Enabling young adults with #diabetes to thrive in all of their personal, healthcare, and scholastic accomplishments.

- Kit-powered Community Creator for readers and lovers of poetry through "Literatura y Vida".- In October 2023, I published my first Spanish poetry book, "Laberinto." I am currently working on my next poetry book. I also wrote a short novel (not yet published) about the relationship between a middle-aged man and his elder mother, who had developed Alzheimer's.

* Spoke at events about the central role of the patient, and the power of community and social media in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, to audiences of patients and advocates, medical professionals, company executives, and government officials.* Past speaking engagements include: conferences hosted by International Diabetes Federation, ADA (keynote), Joslin Diabetes Center (keynote), JDRF (keynote), The Endocrine Society (keynote), AADE (keynote), Novartis (keynote), Sanofi, Roche, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Yale University, SXSW, BlogWorld Expo, Health 2.0, ePatient Connections, and NTEN.* Helped clients (nonprofits, small startups, and Fortune 500 companies in pharma and other sectors) better understand and realize their potential by having a people-centric approach to product development, marketing, etc.* Clients have included: Accomplish Health, Innit, Novo Nordisk, Tandem Diabetes, Sanofi, LifeScan, Community Initiatives, Chez Panisse Foundation, Madera Group, Partnership for the Public's Health, and others.* Manny has been interviewed by the NY Times, NPR, Fox News Health, Bloomberg News, Univision, and others.

Life for a Child exists – and will continue to exist – until no child dies of diabetes for want of a timely diagnosis, suitable treatment, or ongoing care.

Thrivable is a real-time insights platform. We help patients and solution makers collaborate to create the next generation of products and services.At Thrivable, my team was the solution partner for our customers, responsible for ensuring they fully take advantage of what Thrivable can do for them. I was also responsible for the People (HR) function.

In this role, I developed partnerships with organizations to help us grow our panelist base and grow into other conditions. I also worked to enhance the experience of our panelists. Last, I was responsible for the People (HR) function.

Developed the People and Culture function at Tidepool:- Part of the executive team, helping shape decisions impacting company strategy and growth- Responsible for Recruiting efforts, growing team to nearly 60 people distributed globally, including FT, PT employees, interns, apprentices, and consultants; sustaining successful summer internship program; formalizing new apprenticeship program. - Responsible for team's Onboarding, Learning and Development: this included reimagining former week-long on-site team gathering into a fully-remote virtual gathering, with participation from employees across 20 timezones.- Responsible for Organizational Development matters: put in place a sensible levels structure to reflect current and upcoming realities; this involved revisiting some of the underlying cultural assumptions re: early stage vs. growing entity.- Responsible for Employee Engagement matters: put in place mechanisms for measuring employee engagement and acting on findings with managers and leadership team.- Responsible for Benefits management: unlike most nonprofits, salaries at Tidepool aimed to be competitive with peers in the tech space, in order to attract top talent.- Other responsibilities and accomplishments: conducted the first complete revision of the Employee Handbook in years; streamlined the onboarding workflow; led the execution of Reduction in Force of nearly 40%.Left in March 2021 to take a year-long sabbatical.

During growth from 200 to 600+ employees, going through two M&As:* Led Diversity & Inclusion, Remote Employee Culture, Recognition, and Volunteering initiatives.* Built Learning & Development and Workplace functions from scratch.* Grew 2x square footage across all Livongo locations, in support of headcount growth.

* Product Manager for first Glucose Meter with Over-the-Air Capabilities in the Industry.* Created DTC channel for people with no access to the benefit through program sponsor.* Laid groundwork for product partnerships with medical device and pharma.* Developed company's competitive intelligence foundation.

Secretary of the Board and Officer until the dissolution of the organization. Played an integral role in the transfer of TuDiabetes and EsTuDiabetes and remaining staff members to Beyond Type 1.

As President-Emeritus, Manny supported Melissa Lee, newly appointed Interim Executive Director, and had an active role in the project to migrate TuDiabetes and EsTuDiabetes, Diabetes Hands Foundation's two online communities, from Ning to Discourse.

Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF) was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brought together people touched by diabetes for positive change to make sure that nobody living with this condition felt alone.The organization touched the lives of 3 million people every year, empowering them to manage their condition better, and mobilizing them to positively impact the lives of others, through programs like pioneer social networks TuDiabetes.org and EsTuDiabetes.org (in English and Spanish), the Big Blue Test, and Diabetes Advocates.Under his leadership, DHF became a leader in diabetes social media and an influential group in diabetes advocacy, growing the organization's budget from just $100K in 2008 to over $1MM by 2015.

Developed the board from 5 members to 14, to support the organization's growth from its foundation to nearly half a million US dollars in annual revenue.

Author of more than 40 articles for the monthly column "Hola Diabetes" in English and Spanish.

Authored "Ning For Dummies," published in April 2009. As a Community Advocate at Ning, he helped other Network Creators develop their social networks to reach their full potential and served as the point of contact for all Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Creators.

Co-founded the firm to provide translation, copywriting/editing, search engine marketing, and design services to customers such as MLB.com, various MLB teams, LatCel, Full Sail University, Border Trade Alliance, and AOL Latin America.

Responsible for Support Team and User Experience for Full Sail Online, the school's new Online Education platform (launched Oct. 2007). Led a team of 10 web professionals in product management, project management, community management, content management, and end-user support for all campus portals. Increased traffic to Student Portal from less than 10K to almost 1 million monthly visits through a significant site redesign (2004) and home page redesign (2006) and continuous product improvement to enhance UX. Co-responsible for designing the initial Internet Marketing strategy for the Full Sail website, including keyword strategy and SEO, resulting in double-digit short-term gains in conversions.

Responsible for bilingual customer service and support for 100+ clients in 13 countries, IT, and sales cycle efficiency improvements by over 50%. Managed redesign of website, marketing collateral, and monthly customer newsletter.

Implemented PMO methodology and managed IT Team, cutting operating costs by 40% while maintaining productivity. Led redesign projects and content revision of 2 Web sites with 500K+ in monthly uniques, doubled traffic in 3 months. Responsible for SEO efforts, achieving top-3 status for multiple keywords.

* Built Technology content channel from scratch, growing traffic to 100K+ monthly uniques.* Implemented new tools and content relationships at nearly zero cost to company.* Improved content production processes, resulting in better planning and error reduction.

* Led Education & Training Pillar for 400-people diaper manufacturing and warehousing facility. * Streamlined L&D processes for the site, resulting in optimization of department resources.

* Led team of 50+ people in a high-speed production line that sourced several countries. * Responsible for all aspects of production line operations.* Turned production line around, bringing productivity up from 68% to 84%. * Set new quality record for Latin American region.

* Devised plant-wide Maintenance Plan that reduced electrical downtime by 80%.* Drove standardization projects that saved $300K/year and reduced $5M in working capital.

* Taught the course for two semesters.* Only professor teaching the course.* Teaching Assistant for the course during last 2.5 years in undergrad.