Latin American actor Jacob Cepeda is not just prolific in his craft as an artist, but he is also heavily invested in the future of his home country Ecuador. Very rarely does the public see someone in the entertainment industry prioritize public service to make a lasting difference among his countrymen. Beyond his life in the limelight, Jacob dedicates his time to inspiring relevant change that will elevate the lives of people in Ecuador and beyond.
Jacob identifies as a passionate civil servant who thinks out of the box when it comes to initiatives that will address the stereotypes attached to many Latin Americans. He has worked closely with three different presidents of his home country and, in those ten years, developed a deep sense of empathy for the citizens of Ecuador. He began to fully understand that the only way to be able to help them is to identify their needs and anticipate their requests.
“I also worked in promoting initiatives from private companies such as Google and Coca-Cola into the federal system, creating a positive work environment for the employees in order to improve the user’s experience with the government,” Jacob shared.
In the course of doing those initiatives, Jacob came up with an effective formula to impact peoples’ lives better – treat employees well and they will help customers well at the same time. It may sound too common or simple, but its application surely made a difference in the way civil servants deliver services.
On top of his dedication to civil service, Jacob remains committed to his dream of being an actor. “I’ve been studying acting for several years in my home country. That helped me to be real, not just in the way I perform but in the way I live and behave. As an alumnus of the Meisner Technique and graduated from Paulsen Theater, I learned not to focus on myself but instead concentrate on the other person, connecting to his environment and reality,” he revealed.
In his pursuit of a promising acting career, he hopes to become a role model to young people so they can have positive influences in their lives. The need to do this now comes at a timely season when poverty, gangsters, drugs, and false perceptions of the Hispanic heritage are on the rise. Determined to get rid of the stereotypes surrounding Latin Americans, Jacob can be expected to elevate the perception of Latin Americans in America and beyond.
As an individual with a clear vision and an elaborate dream on how to make lives better for his countrymen, Jacob has a simple principle that he lives by: “If you’re no longer happy in a place, move on. Don’t wait too much because you’re going to lose that spark.”
Instead, he encourages others, especially the younger generation, to take hold of everything they have learned over the past years, hold them, and embrace them tightly because these will be the same tools that will help them brave the next season in their lives. Everything, he believes, is a learning experience worth exploring and discovering. In addition, resilience and adaptability are two very important attributes that he believes the younger generation needs in order to make a difference today.
