Paola
Castiel

Strategy Director
Madrid office
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Paola Castiel

Paola
Castiel

Strategy Director
Madrid office
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Born in Miami, raised in Madrid, what best defines her is her insatiable curiosity (with Alex’s permission who holds the title of the most curious person in the world), and the smile and energy that she always gives off.

Her eager willingness for knowing has taken her around the world, living in incredible places such as the Swiss Alpes, the Bella Firenze or Disney World in the US where she had Mickey Mouse himself as her boss. She believes that getting to know different cultures is not only a pleasure but should be a duty. Preserving what makes us different and connecting through the things we have in common is a necessity that makes the world in which we live in a better place.

She is passionate about understanding all the whys. That’s why she decided to be a planner, to find out why we do things the way we do, and to define how brands can add value to people. She is a determined advocate for the positive impact that brands can have on our lives as in society, and she believes we are in a professional moment of exciting change.

But let’s start from the beginning. Even though her first idea was to be an architect, she had the feeling that she was going to be better at Advertising and Public Relations than technical drawing. Once she finished her studies, she came back to Spain and started working at McCann as an account executive on the Coca-Cola team. Later, she worked for a year as a Project Manager at Wantham, a boutique agency specialized in Mobile where she was able to run projects for several brands such as Vodafone, Desigual, Audi, or UNICEF. In her last stage, she decided to enroll at the Miami Ad School’s Bootcamp for Strategic Planners where she first met Alex.

She spent her last 5 years (before joining Picnic) at UM, IPG’s media agency, working for brands such as J&J, Pascual, Tous, or Eone Entertainment. It was there that she had the opportunity to represent Spain at the Young Lions Competition at Cannes Lions Festival winning a silver medal in 2016 for her idea for the UN.

Aware of the fact that the traditional advertising model was not fulfilling her curiosity, nor was it solving most of the problems that the brands she was working for faced but also failed to bring real value to the people she was constantly thinking about, she was wondering what to do when Picnic crossed her path again. And so, she became a Picnicker in June 2018 joining the strategy team as Brand Strategist.

She is also the captain of her volleyball team since she was 9 years old, she is a proud Atlético de Madrid supporter and she loves her birthday. (It’s is on November the 19th, by the way).