Manuel Valencia, known to friends as Manny, is the Baton Rouge-based Vice President at Excelerant, one of the country’s leading executive team development, leadership development, executive coaching and meeting facilitation service providers.
Manny is well-known for his community leadership as a board member at several community non-profit organizations like Family Road of Greater Baton Rouge, his participation as a founding member of Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week and his pioneering events in the cultural arts.
He also represented the Baton Rouge entrepreneurial scene when he made the 2012 Silicon Bayou 100 list of the one hundred most influential and active people in technology and entrepreneurship in Louisiana.
Find out more about Manny below:
What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now?
We get to speak with progressive CEOs and business owners about leadership development. They usually speak to us about five things:
- Who are the ‘next’ executive leaders in our company?
- Do we have the right leadership structure?
- How do we identify and support our high-potential leaders?
- Who can we assign accountability to for growth?
- We will start investing in our leaders this year, not next year!
If you wrote a regular column for Silicon Bayou News what would it be about and what would you name it?
Everything I learned about business, I learned during my time as a New York City Bar Mitzvah dancer.
If you recently moved here, what brought you here?
Our family relocated to Louisiana in 2010 because of a job opportunity for my wife in the hospice/home health industry.
If you could win any award in the world, which would you be most proud to possess?
If there is an award given to difference-makers and dream-achievers, I would like to win it.
If you were stuck on an elevator for two hours, what one person (dead or alive) would you choose to be stuck with?
Nelson Mandela.
IYO, which institution is most due for disruption?
Education.
If you had to pick a drink to describe yourself (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) what would it be?
Ketel One and Soda, two limes.
Tell us about your biggest failure.
Too many to list 🙂
What’s your favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?
Spend time with family and watch a European Soccer match.
If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
My home-cooked Lasagna or my mom’s Ecuadorian Ceviche.
If you could live in any other time period, which would you choose?
Now is always the time to be living.
The standard superpower dichotomy:
Fly.