Meet our new Business Development Manager, Nicolás M. Fontana

Sell me this pen.

This question is one of the classical ones in many job interviews. It was used long ago, and it is still used because it can reveal very interesting information about the personality of the applicant.

At Jensen, we like doing things differently, and we do not follow that approach in our interviews, as we think that things can be simpler and we build our relationships on mutual trust.

So we use this type of questions just to know more about our new staff. And because we enjoy a bit of gossip from time to time. But just a bit.

Nicolás M. Fontana is our new Business Development Manager. He joined our team in October 2016 and has filled his department with lots of energy and motivation. He has a difficult job, but we think he is our man! Learn more about our new member in these questions:

1. What is your origin and how did you join the translation industry?

I was born in Argentina in 1981, from a Spanish-Italian family. The roots of my family can be traced from my father side in Castile and León, in Spain, and from my mother side in Piedmont, Italy and Trieste (which nowadays is part of Italy but used to be a part of former Yugoslavia).  I joined the translation industry in Poland in 2011 as a member of a localization testing unit in a big localization company in Warsaw. After several roles there, I ended my career in the Language Lead position. As a Language Lead, I have to admit that I had the pleasure of working with the best team of people that I ever met in my life till now.

After that, I decided that it was high time to move back to Andalusia, where a piece of my heart, my brother, and my closest friends are located (they are like my second family).

Thanks to Jensen Localization I have the opportunity to be back in such a beautiful place, in an environment surrounded by very interesting people that I would like to make part of my life.

2. Have you ever made a language or translation blunder so embarrassing that you would never tell anyone? If you have, now it’s time to talk about it!

Yes, although errare humanum est, I made quite a few language blunders in my first years in Poland, mainly because it is a difficult language to pronounce.

In Polish, there is a very tasty soup with a tricky name, “żurek”. If you mispronounce it as “siurek” the meaning changes to penis, so be careful if you are in a restaurant full of people, as it is indeed very embarrassing.

Another fun fact is that, in Spanish, you may find the sign “curvas peligrosas” on the road, that sounds like one of the most used swearing words in polish that is “kurwa”, and that means “prostitute” (to put it nicely). So it is quite funny for Polish people coming to Spain when someone is saying ‘cuidado, hay una curva peligrosa’ (whatch out, there is a dangerous turn there) as they may think on a “dangerous prostitute” waiting on the next turn.

3. Do you have any unusual hobbies?

I believe that I don´t have any unusual hobby, one of them used to be collecting coins when I was a child. In Poland my wife and I used to collect magnets from all places we travelled for business or holidays, then the fridge turned to be too small, so we slowed down. Nowadays I am thinking of starting collecting pens after the amount that you can get on every marketing event.

I also enjoy a lot creating videos and documentaries.

4. What are you known for?

At work, I like speed, motivation, and spread happiness among people I work with. I am mostly known because of my jokes that sometimes can be ironic and my social involvement in humanitarian causes and fight against racism and other prejudices. We are all flesh and bones, aren’t we?

5. If you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you be and why?

Well, most people tend to relate me to a bear due to my size. But if I could choose an animal I would like to be a sooty shearwaters bird, because it can travel an incredible distance each year, logging as much as 40,000 miles, in that way I would be able to visit all my friends and family that are spread around the world.

 

6. Do you sing in the shower? What is your favourite song for that moment?

No, I do not sing in the shower, but I like a lot of different types of music, I am a music lover. I used to be part of a band in my youth together with my brother. I have to admit that nowadays music is on decay for my taste; I like more the oldies or 60´s to 90´s bands. The XXI century brought not much originality to music styles. However, there is always hope…

7. What would we find in your refrigerator right now?

Ham, cheese, eggs, milk, sausages, pate, cherry tomatoes and that´s it. As we recently moved there is not much in it.

We hope this short interview will help you to know Nicolás better. We are very happy to have him on board, and we wish him the best of lucks at Jensen.

And if you meet Nicolás at any event, now you have lots of ice breakers to start a nice chat with him :-).