Management Team
Hiram Machado (President and CEO)
As the CEO and Co-founder of adaQuest, Hiram Machado brings a high level of expertise after over a decade in localization and project management industries to the company. Hiram oversees day to day operations across all departments and provides continual support and mentoring in all areas of the company. His highly developed leadership skills paired with his dedication to customers and a strong allegiance to his staff, have helped adaQuest grow into an industry leader.
Before becoming president and co-founding adaQuest, Hiram was an Internalization Program Manager at Microsoft. This would eventually lead him to two other positions in the localization industry, including a position at a larger provider where he traveled around the globe implementing process improvements and working with operations.
As a native to the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as having traveled extensively throughout the world with each of his positions in the localization industry, Hiram has created many lasting relationships with industry insiders throughout his career as well as developed an innate ability to foster international partnerships. These relationships he has cultivated through his vast experience in the industry have been a key factor in the significant growth adaQuest has seen over the last two years and have set the stage for many future growth opportunities for the company.
Drawing on his widespread experience and expertise, Hiram has helped put adaQuest at the forefront of the Localization and Project management industries. Not only does adaQuest provide support to the largest IT companies in the world, they are continuing to revolutionize the industry by creating and providing innovative solutions. Hiram is a natural leader and entrepreneur who continues to seek out ways to help build on the success of the company while providing the highest quality customer service as well as creating unlimited opportunities for his staff.
Bruno Lecoq (Vice President of Operations)
Bruno brings almost two decades of experience to his role as the Vice President of Operations at adaQuest. In this position, Bruno is largely responsible for overseeing the delivery of every adaQuest service to our clients included in the Localization, Project Portfolio Technology and Process Consulting pillars. Utilizing his extensive background in business processes, Bruno will also work closely with the marketing and sales teams at adaQuest providing consulting and operations support.
Prior to joining adaQuest, Bruno spent 17 years at Microsoft where he played a vital role in implementing new business processes. His most recent position at Microsoft was as the Director of Business Processes within the Microsoft Human Resource Operation Excellence group. In this role, Bruno was responsible for the development and implementation of the HR Project/Process Life Cycle (Strategize, Plan, Deliver, and Operate).
Bruno’s effective leadership skills and ability to successfully execute this new course of action helped elevate the HR Planning process from a level 0 to a level 3 on the Gartner Portfolio Maturity Model. Due to the fact that Bruno and his team the first MS Project 2010 client, Bruno has been involved since the early alpha and beta development stage as part of the Microsoft TAP program and tasked to test-drive it in real-world settings within Microsoft.
Before taking over as the Director of Business Processes at Microsoft, Bruno worked both as a Localization Project Manager and Business Process Manager across multiple divisions and product teams. A few of the teams he worked on include MS-DOS, Windows, Exchange, Office, Hardware, and Microsoft Supply Chain. In addition, he is Black Belt Six Sigma and is PMP trained.
Nany Aguado (Vice President of Finance and Human Resources)
Nany Aguado co-founded adaQuest in 2001 with the vision to create an innovative Localization Project Management provider. Nany is responsible for not only conceptualizing, but implementing this vision through utilizing her extensive knowledge and experience in the Localization industry. She currently serves as the Vice President of Finance and Human Resources where she is able to contribute to the foundation of the company she helped build. After the initial years of establishing adaQuest in the market, Nany resides as the VP of Finance and Human Resources. In this capacity Nany is able to continue to contribute to the business development as well as balance out the “spirit” of the company in order to sustain efficiency with a supportive work environment for all employees.
While Nany focuses on the financial side of the business helping to ensure stability for the future, she thoroughly enjoys being able to play a part in creating a desirable workplace for employees including all team members. With a strong allegiance to the staff, Nany’s goal is to create an atmosphere that assists in maintaining high morale among the staff and encourages top level talent in the industry to join adaQuest.
Nany’s introduction to the localization industry came in 1995 when she worked as a Technical Translator with International Communications in Massachusetts for their providers in Spain, Italy, Latin America and Japan. Following her move to the west coast, Nany became involved in the client side of localization launching her career in the Seattle area.
A native of Spain, Nany graduated from the University of Granada with a Bachelor’s degree Translation and Interpreting. As a part of her education, she spent many additional years studying business in Copenhagen, Denmark, Vienna, Austria and the University of Iowa.
Looking towards the future, Nany hopes to continue to build the adaQuest team through support in human resources and providing opportunities for growth to all staff members. In addition, Nany will focus on delivering formidable experiences to customers and expanding globally over the next few years.
Tom Sauerbrun (Senior Consultant and Project Advisor)
Drawing on over three decades of project management experience, Tom Sauerbrun advises the adaQuest team as a Project Advisor. Tom provides top level consulting for the entire adaQuest team of project managers and teams, advising them in all aspects of project management including directing cross-functional teams to deliver projects within the constraints of schedule, budget, and scope to meet project objectives.
Tom is able to create and drive business by applying a highly developed skill set of management and education practices for adaQuest’s new and existing project managers in every stage of development. Tom has extensive experience in all areas of project management including acting as a principal consultant for over 30 years. Tom specializes in PMO (Program Management Office) development, all facets of project planning and risk assessment, completion of fast-track projects, and recovery of troubled projects.
Tom has shared his experiences and practical application of principles in numerous public, private, and graduate level seminars. In addition, Tom served on the Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter Board of Directors for the Project Management Institute, receiving the Chapter of the Year Award in 1988.
David Ducolon (Business Unit Manager)
David Ducolon serves as the Business Unit Manager for the Project Portfolio and Technology division at adaQuest. David brings a high level of expertise and considerable experience in Project Management as well as a high level of consulting to adaQuest. David will play a significant role in implementing and growing project portfolio and related technology services at adaQuest along with establishing project management best practices.
David draws on his extensive background including his position at Siebel as a global technology specialist where he was responsible for presenting its Professional Services Automation (PSA) application to executives of Fortune 500 companies throughout the world. Through this role David was able to experience many unique approaches to managing what is now referred to as Enterprise Project Management and further provide executives with solutions to meet their specific business needs.
After working for Siebel, David joined Microsoft on the Project team where he remained for just under 7 years. While at Microsoft David was responsible for inventing the time sheeting system, the budgeting feature, and parts of the cost resource functionality to name a few features. In addition, David was the liaison between the Project Server team and Microsoft Enterprise Services working on creating a single worldwide system and process where Project Server was designated to provide full time and expense management.
One of his goals at adaQuest is to establish and grow the EPM consulting business while assisting in the establishment of project management best practices. In fulfilling this goal, he hopes to further grow his knowledge and level of expertise in all areas of project management while assisting customers get the most out of Microsoft Project and/or Project Server applications. With his extensive background and experience, David is an invaluable asset to adaQuest.
Roni Leeds (Business Development Executive)
Roni comes to adaQuest with over 20 years of international and domestic product and service sales and rounds out our team as a Business Development Executive. In this position Roni leads all business development and sales efforts as well as assists in marketing campaigns that cross over to sales support. Drawing on her extensive experience as well as her ability to build and increase customer intimacy and sales productivity, Roni plays a vital role in the growth of the company.
Before joining the adaQuest team, Roni spent over three years at Microsoft as the Sales Operations Manager for Global Accounts Organization. She was responsible for driving sales excellence programs, business development and field adoption as well as managing quarterly sales forecasting process for $3.5B in business. In addition, Roni successfully built and managed a business generation program that resulted in $1M new business for Microsoft due to her innovative approach in implementing the program.
Prior to her work at Microsoft, Roni served for over five years at Cisco Systems where she gained invaluable international experience in three different positions for the company. She was largely responsible for constructing and managing highly skilled teams of people in international markets throughout the world including across Europe, Latin America and Asia. Roni has repeatedly established herself as an effective leader who has efficiently improved field sales productivity and is highly capable of launching cross-functional projects, enhancing automation, process, communication, and systems.
With an innate ability to foster relationships and increase sales productivity in a fast paced environment, Roni is a vital component to the growth of the company. Moving forward, Roni is looking forward to further cultivating her skills as an experienced professional in domestic and international product and service sales in order to continue to expand adaQuest’s customer base.
