from operations to partnerships. Mario holds a Double Master’s Degree in Marketing Research and Management from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and BI Norwegian Business School, Norway. Mario was born and raised in Lima, Peru, and resides in Paris, France.

Víctor Sánchez is the Co-Founder & CTO of SkillMapper, where he covers all the start-up’s technology and product development sides.

Previous to SkillMapper, Victor has worked in TATA Consultancy Services and LATAM Airlines, specializing in strategy, analytics, and operations. Through these experiences, he discovered the world of Data, Business Intelligence, and Analytics. Since then, he has been passionate about surfacing data insights and building architectures for big data projects. His last stints before joining SkillMapper were aligned to what later became SkillMapper’s ethos and AI-driven approach.

After completing his Master's Degree, he joined a computer vision start-up as a Data Scientist. Victor holds an Informatic Engineer degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Victor used to be an e-gamer in his free moments, and he’s passionate about football and martial arts.

Tune in!