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The son of Costa Rican parents, Pablo Quiros was born in the US but raised in Costa Rica and Panama. At eighteen, he took a job in a call center in Costa Rica, just as the country was transforming into an attractive option for American tech giants. “At the time, Costa Rica was a call center country, now it’s an technology operating center country,” says Pablo Quiros, vice president of global information security and technology at Juul Labs.
In the intervening years companies like Cisco, HP, Intel, and Dell established operations in Costa Rica. “That progression happened, that maturity happened, right around the same time I was starting my career,” Quiros says. “There was a lot of opportunity. I got to work at HP and learned everything I could.”
Quiros trained as a Cisco Certified Network Associate and a Cisco Certified Network Professional. Then he moved to Intel. When HP opened shop in Costa Rica, it changed Quiros’s career trajectory. “They were hiring thousands of people. I went to interview with a bunch of my friends, we stood in line for hours, and I got a job in their ProLiant server division,” Quiros remembers.
“My people are ultimately a reflection of myself. I like to make sure that I’m essentially successful through my people. My own individual accomplishments don’t matter as much.”
Pablo Quiros
Knowing nothing about servers and just eighteen years old, Quiros engaged in HP’s exhaustive training. “HP was very open about sharing knowledge and about training and diversifying the skill sets of their people. Unbeknownst to me, HP was a career opportunity,” he says.
He brought just a surface knowledge of operating systems and drivers to HP but was expected to become expert on every aspect of its tech—Novell, Linux, Unix, Windows. “Becoming an expert in building and deploying operating systems, working with hardware, drivers, networks, and troubleshooting,” Quiros says.
HP’s culture and exhaustive training demanded a broad tech perspective, aligning perfectly with Quiros’s career goal. “I felt I had to be the best at everything, so I could be the best at something. I wanted to learn everything I could and be good at everything. I learned and absorbed,” he says about his years at HP.
Realizing his career plateaued, Quiros came to the US searching for greater challenges and opportunity, but conducting business in the US was quite different than in Latin America. “It was a learning experience. I did a lot of interviews, and it wasn’t pleasant,” Quiros says.
He estimates that he went on one hundred interviews before securing a position. He recalls arriving for one interview, waited for an hour, and no one showed up to interview him. Another time he hopped a bus and a train, arrived at the interview to learn that the position was unavailable. “It wasn’t true, the position was still published on their website. There were a lot of micro experiences that I had throughout that period,” Quiros says.
After brief stops at Vocus, Transunion, and Parsons, Quiros landed at Juul Labs in 2022 during a complex time. “Six months after I showed up, they had a round of layoffs. My boss, the person that was running cybersecurity at the time and serving as the head of security, was affected,” Quiros recalls.
Taking these changes in stride, Quiros viewed Juul’s changes as a challenge and an opportunity to flex the tech muscles he’d built at previous tech positions and prove his worth. In 2023, a company restructuring required that he lead security after being lauded for successfully maturing and growing Juul’s security program.
“If you have the skill, if you have the knowledge, if you have the capability, the rest doesn’t really matter. Where you’re from doesn’t matter as much as who you are.”
Pablo Quiros
In March 2024, Juul’s leadership installed Quiros as head of IT and technology to oversee cybersecurity, infrastructure, architecture, enterprise systems, integrations, and more. By July 2024, he became vice president of global technology and security, overseeing cybersecurity, enterprise infrastructure and architecture, information systems, enterprise applications, and AI.
Juul’s IT is more efficient under Quiros, and he’s defined and deployed the company’s enterprise system roadmap. “Our enterprise systems program matured incredibly. I used all this experience that I’ve acquired throughout the years, working in servers, systems and networks, strategy, money and security and put it all together,” Quiros says.
With the many accomplishments he’s enjoyed at Juul, he ranks the team he’s assembled as his greatest. He actively ensures team members improve and grow. “My people are ultimately a reflection of myself,” he says. “I like to make sure that I’m essentially successful through my people. My own individual accomplishments don’t matter as much.”
As a Hispanic, Quiros has encountered his fair share of difficulties, like those micro experiences after arriving in the US. “I was coming from a disadvantage, but I believe skill set trumps anything else,” he explains. “If you have the skill, if you have the knowledge, if you have the capability, the rest doesn’t really matter. Where you’re from doesn’t matter as much as who you are.”
At Abstract Security, we believe cybersecurity should empower teams, not overwhelm them. Our platform helps organizations gain clarity, speed, and confidence by simplifying how they see and act on data. Partnering with visionary leaders like Pablo Quiros of JUUL Labs, we’ve seen how lean teams can turn complexity into opportunity—building secure, efficient operations that keep pace with growth.
As Pablo shared, “Implementing Abstract Security brought immediate clarity and efficiency to our operations. It was up and running in under an hour, delivering value from day one.” His team’s success embodies our mission: helping enterprises protect what matters most.
