Latino
Leaders
6/1/2007 - 101 The List
Why she made the list: Under Vaca’s leadership, Pinnacle has grown twenty-fold during the past three-and-a-half years…
No. 84
NINA G. VACA
Business Owners
Occupation: CEO, Pinnacle
Age: 36
Residence: Dallas, Texas
Provenance: Ecuador
Education: B.A. Texas State University
Who she is: Born in Quito, Ecuador and arriving in the U.S. at two years old, Nina Vaca was raised by two highly entrepreneurial parents, and while they dreamed about providing a good life for their children, Vaca far exceeded any of their expectations. She studied business at Texas State University, and graduated in less than four years. Then, in 1996, she founded Pinnacle Technical Resources as an information technology service provider to Fortune 500 companies. Today, the company’s client base includes industry leaders in the telecommunications, financial services, health care, technology, consumer products, and business process outsourcing sectors.
Why she made the list: Under Vaca’s leadership, Pinnacle has grown twenty-fold during the past three-and-a-half years, and now includes approximately 600 consultants across 23 major locations in the United States. When the tech industry tanked in 2001, Pinnacle nearly went bankrupt. Her partner offered to sell his part and she bought it. Vaca then re-structured Pinnacle's focus to provide IT consulting on a per-project basis to businesses that had been laying off their tech staffs. She charged a fixed price per project rather than an hourly fee, and after landing clients like PepsiCo and Verizon, revenues soared up to $10 million by 2003. She is the first two-time winner of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Business Woman of the Year Award.
Our Prediction: With revenues predicted to surpass $60 million this year, expect Nina to keep her hands full, pursuing much larger clients with an even more aggressive strategy in 2008. Watch her solidify her position as one of America’s top females in the IT industry.
Barometer: Very High