From BCG Partner to Startup Executive: A Career Transition Strategy

Dantus began his career as an intern at BCG, quickly moving from manufacturing floors in Mexico to tech strategy in San Francisco. While consulting provided a crash course in adaptability, the limitations of project-based work eventually pushed him toward roles with more long-term ownership. His transition involved a disciplined, volume-based approach to networking, treating his job search like a sales funnel by conducting over 100 conversations to secure his next move.

His path took him from building digital marketing capabilities at Harbor Freight Tools to navigating the turbulence of Juul during a period of extreme headcount fluctuations. These roles forced a shift from high-level slide decks to tangible P&L responsibility. At Juul, Dantus managed global travel retail and e-liquid product development, learning the realities of hard-nosed negotiation and technical product cycles. Even after returning to BCG as a partner to serve private equity clients, the desire to solve complex operational problems persisted.

He eventually joined Skan AI, a company he once believed was tackling an impossible technical challenge: using passive observation to map complex enterprise workflows. Today, he views his move into AI as a logical evolution of his consulting background. Rather than seeing automation as a replacement for human effort, he argues that the core of the business remains the same: accelerating the hard, foundational work that organizations have always required to function.