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Natalia Siercke-Suarez was living with her family in Italy, engaged in an extensive IT rollout for Massimo Zanetti Beverage (MZB) Group. Her Italian was coming along, her fourth language, but her adventure got cut short when the US division, MZB-USA got in touch. They wanted to know if Siercke-Suarez would return to the US in a vice president capacity, leading IT and becoming the first female VP in the company’s history.
This wouldn’t be the executive’s first serious move for work. The VP has been willing to lean in hard for new opportunities and experiences. And, perhaps, she’s always known her career was going to be a global one. Growing up in Honduras, the eldest of four, she attended a bilingual school and the Alliance Française, watching French films, practicing conversation, and integrating English and French with her native Spanish.
To pursue school in the US, she intentionally sought a degree in industrial engineering and information systems because she understood that, as a woman, her application would stand out in highly male-dominated career fields. A Fulbright scholarship brought her to Baton Rouge and LSU, her then-boyfriend, current husband in tow.
After college, ExxonMobil recruited her, sending her back to Honduras to work as a project manager on ERP implementations across Central America and the Caribbean. She was just out of grad school and already working on international projects, speaking multiple languages, and understanding how important it was to communicate with teams in their native languages.
“People really appreciate you when you make the effort to converse in their own language,” Siercke-Suarez says. “That makes collaboration so much easier, especially when you’re the one who is bringing change to a region. It helps smooth out those bumps.”
ExxonMobil moved her again, this time to Miami, where her husband was already based. She helped drive a large SAP rollout across Latin America, flying to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and beyond. The implementation had a twenty-person internal core team and another twenty consultants, and there would be a tried and true method for implementation.
“When you have a big team and a lot of resources, it’s easier,” she says now. “You have the ingredients, you have the recipe, you follow it. This would change a lot later on in my career. The teams were much smaller and you had to learn to do a lot more on your own.”
Once her husband settled in the US permanently, the couple reunited for good, and Siercke-Suarez stepped away from corporate life to devote two years entirely to their young daughter. She calls that season “100 percent mom,” and credits her husband as a true partner: when she focused on home, he focused on providing, and when he later decided he was ready for new opportunities, she was ready to move again. Their shared willingness to relocate would become a trademark of their relationship.
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Since coming to MZB-USA eighteen years ago, Siercke-Suarez has led the company through multiple waves of transformation, beginning as a business analyst in Suffolk and steadily taking on larger, more complex projects that modernized core operations. She played a central role in the company’s first JD Edwards upgrade, then guided the implementation of a new manufacturing execution system and overhauled warehouse technology, building a more integrated and data-driven environment on a lean budget and with a small team and always a cup of coffee.
Prior to taking on VP duties, Siercke-Suarez’s most defining work has come in leading technology changes. As project manager for MZB-USA’s first major ERP implementation, she proved that a five-person core team could deliver what many organizations rely on forty people to accomplish. She coordinated cross-functional stakeholders, managed aggressive timelines, and ensured the system went live on time and under tight financial constraints. The experience honed her ability to do more with less, a skill that has since become part of the company’s operating culture.
As vice president of IT, Siercke-Suarez defines a multi-year digital roadmap centered on stability first, innovation second. For the company’s upcoming ERP upgrade, she has established a structured, two-stage approach: a like-for-like technical transition to secure the foundation, followed by a defined enhancement phase that targets projects with clear impact on risk reduction, cost savings, and revenue growth.
“InSource always seeks to do business in partnership, not just in service to customers. Natalia partners with us to execute projects with continuous collaboration and keen focus on ensuring resources are available, blockers to progress are resolved, and her team can adopt the solution and gain real value,” says John Schultz, Solution Development Manager, InSource. “She is a hands-on executive, and we are grateful for both her leadership and engagement.”
The leader has also placed a disciplined focus on AI, insisting on data quality, strong governance, and cybersecurity considerations.
“Without the right foundation, training and accountability, it becomes ‘Garbage in, exponentially worse garbage out’,” the VP says. “We need to experiment with AI’s potential, but not be reckless about it. ”
Siercke-Suarez has consistently tied technology to the business’s real-world needs. She partners closely with supply chain, operations, finance, and other functions, a reminder that collaboration is always easier when you’re on the same page. What keeps her at a company for nearly two decades is something far less quantifiable: a culture that feels like family, and a belief that the best leadership shows up not just in strategy, but in how people are made to feel along the way.
Since the VP took on her role, Siercke-Suarez is proud that more females have followed her into leadership roles. She’s ushered in a new wave at MZB-USA, and the organization is better for it. Leaders like Siercke-Suarez implicitly understand how to be effective across a multitude of cultures and regions, and they know how to bring out the best in their people. Her aim: to elevate IT from a “support function” to a true strategic tech-driver within their companies.
Industrial organizations face increasing pressure to improve performance, reduce risk, modernize aging infrastructure, and make better use of operational data. Successful digital transformation requires more than technology implementation—it demands alignment between people, processes, and systems to achieve measurable business outcomes. Our cross-functional team works alongside clients to navigate the operational, technical, and organizational challenges that often accompany transformation initiatives. From data and software strategies to workforce adoption and change management, we help organizations build practical roadmaps, accelerate value realization, and create sustainable improvements. Our clients span a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, utilities, life sciences, food and beverage, mining, chemicals, and energy.
