Felix Quintana on Becoming a People Leader and Managing AI Agents

Being great at the technical work doesn’t automatically make you great at leading people. So what does? In this episode, Niel sits down with Felix Quintana to talk about moving from hands-on infrastructure work into people leadership, and what that shift might ask of technical leaders who are used to living in the details. Felix’s story points to a few ideas that could be useful for any IT leader: wanting to lead people for the right reasons, speaking the language of the business instead of the language of the tech, and solving a pain point the business actually feels. The conversation also looks at AI from a longer view. Felix was automating mortgage processes with robotic process automation before generative AI took off, and he shares what that experience may say about data quality and readiness today. From there, he walks through how his organization seems to be approaching AI now: tying it to existing company objectives instead of treating it as its own goal, and working toward a future where employees manage agents.