HBSA Distinguished Lecture Series Features Nina Vaca

Each semes­ter, HBSA hosts a national busi­ness leader so ASU stu­dents have an oppor­tu­nity to hear their com­pelling story. This tra­di­tion began in 1999 with Solomon Tru­jillo, pres­i­dent, chair­man and CEO of U S West Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Inc.

On Octo­ber 18, HBSA had the honor of fea­tur­ing Nina G. Vaca as the Fall 2011 Dis­tin­guished Lec­ture Series guest speaker. Ms. Vaca, the founder, chair­man and CEO of Pin­na­cle Tech­ni­cal Resources, Inc. and chair­man of the U.S. His­panic Cham­ber of Com­merce, intro­duced all the atten­dees to three key com­po­nents of a suc­cess­ful leader. The three key com­po­nents included 1) Cred­i­bil­ity, show­ing up when you say you are (50% of lead­er­ship just shows up), 2) Sur­round your­self with peo­ple you want to become, such as your role mod­els, and lastly 3) Get involved in the com­mu­nity or your insti­tu­tion. Not only did Ms. Vaca pro­vide us with these three impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics but also the story of her hum­ble beginning.

The Exec­u­tive Board mem­bers had the priv­i­lege of spend­ing an hour with Ms. Vaca before the event started in a per­sonal ses­sion. Exec­u­tive Board mem­bers asked Ms. Vaca about the begin­nings of her career, her daily rou­tine and what her per­sonal life and her company’s future hold.

HBSA is cer­tain that Ms. Vaca was able to touch the lives of the peo­ple that attended the lun­cheon with her open­ness and shar­ing of her life, expe­ri­ence and words of wis­dom. She is a true inspi­ra­tion to the His­panic community.