E104 The Amazing Project Management talent in Latin America and El Salvador
In this episode of Project Management Office Hours, PMO Joe chats with Lucho Guardado, Sven Guzman, Camila Maldonado, Ivette Torres, and Yvan Cucalon. We covered a lot of ground in this discussion including some exciting announcements about The PMO Leader and partnerships, the Business Engineering program at ESEN University, alumni success stories and the growing pool of project management talent in El Salvador and across Latin America.
Lucho is the VP of PMO and Bid Management Americas Region for Webhelp. In this episode we also announced that he is joining The PMO Leader community as a member of the Board of Advisors. He brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and passion to help the community expand their reach and influence in Latin America and beyond.
Sven is the Dean of Business Engineering at ESEN University in El Salvador. We announced during the episode that ESEN University and The PMO Leader global community have partnered to develop programs supporting the students of ESEN while fostering growth within the community by organizing ESEN students to work consulting projects supporting our member organizations.
We were also joined by 3 alumni from the ESEN Business Engineering program who have gone on to establish successful professional careers. They shared some of the success stories including winning the PMO of the Year Americas from the PMO Global Alliance, winning competitions during time as students at ESEN, and building lasting relationship.
Lucho, Sven, Camila, Ivette, and Yvan continue their discussion about people and influences who have helped shape their careers.
Connect with Lucho:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisguardado1/
Connect with Sven:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/svenguzman/
Connect with Camila:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilamaldonado01
Connect with Ivette:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivettetorresc
Connect with Yvan:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvancucalon/
To see the guest list for upcoming shows – https://www.thepmosquad.com/podcast
Thank you to THE PMO SQUAD and The PMO Leader for sponsoring this show.
The PMO Squad is a leading provider of PMO and Project Management services in the US. They assist clients building and improving PMOs, provide Project Management Consulting services, deliver custom Project Management Training and provide Project Management staffing services.
Learn more about The PMO Squad – www.thepmosquad.com
Where do PMO Leaders go for Information, Learning, Networking and Services? The PMO Leader community has “Everything You Need to Become a Great PMO Leader”. One PMO World, One Community!
Learn more about The PMO Leader – www.thepmoleader.com
The Next Step serves as a consulting agency for the manufacturing community. Having run international sales and marketing teams, new product development programs, market research initiatives, lean champion efforts, turnarounds, and acquisitions, they understand what it takes to grow their client’s businesses.
They specialize in: Marketing, Operations, and Sales. From PhD level researchers to SEO gurus, engineers writing content, and top-notch designers. Their goal is to keep it simple, to define what success looks like, and then execute.
Yvan Cucalon is a proactive and compromised project manager with +5 years of experience leading high-impact projects who understands the importance of empathy and communication in every interaction.
He is a passionate engineer who can comfortably shift focus from high-level arrangements to a maximum level of detail when needed.
Currently working as a Product Manager, his day-to-day consists of helping companies understand customer needs in a more quantifiable way to make better business decisions.
He believes that effective communication and a positive attitude are essential for project success.
Webhelp is a people first company in the BPO industry offering human solutions such as Customer Service, Sales, Tech Support, Enterprise services and more.
Ivette Torres is a never stopping learner. She loves reading, sudoku, and long conversations.
She is focused on developing her career in project management making her career more human by volunteering as a teacher.
TELUS International designs, builds and delivers next-generation digital solutions to enhance the customer experience (CX) for global and disruptive brands. The company’s services support the full lifecycle of its clients’ digital transformation journeys and enable them to more quickly embrace next-generation digital technologies to deliver better business outcomes.
TELUS International’s integrated solutions and capabilities span digital strategy, innovation, consulting and design, digital transformation and IT lifecycle solutions, data annotation and intelligent automation, and omnichannel CX solutions that include content moderation, trust and safety solutions, and other managed solutions.
Fueling all stages of company growth, TELUS International partners with brands across high growth industry verticals, including tech and games, communications and media, eCommerce and fintech, healthcare, and travel and hospitality.
Camila Maldonado is a professional with experience in the BPO industry, leading high-impact strategical projects across LATAM and creating custom made solutions for potential clients.
Experience in Sales and the Sales Support area, leading the creation of custom-made solutions for commercial opportunities the in the American, European, and APAC markets.
Ability to motivate and guide multi-disciplinary teams in a multi-cultural ambiance to achieve objectives, managing risks, and monitoring the progress of activities through the application of the PMI methodology, guaranteeing the timely closure of every project.
Creative, responsible, and highly organized. Excellent leadership and client-facing relations.
ESEN is a higher education institution in El Salvador whose mission is to comprehensively train future leaders in the region (Central America), so that they can perform with dynamism and vision in the private and public sectors.
The main pillars of ESEN are Academic Excellence and Opportunity for Everybody. Academic Excellence is achieved hiring the best professors and professionals of the region to teach students. Higher ethics and professionalism is required for all students and professors. Opportunity for Everybody is achieved with scholarships (more than 1/3 of students have some form of scholarships) for those hi performance students.
Sven Guzman loves to teach and do some consulting work in the productivity area. He is industrial Engineer with a master in Operations Research of the University of Arkansas.
Sven has been teaching for more than 15 years. Some courses are Mathematics, Probability, Operations Research, Systems Simulation, Supply Chain Management and Quality Management among others. In the consulting area he´s worked with Sugar cane producers around El Salvador, Kimberly Clark, GS1, Deloitte, among others.
Sven is happily married with Paty (another Industrial Engineer) and has a cute toddler (Susie) of 2.5 years old. We called Susie “our explosion of happiness”. Susie has a lot of energy and fill our hearts with joy. Besides that Sven loves to watch new series, read books and play Playstation games.
Webhelp designs, delivers and optimizes unforgettable human experiences for today’s digital world. Creating game-changing customer journeys for the leaders of today and the unicorns of tomorrow.
Luis (Lucho) Guardado is a highly engaged professional with 12 years of proven experience leading Project Management Offices (PMO) across the Americas, serving in different multinationals such as HSBC, TELUS, United Nations, and Onelink.
In 2020 recognized and awarded as the “Best PMO of the Americas” by the PMOGA™; “Best Project Manager of the Americas” by CCW™ and “Best PMO in LATAM” by BRPO™.
Currently serving as Vice-president of PMO and Business Development for the Americas Region at Webhelp™, supporting the Corporate Strategy design and assuring a flawless execution of the Regional Strategic Portfolio; in addition to leading the Pre-sales, Business Development, Solutioning, and Digital transformation endeavors.
Mastery in Business Administration, Innovation and Finance, Project’s Rescue and Recovery expert. International speaker and university teacher providing Strategy, Portfolio and Project Management, Business Development, Design Thinking, Leadership, and Neurosemantic lectures.
Also represents several boards in educational institutions and NGOs dedicated to promoting knowledge sharing, entrepreneurial efforts, and social assistance to communities in need.
ABOUT YOUR HOST
Joe Pusz started THE PMO SQUAD to bring real world PMO Leadership experience to the consulting space and to advocate for Project Management through his blog PMOJOE.com. The old saying is “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Following this mindset Joe left Corporate America in 2013 to start THE PMO SQUAD and work with fellow Natural Born Project Managers to advance Project Management Best Practices.
ABOUT OUR SPONSOR
THE PMO SQUAD focuses exclusively on PMO and Project Management consulting. Corporate America is full of Accidental Project Managers running projects who haven’t been trained to be PMs. To help solve this problem THE PMO SQUAD is on the Leading Edge with PMO As a Service. PMO As a Service allows our clients to focus on their respective core competencies while THE PMO SQUAD delivers Project Management expertise. Contact Joe at 678-591-7868. Follow The PMO Squad on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Where do PMO Leaders go for Information, Learning, Networking and Services? The PMO Leader community has “Everything You Need to Become a Great PMO Leader”. One PMO World, One Community! Learn more about The PMO Leader – www.thepmoleader.com
