Edwin Suarez got here to Houston-based Sign Vitality, trying to make a much bigger affect. He’d pushed leads to large organizations like GE, Marathon Oil, and Sumitomo Company. This was now his probability to convey that have to an organization amid speedy scaling whereas navigating transformational change within the broader vitality sector.
“At this stage of the group, I’m capable of function nearer to the enterprise and drive tangible outcomes in a extra direct means,” explains the present vice president of digital technology, who final spoke with Hispanic Executive in 2023. “As Sign Vitality continues to scale, I’ve the chance to drive technological transformation and create significant outcomes for our purchasers, our shareholders, and our staff.”
Suarez was drawn to Sign Vitality by three defining components: its speedy progress trajectory, the chance to place digital as a core enterprise driver, and a tradition constructed round high-performing groups. He made the deliberate transfer towards a higher-velocity setting aligned together with his strengths in constructing, scaling progress, and delivering outcomes. The VP says the interior tradition at Sign Vitality is extra akin to a startup than a conventional vitality firm.
The affect of that call turned clear throughout the first six months. Whereas his earlier expertise offered helpful perspective, Sign Vitality provided a better connection to execution and enterprise outcomes. The alignment between management, tradition, and ambition strengthened that he was in the precise setting to create significant, long-lasting affect.
“It’s extra than simply an thrilling profession transfer,” Suarez says. “From the earliest conversations, it was clear this was a group of individuals I genuinely respect. Time is essentially the most helpful useful resource now we have, and I wish to spend it constructing alongside folks I love.”
Suarez brings a particular mixture of product administration and growth depth, operational self-discipline, and other people management formed by seventeen years at GE and international roles throughout a number of nations. At Sign Vitality, he has repositioned IT into digital know-how, elevating the perform from a help perform to a unifying, cross-cutting drive throughout the enterprise. His mandate is to make sure digital know-how straight permits enterprise scale, from CEO-led progress initiatives to the maturation of core enterprise operations. Key priorities embrace modernizing infrastructure, strengthening cybersecurity, establishing knowledge governance, and constructing a foundational enterprise structure required to develop the corporate with self-discipline and consistency.
He’s no stranger to delivering impact-filled outcomes. Beforehand at Ascend, he codeveloped a $253 million SaaS blockchain platform accelerating funds; at GE, digital improvements boosted income by $25 million. At Sign Vitality, he’s advancing the group by combining the self-discipline of a giant enterprise with the agility required to maneuver shortly. This strategy is enabling the digitization of EPC workflows, the combination of AI capabilities, and the event of client-facing instruments that ship certainty, scale back danger, and speed up execution.
Trying forward, Suarez is targeted on making know-how a real aggressive benefit by empowering staff, unlocking operational effectivity, and accelerating Sign Vitality’s “North Star” by delivering protected, high-quality EPC initiatives safely, on time, and on funds, all whereas exceeding buyer expectations. His imaginative and prescient facilities on digitizing crucial operational workflows—from equipping subject groups with higher instruments to leveraging knowledge and analytics to unlock enterprise worth—constructing on a observe file of driving comparable transformations at scale.
“I’m obsessed with utilizing digital know-how to create actual buyer worth,” Suarez says. “We’re constructing towards that imaginative and prescient. The chance in entrance of us is thrilling, and I’m assured in what we will accomplish collectively as a group.”
None of this variation administration is simple, and it’s not speculated to be.
“I began getting again to the fitness center lately,” Suarez says. “And that subsequent day can actually be terrible. You’re sore, however you need to keep in mind that means your physique is rebuilding itself stronger than it was earlier than. That’s what we’re doing right here. In the precise methods, that ache is a vital milestone in reaching your goals and an important a part of the expertise.”
Suarez says the 2 qualities that finest embody his ethos are adaptability and curiosity. His adaptability permits him to create significant adjustments throughout organizations of various sizes, scopes, and cultures. His curiosity continues to propel him ahead investing in persevering with training as he scaled his profession, taking up coursework leading to an MS in Engineering and Administration and an MBA each from the MIT Sloan Faculty of Enterprise.
“A part of my drive is desirous to be a servant chief, being out there to others, whereas the opposite a part of it’s extra self-centered,” the VP explains. “I really feel I nonetheless have loads of potential inside me that I wish to maximize. It’s extra intrinsic, however I wish to harness my drive to make an affect for extra than simply myself. I additionally wish to empower and highlight Hispanics in management positions like mine, as a result of I don’t see sufficient of us right here within the tech house. As T.S. Elliot as soon as mentioned, ‘Solely those that will danger going too far can probably learn the way far one can go.’ We have now a collective accountability to mentor and foster the following era of Hispanic leaders.”
Coming to Sign Vitality six months in the past was a manifestation of that keenness. And Suarez has a lot extra to present as he makes an affect within the vitality sector.
