Fernando Fernandez is growth senior product manager at Yelp and covers the activation of all users on the platform and ensuring seamless account creation. He also focuses on improving users’ first-time experience based on past actions and behaviors to ensure they return to Yelp to find local businesses. Fernandez’s leadership extends to SomosYelp, the company’s Latinx employee resource group, and externally as a mentor for students and professionals looking to make the switch into the tech workforce.
What is your greatest career accomplishment to date?
My greatest career accomplishment has got to be transitioning into the product org at Yelp, more specifically, the growth team, and leveraging the learnings that I had in my BizOps and strategy role to continue to work to increase Yelp’s overall installs. Coming in and listening to our users directly and implementing feedback into our mobile site was such a huge rush! I was able to work to convey to our users the value of the Yelp app and see as our overall installs increase as a result. It was great to also find pockets of space in which there were larger opportunities through some data analysis that I did and continue to innovate in these spaces to ensure that we were reaching all of our customers in the best way possible.
What is your greatest personal accomplishment to date?
Graduating from university was definitely the greatest personal accomplishment. Taking on the University of Pennsylvania and ending my academic career with two bachelor’s degrees as well as a Global Human Rights Certificate from the Penn Carey Law School was no easy feat but was one that gave me a warm feeling of completion. This journey started so long ago when I committed myself to truly pushing beyond just my own curriculum in applying to the TEAK Fellowship, a free NYC program that catapulted my education and opportunities. It was here through after-school classes, summer programs, and a fiercely dedicated staff that I unlocked the chance to go to the Taft School, a boarding school in Watertown, Connecticut, and attend UPenn. On graduation day, I could do nothing more than cry for half of it. This was the goal that was always talked about, but seeing the trajectory of my process and the things that I had accomplished were things that I could’ve never dreamed of. I thank my first teacher for nominating me, that little boy for applying, and everyone along the process who had even a small part in making this dream come true.
What do you do today to impact your community?
Today, I am a volunteer for Close the Gap Foundation, an organization that focuses on helping rising juniors and seniors in high schools through their first self-driven projects. With them, I am the program operations manager for the fellowship, helping to run the fellowship of fifty students and coordinate amongst the team on getting both fellows and mentors aligned on responsibilities for the summer.
Alongside that, I also am on the SomosYelp Leadership committee. SomosYelp is the company’s Latinx employee resource group. There, I help to plan and facilitate events for Yelp employees that celebrate the Latinx culture amongst everyone. From planning for Latinx Heritage Month to having conversations with other employees about difficult topics that impact everyone, this role has been one of the most gratifying experiences I could’ve ever asked for.
Lastly, I mentor students and professionals outside of Yelp who aim to enter or make a career switch into the tech workforce, discussing my path into the tech industry as well as different key interview strategies. I work with students through a fulsome case study to explain different pieces of product and BizOps, what the differences in these roles are, and what the day to day looks like in these roles. This helps candidates decide if they would like to continue pursuing these roles or if there’s a better one that more closely aligns with their interests. At the end of the day, I enjoy being able to help someone else gain more clarity into what they are truly passionate about and what will bring them that joy professionally.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I see myself in five years continuing to think and innovate as a product manager. I’d love to continue to listen to users directly and create products for them. I’d also love to be more involved in the Latino community by helping on the board of an organization, driving value and vision for more students in the community. I want to continue being a mentor and a role model for my family and help to open doors for so many of those who are coming behind me.
What is the biggest issue that you want to help solve, and why?
I’d love to help solve the education inequities that exist between Latin America and the US. The availability of resources for students in countries is extremely limited and it’s a luxury as someone who grew up in the US for me to have had the education that I had. I want to make sure that children have that same privilege and have access to supplementary educational resources that will augment that of the ones they receive in schools. By doing this, I want to increase educational attainment for these children and give them the chance to attend higher education institutions in their home countries or outside of it.
What is a surprising hobby or interest that helps you stay creative and energized?
For people who don’t know me, a surprising hobby that keeps me busy is that I’m a dancer of salsa and bachata! More than likely, if I hear music, I will get up, ask someone to go dance! I’ve done it ever since I was born (thanks to my parents), but formally started dancing in college in Penn’s premier Latin dance troupe, Onda Latina. Then, I continued post-college in several different teams in New York City and San Francisco including Inessence Dance Co. and Yamulee San Francisco. I love to be able to spend three minutes with another person having a conversation through dance, creating new moves and truly having fun. Dance has been an outlet for me to express myself and as an escape of the daily stresses of work and life. Without it, I don’t know how I’d have survived all of these years.
What is your Latino background?
I am a proud Dominican, 100 percent. I was born and raised in New York City and more specifically, the Bronx. Both of my parents are from the Dominican Republic, my mother from San Francisco de Macorís and my father from Villa Tapia.
What song do you listen to that motivates you?
“Lioness” by Niki & the Dove and Swedish House Mafia.
