2025

Celina Perez

Head Distiller at Great Jones Distilling Co., NYC

“I think the effort to mask who you are actually makes you less confident.”

What qualities do you think make for a person with Power?

I think confidence, strength and definitely empathy.

Obviously, the intention of having power is not about you controlling the world. It’s about helping you help everybody else control the world with you.

Right, right. Leading. It’s not so much pushing people down or having authority. It’s the authority or influence to make things better, to make a change.

With all the different divided issues that we have in the world today focusing on gun violence, gender equality, and child poverty, what do you think are the most pressing?

I think that money in general for me is the biggest issue. The wealth disparity alone creates different lifestyles that make certain people have nothing and some people have everything. But it’s more than that. I think the monetization of human rights, of education and intellectual property, the idea of patents. I think that by not sharing advancements that we can make as a society and using them as stepping stones to help each other, we’re really limiting ourselves in how quickly our society and our civilizations can progress forward.

Is there one action in society that can help towards a better result and a better society?

As a society, I think that we tend to pull the ladder up; like once we’ve made it somewhere, we don’t want somebody to take our position. And I feel that the more you give back to the community, the better life gets for everyone. All ships rise with the tide. So just just being kinder in general and giving back, I think benefits everybody.

Do you think that sometimes that comes with confidence or comes with people feeling secure in themselves, that they feel less threatened?

Completely. I think that if you lack self-confidence and if you don’t think enough of yourself to think that you could maintain your position by helping other people, then that’s definitely a challenge. That’s a self-esteem thing. It almost seems like you don’t think you deserve where you’re at, so you have to guard it.

In the bigger picture, that’s more dangerous for sure to be that way, which kind of moves into the next question. Could you tell us a time when you might have encountered a difficult challenge that was life-changing for you and that you had to overcome?

I think just early on in the job market, I don’t know if you remember the early Craigslist days when you’d just send resumes to everybody. I felt that people would see my Latino name and not like it. This happened to me a lot in college, like societal racism. I wouldn’t get a lot of callbacks. And it wasn’t until I would just show up places and have people meet me and talk to them and sort of bypass those stereotypes that are intrinsic in the way that we are brought up in this society that I realized that I started getting positive feedback from employers.

So, it’s really about making that human connection. An email is an email. But when you call somebody about something, you get a lot more done. There’s something about that human presence.

Was there a defining moment or experience in your life that led you to where you are?

I think growing up as a woman, as a girl, I really prioritized, not just the picket fence thing, but wanting to get married and be with somebody forever, like this romantic illusion. And I think when I realized that prioritizing myself over this societal figment was more important, that was what really skyrocketed my career. Me first… In the end, being independent.

Thank you for sharing that personal antidote on life’s experiences. What trait of yours makes you most uncomfortable? And, what trait of yours is your favorite and why?

I think the trait of mine that makes me most uncomfortable is—and I feel like this is very common—my tendency to apologize for things that aren’t necessarily things that you need to apologize for. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around people and, ‘Oh my God, did I mess up?’ So there’s this sort of embarrassment or self-consciousness that speaks out a lot. But at the same time, I sort of dance on this fence, right? Because I can be really strong and I don’t stress under pressure, but if there’s a no-pressure situation, I crumble. It’s hard to explain. I need some sort of pressure situation to come out strong. But if it’s just a regular conversation, I am overly apologetic for sure.

What do you consider is an overrated virtue?

So this is a virtue that I wish I had. But watching other people be this way is sort of cringe for me. People that can strong-arm or be just so insistent that other people give in. Like somebody crying to get a free iPhone, or somebody’s getting sort of angry to get something done, stuff like that. I can’t do it. I know it gets stuff done. But for me, it’s just not that way, and it’s very much rewarded in the workplace. Like the squeaky wheel gets the oil or whatever the saying is.

What do you feel is one of your unbreakable rules?

I was just talking about this earlier. I keep work life—people I work with, clients—separate. Very strict lines. I’m very friendly with the people I work with, but I don’t hang out with them. They’ll invite me to places, but I like to keep it really professional. I think that it’s good for them and it’s safer. I try not to muddy the waters when it comes to stuff like that.

You keep your lines very clean. Because [alcohol] makes everybody so friendly, and so available so quickly in any vulnerable conversation or situation.

Oh yeah. We’ll go to these industry events, and people get crazy. And I’m just looking at them like, this is a professional setting. There’s alcohol involved, but like the stuff that people do. I guess that is any convention, right?

What do you feel is the best piece of advice that you’ve ever been given?

That’s a good one. I’ve got to think about what was the best piece of advice that somebody’s ever given me. I don’t know, actually. So I don’t know if this is a piece of advice, but this cab driver the other day, we were having a really great conversation, and he was just like, ‘We’re just cosmic beings having a short trip in a human body.’ And to me, that sort of resonated. That this is like this finite sort of experience that we’re all just trying to figure out, it’s the impermanence of it. I don’t know if it’s advice, but more of like a mantra. But this cab driver is the smartest person I’ve ever met.

Has there ever been anybody in your life that you’ve kind of looked up to in that way?

Well, my old boss, Bridget Firtle, she was the owner of Owney’s Rum, The Noble Experiment. She used to be a hedge fund manager. And so the way that she just carried herself in meetings, she would just swear and everybody respected her. Because I stress out a lot about how I look for formal settings, she was like, you just need three outfits: one for business, one for funerals, and one for weddings. And you can always reuse them. And nobody ever notices. That really took a lot of pressure off of me because I don’t know what to wear. When they made me go to the corporate office, it was like I was cosplaying a business person. I was like, this doesn’t feel right. It was weird.

I think the effort to mask who you are actually makes you less confident. It’s like you can tell that [they feel like] I shouldn’t be wearing this. Not to fixate on clothes too much, but it does have to do with a certain level of confidence. I think having set parameters for different situations that you can rely on is a form of confidence.

What’s your biggest fear?

I guess just because I’ve put so much effort into my career, I guess losing that would be my biggest fear, because I have very little social life, and I work a lot. I don’t think it defines me, per se, but if that were to go away, there’d be a vacuum in my life because I don’t think I have time for hobbies. I’m a film buff. I read a lot, but that just takes up so much time. So retirement, that’s scary. I don’t think I’ll ever retire. I don’t know how I would stop working. I enjoy doing what I do. It’s almost like, you’ve been running so fast your whole life, you feel like if you stop, you’re going to die.

What’s the most challenging thing you’ve ever had to overcome?

I think New York City is the most challenging thing I’ve ever had to overcome. We were talking about it before, you’re juggling a million jobs. You’re living in illegal apartments with no windows, with strangers. This city will cut you in half and I’ve been here for 24 years. And for the longest time, I worked a day job and a night job, every night for months with no days off. And it was hard. It’s really hard.

If you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere. That is absolutely the truth. Because it will throw everything at you.

I think having to work to be where you are in such a tough town also instills in you camaraderie with people that are in the position that you used to be in. I’ve had strangers contact me on the internet, ‘Hey, this person knows you, says you’re cool. I was going to come to New York City and visit. Can I sleep on your floor?’ Yes, 100%. Every single time. Yes. I will not say no. Because everybody just needs that little push. And if it wasn’t for the people that helped me, I wouldn’t be where I am now. The world can get shittier, but I’m still going to be the person that I think that I need to be to help other people or be cool. That takes a lot of fucking courage.

If you could have a pet or an animal around you, what would it be?

Besides my dog? I guess I’ve always wanted to be a bird. Like a crow or something like that, but, I don’t think my dog would get along with it.