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Episode #273
Monica Hernandez

How To Build A "Fastest-Growing" Consulting Firm

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Summary

In this episode, we’re going to show you how to build your consulting firm into the fastest-growing one! Special guest Monica Hernandez walks you through how she built her consulting firm from scratch into one of the fastest-growing in the world, giving you all the tools you need to do it too! Monica Hernandez, the CEO of MAS Global Consultant, helps other entrepreneurs find their voice and build their consulting businesses. Tune in to learn her secrets, from finding your niche and identifying your target customers to making sure you have the right team in place so that when you finally launch, everything goes off without a hitch!

I’m very excited to have Monica Hernandez joining us. Monica, welcome.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

You are the Founder and CEO of MAS Global Consulting, where your firm offers software development, application integration, DevOps, and a whole bunch more. You’ve worked with some very well-known organizations like Dell, Johnson Controls, Clario, and many others. You’ve grown the business now to about 300 employees. You have operations in the US, Colombia, Mexico, and also Argentina. Truly, a global operation.

MAS Global was named by Deloitte and Inc Magazine as one of the fastest-growing technology companies and consultancies in North America. I thought it would be fun, or at least for me. I’m very interested to find out when you look back on what you’ve accomplished to this point in the business. Here we are, Deloitte and Inc saying that you have one of the fastest-growing companies. Is there a mindset that you feel has contributed most to the success that you’ve achieved now? Anything that is a real kind of key or integral part of how you operate and that you feel has contributed to the success that you’ve created to this point?

First, thank you for empowering me. It’s always happy to be here representing women in business and Latinas in technology and so forth. I started the business now with the idea of creating a lot of wealth, which is definitely a big part of the equation. My whole immigrant journey from Colombia to the US led me to do something that I thought could be impactful and that I could give back. That has been the energy behind what I do.

Entrepreneurship is challenging and also very rewarding, but for me, at least, there’s got to be something else in addition to building financial security for your family that truly helps you because, at some point, you have some financial benefits but then how do you keep going? Why do you keep going? When it’s more than that, it helps. That’s why I call my company MAS Global because mas in Spanish means more. I truly wanted to build something that would do good while we do well type of business.

How do you think about that now and with that mindset? Has it shifted at all? Very often, when you talk to entrepreneurs in the early days, they want to validate. They want to get some confirmation that they’re on the right track. It’s about, “I want to create. I want to have more money coming in. I want to build wealth.” You talk to people who are further on in their journey where they’ve maybe created enough wealth to feel very comfortable.

The focus then tends to be maybe less on the money and more on other things. In your case, was that the mindset that you had? Did you also match those progressions, or did you see things differently early on? Walk me through the different chapters and maybe how your mindset has shifted or developed and changed over the years.

Technology is a big component of helping companies, but the human aspect and communication can truly make a project fail or succeed. Click To Tweet

Let me take you back to Medellín, where I grew up. I was born in Medellín, Colombia. It’s this beautiful city in the mountains, the second largest city in Colombia, and it’s called the City of Eternal Spring because it’s 75 degrees all year long. Those are very humble beginnings. My mom and dad didn’t finish high school, but they were both hardworking people. Many Hispanics, and my mom especially, had this determination and had this small home base business. She was the first entrepreneur that I knew. She was focused on education as a way for us to get out of poverty. Thanks to that, I ended up getting a scholarship to one of the best private colleges in Medellín, like Stanford or the Harvard of Columbia. That’s how I became a software engineer. I’m the first in my family to graduate.

That led to me having an opportunity to come to Dallas, Texas as an intern. That’s how I started my journey as a woman in technology to find out very soon that there are not that many of us that look like me or sound like me. I ended up building my career in technology in the US. After a couple of companies, I landed a job at Oracle Consulting. That’s where I learned everything I know about consulting.

I led large transformational projects where our teams were truly global in India, Asia, and the US. I learned a lot about how technology is a big component of helping companies, but the human aspect of communication can truly make a project fail or succeed. I thought, “I am a software engineer. I had this incredible transformational opportunity to build a career at basic, humble beginnings.”

I know Colombia is in the same time zone. How do I give back to my country? How do I not just live my American dream and forget where I come from? I thought, “Let’s start a company that offers software development services. Instead of being offshore, let’s build a nearshore model where I serve companies in the US using everything I learned in Oracle about the business environment here, my new home. Also, giving back and building opportunities for people in technology in Colombia.”

That’s how we started MAS. That was my motivation. I didn’t have a big business plan to conquer the world, but I knew I could provide some great software engineering. I knew the talent in Latin America, the caliber, and if I created some economic environment for women and Latinos, we could do great things. Ten years later, we’re now one of the fastest-growing companies in our field.

I understand that you had a connection to Colombia, and that would be a very natural opportunity to look at how you could bring that experience and the connection to the US market. What did you see as the advantage of that? For many years, even well before MAS Global was started, there were companies that would provide, as you said, offshore software development or technology services.

India is probably one of the biggest markets. To many people, they would think, “There’s already a lot of businesses that are established providing that,” but you weren’t scared of that potential competition. I’m wondering. What did you feel was the advantage that you could bring, and what gave you the confidence to go head-to-head against other companies that were already established? You can correct me if I’m wrong, but maybe even the pricing may have been cheaper. Walk me through what you see as that advantage and how you think about the landscape at that time.

CSP Monica Hernandez | Fast-Growing Consulting Firm

 

First, at the time I started, Agile methodologies were starting to be almost a requirement for most companies. There was a traditional way of building software, and there was a more agile, dynamic real-time way. Modern teams and real interactions are focused on collaboration. It’s hard to do Agile when you have teams across the ocean eleven hours away.

The way to do Agile and DevOps truly automate and create efficiencies in the software development process is to have everyone working in the same time zone. It’s hard for companies when they have limited budgets to do this with all the resources that are US based. I thought a hybrid model where we would have some people in the US and some people in Latin America would make a lot of sense.

What gave me confidence was that I grew up in Colombia. I knew the caliber of education that we get. By me going through my own Master’s in Computer Science and Engineering in Texas, I realized that we had high-quality assistance. For me to become a software engineer, I had to go to college for five and a half years, including an internship with real-life experience.

Colombia is on the top of South America, so the proximity to the US is a huge advantage when it comes to getting people face-to-face. The pandemic has brought a different dynamic, but even now, when I have to visit my team, I can be in Miami at 1:00 PM, and by the end of the day, I’m in Medellín. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour flight, so it’s very convenient. It doesn’t take a whole day or two to visit your teams.

All of those things can create a lot of efficiencies when it comes to delivering IT projects. If you look at data from Gartner and Forrester, half of IT projects fail. You have to leave it to have rework or timelines that take longer or are over budget. Anything we can do to increase the chance of projects succeeding and de-risk the projects is pretty helpful.

Last but not the least, as you can see, especially in the last few years, it has been hard to retain and even attract talent in technology. Companies are looking at, “I need the best possible talent anywhere. As long as you are in the same time zone, where can we have people who can help us build applications, who can help us test, who can help us modernize our obsolete legacy infrastructure?” It’s helpful for companies to know that there’s a whole ecosystem, not just Colombia.

We’re in Argentina and Mexico, maybe even Peru. Now you have a wide network of millions of developers. If companies like MAS Global can bring the top 1% of those developers, then there’s a huge differentiator there. On top of that, you have an amazing culture, grow great careers for developers, and bring women, Latinos, and diversity of thought. That creates an environment for innovation that all other companies need nowadays.

That transition from being a founder to a CEO is very important. When you truly think that you want to scale, now you start thinking about sustainable growth. Click To Tweet

I love how you identified all these different elements that could potentially provide an advantage, and you put them together where one person might have only seen one part of it and then feel a bit daunted to try and collect. Others might have given up, but you kept moving forward. Take me back to when you started MAS Global. You had this hypothesis of what would work of the advantage that you could bring, the proximity sounding like probably one of the biggest factors that gave you an edge over US-based companies that might be working offshore with other companies or services in India and other places like that.

Now you need to go to the market. You have to validate and improve the great idea that you feel you have that can become a business. Walk me through. You mentioned you had experience working at Oracle and places like that. How did you go out and land your first few clients? Take me back to the early days of that first win that signaled to you, “I have something here.”

I’ve never had external capital. I was employee number one for a while, and that was everything, sales, marketing, to delivery. Also, I had become a mom. I had a baby at home, and my husband was a big supporter of me starting the business. That inspired me to say, “Let’s go. This is the time. There will never be a perfect time to start a business.” At that time, the credibility I built in the world I have done over the years at Oracle, the network and the relationship I had were huge. When you are a one-person company, you can’t show any case studies. There’s no marketing material. I didn’t have anything to show or any recognition.

All I had was me, the work I had done, and the people who had seen me do that. The moment I said, “I’m going on my own and creating my own company,” then there were a lot of different people who were eager to help and introduce me to others and so forth. Relationships are key. You never know who you will meet that you can help and will provide your expertise and knowledge. That can go a long way in those early days. The other aspect is that it’s hard to acquire those first few employees also. They’re like, “Are you going to be around in a year or so?”

On top of the credibility and having my experience with Oracle, sharing my story on why I was starting a company and my vision for the company, “How could this be impactful in so many ways?” helped me get those first employees that believed in me and me being a software engineer. I’m a Founder and a CEO but also a software engineer myself. I can talk to clients on a different level. I’m not trying to sell you a service. I know what software engineering needs. I started on my own, “I will do this for you. I will build the things myself.” I can speak from experience, and I will become an advisor to my early clients in a way that I was looking to whatever was valuable to them.

That’s a different way of selling. “Let me learn about you, and let me show you how I can help you.” The more I did that, the more I had referrals and grew with those clients. That was helpful in those early days when there wasn’t any sales and marketing engine. You were asking me when I knew that this could go somewhere. I had my first large client in Dallas, and that was a smaller engagement, and I learned a lot from that. I myself was involved in that engagement. That second largest client was a large company that still to this day is our client after a decade. I started with a small proof of concept with them, which came from the network zone I needed from my Oracle days.

They called me and said, “Monica, they need your help.” I have my daughter. I have limited travel. They convinced me, “Come over. Find out more about them. It’s just a couple of months,” and a couple of months now turning into several years. We introduced the new nearshore model to this client. They were using offshore heavily. Some other projects were not working out. I asked them, “Let me try one team. Let me put together one team. In Colombia, I will lead the team myself and will show you the results every two weeks.”

CSP Monica Hernandez | Fast-Growing Consulting Firm

 

That’s how Agile works, “Tell me what you need. We prioritize, and in two weeks, I will give you a demo, we will get feedback, and so on.” That was extremely successful. People started coming to the demos, “How are you doing this? Tell me more about this Agile. How is this nearshore methodology working?” We started growing that way. That was the first large project and case study we were able to use with other clients, and that’s how we started growing. That first large engagement is key to doing an extremely good job, so now, you have something to show others.

How long were you involved in the actual delivery of client projects and work, from the time that you started until the time that you stepped back from the day-to-day actual client work and client delivery? How long did that take?

It was hard to get myself removed in a way. I would always be there. As a leader, I had to be engaged with our clients. For the first 3 or 4 years, I was still a consultant. Mindset-wise, I was still a Founder. That transition from being a founder to a CEO is very important. When you truly think that you want to scale, now you start thinking about sustainable growth.

This company cannot be defined by me. I started hearing some of our clients talking about Monica and Monica’s team, and I wanted them to think of us as a company. This is not Monica. This is MAS Global, led by Monica. It was hard, but we did it. That’s when I started thinking about, “What does a leadership team look like? Who do I need to put in place in every client to make sure that they get the same level of experience and quality where I am involved day-to-day or not?” That was the start of the evolution of our company.

A lot of people, when they reach that stage, tend to make investments in the team, whether it’s an executive or leadership team. They look at their revenue and profit, see their margin, and they’re concerned that, “I’m going to have a lot less money coming into my bank account personally because I have to put so much out.” How did you think about that? I’m wondering. What did you experience when you started to bring in other executives or team members at a more senior level that would allow you to step back from the day-to-day? Was that something that you felt very comfortable with, or was that a real challenge you had to work through?

I was not comfortable because we were self-funded. We didn’t have any debt. I always wanted to be disciplined in terms of how we use our cash because I felt responsible for our team. Every person you hire is making a bet on your company. I was always very careful about how to use our resources. It was helpful for me to join different communities.

I learn about our community of women-owned businesses. We became women-owned and certified learn about our community for minority-owned businesses. As a Latina, that was powerful. Even to get access to more opportunities was helpful. Also, to talk to other entrepreneurs and then ask those questions, “How do you grow? How do you overcome this challenge?” I participated in a program, for example, with Stanford University for Latino entrepreneurs.

Every person you hire is making a bet on your company. Click To Tweet

I started learning more about data. Stanford does this incredible research with an organization called Latino Business Action Network. They talk about the different challenges that Latino entrepreneurs have in the US to grow their businesses. Unfortunately, some of what they found is that only 3% of Latino-owned businesses grow their companies beyond the $1 million mark in revenue.

On the other hand, we are creating businesses as a Latino community faster than our demographics. Stanford said, “If we help Latino businesses scale, it’s helping the US economy. It’s more jobs generated.
How do we do that? How do we get it to be $10 million or $100 million businesses?” They took us to this seven-week program. It was powerful.

They talk about all these elements, “How important it is to build a leadership team. How important is it to build relationships with banks and have lines of credit? How important is it to build a board of advisors or even a board of directors?” Have others who have gone through the same journey, who have been there, done that, that can guide you and challenge your thinking.

That’s key. Sometimes we want to stay in this comfort zone, but if we truly want to grow, we know we need to listen to others that might be different ideas than ours. All those communities and those programs helped me shape into a new kind of leader, and knowing that I could take this company to a new level that I didn’t even think about when I started MAS.

It’s such a consistent thing that I see across many successful entrepreneurs, business owners, and consulting firm owners. We hear this a lot within our own Clarity Coaching community of being able to ask others, hear their stories, and learn from their mistakes or the best practices. That’s great to hear. I would love to get you to put on some new lenses looking at a few different aspects and areas of your business. If you could go back in time and know what you know now about what works and what doesn’t, I’m going to ask you about a few different areas of business.

I wonder if you can tell me if there’s anything that you feel, “We could have done something different here. I wish I would’ve made a change here.” Say one word, and you tell me. “I wouldn’t change anything or, yes, maybe make a change here.” From a marketing perspective, is there anything you, knowing what you know now, maybe would’ve done differently, avoid mistakes, and see better ROI? What are your thoughts?

CSP Monica Hernandez | Fast-Growing Consulting Firm

 

I learned how critical marketing is later in my journey. If I had done something different early on, we would’ve made MAS Global widely known earlier. That would’ve helped bring more diversity of clients early on. That’s something that I invested in much sooner.

Is there anything specific, like one of the things you’ve been recognized for being a fast-growing company? You mentioned in the early days that it was your network. You had a great network that helped you to get some initial clients that led to referrals. Now, as you’re scaling up your hundreds of people in terms of team members, is there anything from a marketing perspective that you feel, “We do this, and it works exceptionally well?”

It’s in sharing more about our capabilities and our thought leadership and selling without selling. The more we talk about the things we’ve done with other clients, people want to know what a track record is. Exposing that more has helped. Also, talking about even what impact we have. It’s been amazing to see the focus on ESG goals, for example, from large corporations, especially in the last few years. For me, because it’s natural for us how we started, we wanted to have an impact. We now have a foundation. We provide the same scholars that I received.

For us, it’s easy to talk about it, but early on, we didn’t think it was that important to tell because it wasn’t a marketing strategy. It is part of who we are. Now we hear more from the own clients that we have or prospects, “What are you doing for the community? What is your social impact? Which other sustainable goals are you addressing?” That has been important for us to be more vocal about because that talks about the type of company we are, and it’s also helping us attract great talent. They want to be part of something meaningful that goes beyond the financial aspirations of companies.

When you talk about telling that story or sharing more of that, I’m wondering, specifically, how you are doing that. You mentioned thought leadership as well. Is it publishing content, for example, on your own website and blog? Are you publishing in other publications? Are you running paid ads on Google and LinkedIn or other platforms? Walk me through even high level. I would love to get a better sense of what you are doing more tactically to tell that story or share your insights, opinions, thought leadership, and so forth.

First, on our website, we’re about to launch yet another version of the website. It’s ongoing work and evolution. For example, we didn’t have case studies on our website. Now we do. We might not have as many as I would want to, but now people can see the work that we’ve done. We now work with some of our clients together with the authorization to put their logos in there because now we know how incredibly important it is to establish that credibility.

People see that we work for Dell, with Johnson Controls or for Bloomberg. They are like, “If you work for them, you must be providing great services.” We even created a space on our website for our foundation so that anyone that wants to learn about that is very clear that these are the specific goals. Even some pictures of some of the work that our own employees do with technology or with the scholarship that we provide in our presentations.

If corporations have some diversity programs and want to work with you, they want to know that you are actually paying forward. Click To Tweet

Every business, large or small, there’s typically has a capability statement, a one-pager, like a quick overview. If someone said, “Tell me more about your company. It should be able to tighten through it in a few minutes,” there’s also the overview deck where you have 7 to 10 slides, and there you talk about what you do, the recognition that you have, the work that you do for social impact, for example. A few years ago, what led us to have a social impact will probably not be there. My own story will probably not be there. Since we started being us more and more, “Why do you create this?”

Companies want to know if our heart is in it, especially because we are a woman-owned, minority-owned company. If corporations have some diversity programs, they want to work with us. They want to know that we are paying forward and that by helping us, we’re helping others. Having the complete picture of capabilities, what we’ve done, why our company is, and what our differentiators are, including all of that in those overview decks as we provide presentations to prospects and on our website, has been helpful.

Their social media, especially LinkedIn, is helpful when it comes to sharing with our own followers, our prospects, and the kind of company we are, and we showcase some of our talents. We create some blogs about quality assurance, cloud, cybersecurity, and the work we do. Sometimes we talk about the foundation and the social impact that we have. It’s diverse content to give a full picture.

When it comes to talent, we use Instagram, for example, where we know the young talent and we can see more about our culture and what happens. We have a MAS Academy Program, for example. We do training or bring speakers. We post that in there so that people can see, “If I join MAS, that’s the type of experience that I will have.” Those are the things we do.

I find it so interesting that you talk about the evolution of your website and that you’re about to launch a new version, which is true for all companies. It’s always going to be an evolution. Talk about all these areas that you know you still want to improve on, having more logos for credibility and more case studies. Here you are generating tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of team members and employees, and some of these things you didn’t even have on the website.

It shows that you can still accomplish much without having “all the best practices.” There’s always room for improvement. The next area is pricing. Is there anything with the benefit of hindsight, any big mistakes that you made as a Founder, a leader, and a company when it comes to pricing? Anything that you learned from that experience?

You need to know your value and what kind of company you want to be. In our case, we don’t want to be a high-volume Body Shop type of company where we have hundreds of developers. In that case, we’ll have the lowest possible and competing price. That, to me, is not who we are. We’d rather compete on having the best possible talent in front of you, create methodologies, de-risk your projects, and talent in the same time zone that might be more expensive than offshore if you look at it from an hourly rate but the total cost of delivery. How you deliver that project is more important. You want to know if you have the optimal rate. You want to know if you have the optimal price for the entire project.

CSP Monica Hernandez | Fast-Growing Consulting Firm

 

Being able to position it a way, the whole picture is key versus trying to compete on near price. The other thing is, as an entrepreneur, you also need to be thinking about some flexibility when it comes to growing. Sometimes we have this target for gross margins or profitability, but you might come across an opportunity that is worthwhile to have some flexibility because that will mean total contract value over the lifetime of a customer. Sometimes it’s thinking big versus that one specific contract is also key.

What about hiring? We are in a very challenging hiring environment for many organizations. Even if you go back several months or several years, is there anything you learned that you feel is critical to hiring success?

One word, culture. It is key. That’s something that I feel very proud of. From day one, that has been important to me. We have five values, and we live by those values. For every new heart, we want to make sure that we test for that and that we’re continuously focusing on that. I’ll give you an example. We have a meeting that we call All In. It’s like a town hall every month. We give recognitions. How do we do that? It’s based on those five values.

These are the people that are exhibiting our collaboration values. These are the people that are exceeding our We Care value. What are you doing for each other, the community, and the planet? These are the people that are exceeding the MAS experience value, “You did something amazing for one of our clients.” We’re constantly reinforcing what we expect and the type of culture that we’re building. That’s important as you scale a company. There’s got to be a personality that you maintain that will continue to attract and retain good talent and will continue to be good in front of clients too.

How are you capturing all those different examples of your team doing great work? You mentioned the five different values that you have. How are you capturing all that data to know who to recognize on an ongoing basis?

Our talent team does a great job doing that every month. There are some tools that we were building in-house that was helping us with some of that. As the company has grown, we now have the need to, “Let’s look in the market and see what amazing tools we can use.” As a technology company, we try to use technology in every possible way. You were asking about advice for entrepreneurs. That’s another big investment that truly pays off in the end.

For example, we use BambooHR for our talent operations. We use Oracle Connects, which is very proud of me for being able to buy Oracle Pros as an ex-Oracle employee. That also provides a better experience for employees and clients. We’re using technology but also making sure we engage our team. We ask them, even during the early meeting, “These are the people we heard from you with a chance for you to speak up. Unmute and tell us who did an amazing job in one of these values.” We want to make an engaging and interactive so that it feels like something from the people, for the people, not just something from the top.

As an entrepreneur, you need to be thinking about some flexibility when it comes to growing. Click To Tweet

Last one here, leadership. For you, as a leader, looking back, from the benefit of hindsight, anything that stands out to you? Any mistake that you made or something maybe that you didn’t pay attention to enough, but now you recognize the value and importance of it?

From a leadership perspective, throughout the evolution of your leadership journey, authenticity is so king. Being truthful, being consistent, and making sure you follow through on the commitments you make for your employees and clients build credibility. That’s helpful through hard times when you say something that people truly believe that you’re there for them. That’s something that’s natural to me because of how I earn my role here in business.

Sometimes, when we’re growing rapidly, I know that there are some periods where I’m so focused on what needs to be done, and I’m like, “I cannot forget to stay close to our team.” That’s when I’m like, “I need to go back to Medellín. I need to do this event. Let’s be in front of them without an agenda. How are you doing? What are you saying? Tell me any ideas.”

Being close to people is something that I always want to remind myself. I try to do a good job of it but it’s so key, no matter how big you are, to be authentic and be close to the people. That’s your asset. That’s our currency as business owners, and it’s the right thing to do as well. Treat your people well, and they will do a great job for your clients.

A couple of questions, and we’ll wrap up. You clearly are a high-performing CEO. You’re a leader. You’ve built a very fast-growing business. I’m wondering for you, Monica, in terms of habits that are in your life, maybe 1 or 2 things that you’re doing on a regular basis that you feel are key to the success that you’ve been able to create. Anything in your lifestyle or habits that are central to that?

When you are in business, it’s easy to let the business consume your life because it’s demanding. I tend to try to be very intentional about spending enough time with my family. I am a mom of two little ones. That inspired me every day. I had to move some things around because it was school for my kids. Making sure you make time in your calendar for the things that truly matter is key for me because that will give you even more energy to do the things you want to do from a business perspective.

Something else is making sure that you continue to give back. You are always looking for that fuel in the source of energy so that when you remember why you’re doing what you’re doing, it helps you, knowing that you’re impacting many different lives. The third is not making compromises when it comes to the essence of you as a leader and you as a company. I will never want to sacrifice the quality of our services for growth, for example. Staying true to those values and what you do well and figuring out how to do it as you grow is key.

It's key, no matter how big you are, to be authentic and close to the people. That's our currency as business owners. It's the right thing to do to treat your people well, and they will do a great job for your clients. Click To Tweet

I want to come back to the first one you’re mentioning about being a mother, a parent, and having young kids, and I have two young daughters myself. I’m wondering, for you, many entrepreneurs, as we’re running our businesses, at times, it can be challenging because you want to show up and be a present parent. At the same time, you also feel this responsibility to your company and your team members.

How do you think through that? When you’re balancing time with a family but also you’re an entrepreneur, you’re driven. You want to accomplish, succeed, and keep growing. What going on in your mind? Have you found any principles you live by or that help you to make decisions when you look at those two different sides?

I was in this program with EY. They call it EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women. They chose about 23 or so women across the US and Canada in 2021. I was going to this conference, and there was a lot of discussion about talent. That was the first time I heard this idea about work-life integration, not work-life balance but integration. That got my attention. Since then, I’ve been thinking that way, “Maybe what we need is not balanced. How do we put it all together in the same mix?” What I try to do now, especially as my kids get older, is tell them more about the company, get them more involved in what’s going on, and now they’re super interested. Right after school, they came to the office, and I was telling them what was going on, and now they know about relationships and clients.

I invited my daughter with me to speak with some girls. There’s this amazing organization called Girls Inc. I brought my daughter because this is a nine-year-old who is better to speak to them about technology than my own daughter. Now she was very comfortable in front of people. To me, we don’t realize how much our kids learn from watching us do what we do, how we can monitor their behavior and how we can instill some of those same values. That integration is what helped me think about how everything comes together.

Last question. You clearly get a lot of inspiration, ideas, and insights from different programs or people you surround yourself with. In the last few months, is there a book you have either read or listened to that you have found? It could be fiction or non-fiction, but it’s something you’ve enjoyed that you might recommend to others.

There’s this great book, and it’s the second time I read it, but I’m re-reading it. It’s called Good to Great. It’s amazing because it talks about how you can truly set yourself apart with all that incredible companies. All that study about what truly made the difference is powerful. I enjoyed reading that. Making sure we have the right people in the right seat is very important as we scale businesses. That’s the book that I would recommend.

It’s Jim Collins’ fantastic book. He’s got many others. Another one is BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0). It’s a fantastic book. He’s got a whole bunch of them. Great recommendation. Monica, I want to thank you so much for coming on here and spending some time with us. Where should people go to learn more about you, MAS Global, and everything that you have going on? Where’s the best place?

Our website is MASGlobalConsulting.com. I’m very active on LinkedIn at Monica Hernandez, and I’m on Instagram as well. Thank you for having me. I hope this was of value and that we get more women, more Latinos, and more minorities, thinking that technology is also for us. We need to be the consumers. We can also build it, create it, and be in business. There’s a lot of opportunity here.

Monica, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you, Michael. Have a great day.

You too.

 

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About Monica Hernandez

CSP Monica Hernandez | Fast-Growing Consulting FirmAward winning Entrepreneur, Forbes Technology Council Member, HITEC100: The 100 most influential Hispanics in the technology industry in the US, EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women class 2021. Advocate for women and latinos in tech. Immigrated from Medellin, Colombia to the US couple decades ago, and now leading MAS Global, a certified women and minority owned Agile software development and cloud services firm (Technology #Fast500 by Deloitte, Ranked by Inc. Magazine’s #Inc5000 4 times as one of the fastest growing private companies in the US, Minority Business of the Year by FSMSDC Florida Supplier Diversity Council).

 

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