For 18 years, Leonardo has been an integral part of Grupo Hermosillo, climbing from the Systems team to his current Director of Information Technologies position. His focus on open communication, team empowerment, and cybersecurity reflects his commitment to the company’s success and security. His leadership drives a culture of excellence and continuous improvement. Keep reading to learn more about his career path.
1. How did you join Grupo Hermosillo? Briefly tell us about your career path.
I joined the company in 2006 when I was invited to join the systems team at Casas Exe to support the implementation of the SAP R/3 software. In 2009, I joined the Corporate Information Technology team three years later to provide continuity and service in Applications and Systems to the entire organization. It wasn’t until 2020 that I was given the opportunity to lead the IT (Information Technologies) department. Since then, I have contributed, attended to, and learned alongside my colleagues.
2. What is your approach to leading IT teams and fostering a collaborative, high-performance environment?
I have always been characterized as a person who communicates openly and transparently with my team. I always make sure that they understand the objectives of our projects and their impact on the organization, and I clarify the reasons behind decisions. This helps foster a sense of belonging, commitment, and collaboration.
My approach to leadership focuses on communicating effectively with my team, empowering them within the projects I assign to them, and the benefit this has as part of their professional development. Understanding these values results in a motivated, united team capable of achieving and surpassing established goals.
3. What are your strategies to ensure the security and protection of company data in an increasingly digital and threatening environment?
Data is one of the business’s main assets, and we are obligated to safeguard it in Information Technology. Because of this, since 2022, we have been implementing a very aggressive cybersecurity project to generate organizational culture and implement new technologies for this purpose.
Our strategy has been:
- Organizing Grupo Hermosillo communication campaigns and induction talks in each business unit to educate employees about best practices in data protection.
- Conduct periodic tests to identify penetration, vulnerabilities, and potential threats in our network and systems, as well as take actions and remediate them.
- Implementing firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and antivirus software for each business unit to protect our network and data.
- A professional development plan in IT is also underway for a responsibility area within my team that will address, monitor, and prevent everything related to this issue.
We estimate that by 2025, we will be a fully cyber-secure company with an organizational culture, a “Zero Trust” philosophy, and the necessary applied technology to address the group’s needs.
4. What personal achievements are you most proud of having reached during this trajectory?
One project I am proud of is implementing the new version of SAP’s ERP, “S/4 HANA,” within the organization using solely in-house personnel. We worked together to plan, execute, and parameterize the technical aspects, relying only on Grupo Hermosillo’s technical and operational talent.
To achieve our goals, we’ve prepared ourselves since 2014, which required significant effort as we went the extra mile by training and studying this new SAP architecture. The implementation was divided into two phases:
The first phase involved “Learning to Understand”. This phase meant hours of training and self-study within my various teams to acquire the necessary knowledge to carry out this migration.
The second phase involved implementing this new version by sectors. We began in 2021 with our Real Estate Development team, followed by the construction sector in 2022, and concluded with the real estate sector in 2023.
5. What is the greatest challenge facing the IT department currently, and how do you plan to address it as director?
Our challenge for the coming years is to effectively integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) into business processes and propose mobile solutions as part of the UX for our end-users.
Combining these elements, AI, IoT, and mobile applications, will help us improve the construction industry’s efficiency, security, and quality with tools that make us more precise and enable more effective collaboration.
6. How do you ensure business continuity and disaster recovery during technological disruptions?
Our approach is based on preventive measures, contingency plans, and recovery processes. Additionally, we have backups in the cloud for all our critical systems servers and data to ensure that operations do not halt. Furthermore, we have redundancies installed in other business units. For example, if we go offline in one business unit, we can rely on another unit for continued access to the main systems.
We regularly conduct activities simulating such scenarios with collaboration from external providers and internally within the team. In summary, our approach is based on thorough planning measures and proactive preparation of my team to address such situations.
7. How would you describe the culture of Hermosillo and its focus on work quality?
Grupo Hermosillo’s culture is based on its values and behaviors, which, in turn, contribute to the quality of our work. We are an integral, ethical, solid, and healthy company focusing on excellence, customer orientation, teamwork, and continuous improvement. Our culture positively influences our work by promoting practices and behaviors that lead to high-quality results.
8. And since we know it’s not all about work, please tell us what activities you like to do in your free time
I greatly enjoy my home. Any activity that involves improvement relaxes me, or simply sitting on my sofa, breathing, and having my coffee energizes me for what comes next. My home is my favorite place, where I find peace and tranquility.
