We recognize the career of Humberto De La Vega, the Professional of the month of this edition.
By Duván Chaverra Agudelo
"I am an experienced business development executive, specialized in forming and leading high-performance teams with more than 30 years working in the electronic security industry. I know how to deal in business scenarios, working with multicultural groups, covering national and international markets. I have a great knowledge about how to build business units from scratch and boost established ones." This is how Humberto De La Vega describes himself in his Linkedin profile, to whom this time we want to recognize his professional career in our Professional of the Month section.
Anyone who knows Humberto knows how good he is. His extensive experience in the security business has allowed him to be part of important companies, just as he has been active in the same way in associations such as WINGS.
Humberto is a Mexican, model 1963, who comes from a middle-class family, the oldest of four siblings, and graduated in engineering in cybernetics and computer science at the La Salle University campus Mexico City. It also has other important complementary studies.
Humberto's professional career began as Managing Director and Founder of the company Desarrollo Integral en Computación S.A de C.V, later he worked as Regional Sales Manager at Recognition Systems. In 1999 he joined HID Global, a company with which he worked in different positions and with which he was for about 17 years. Already in 2016 he started his project at Huro Consultores and is currently the Managing Partner and International Business Development Leader for Tuxen & Associates.
"It's the job I have today and which I'm enjoying a lot. We're growing, it's a small company and I've never had the opportunity to lead staff who didn't have some kind of Latino influence, so I'm learning despite my age, and it's an unforgettable experience that I'm really enjoying," said Humberto.
Here are some of our Professional of the Month's insights into his career and vision of the industry:
Security Sales: What are your personal challenges and your next goals to meet personally and professionally?
Humberto: As a personal challenge rather than a challenge I have a kind of goal that is to travel with my family through different places, enjoying these places. For several years now we decided to stop buying gifts for our children and try to travel as much as possible. The fear that I have always latent is cancer and that it may return one day or that it manifests itself. 7 years have passed obviously the energies are different but surely it does happen, which hopefully not, because it will be again with all the attitude. I also fear the fact that I am in a situation of memory loss or fall into Alzheimer's or something similar, which makes me terribly dreadful, or the fact that I cannot meet my minimum needs.
From the point of view of my professional life there was an issue that I did not manage to satisfy to date that was to be able to have a global corporate position, it was not given to me, everything I did was at the national or regional level and today at the continent level but never global then because I continue with that little worm I do not know if it will be given to me, but the professional goal I have today is to take this company in which I collaborate to the next level.
VDS: What analysis do you make as a professional about the importance of the relationship with employees and collaborators, technological innovation?
Humberto: Human resources are fundamental in any company, for me the relationship you can have with employees will always be based on respect that sometimes the words respect can have different meanings for different people. I am a technocrat so everything that can solve technology welcome or what can help solve any issue in the company; We are in a permanent campaign of digital transformation we have taken the processes of the company from the basics of PR to those of customer management to cloud platforms, but not only there is the aspect of technology but the aspect of the relationship and the treatment of the information of the data then it is fundamental.
The objectives that we must achieve or that I would love to meet in the market are always related to three themes: leadership, quality and results, it is what has accompanied me throughout my career and it is what I plan to continue spreading; it is what I intend to continue to use as a flag and continue to positively pollute those who are close to me, including those in the community. I have also had the opportunity to work with some entrepreneurs and young people and it is enriching to see how these small samples of culture that has to do with positivism, high competition and high performance are welcome.
VDS: What do you think are the reasons for your recognition in this market?
Humberto: I do not want to fall into a false modesty because it is not my style, but I also do not want to fall into a triumphalism what is true is that I am terribly bad for any expression of celebration both my own and others, perhaps the only ones that I particularly enjoy are those of the birthdays or the triumphs or the events of my children, even my wife who was competing in open water and I accompanied her to some competitions and obviously celebrating her conquests also became a great joy.
It is difficult for me to make a recognition, but the first manifestation in this regard happened when ALAS turned the first 10 years old and they made me part of a tribute for the work and commitment and what we see because in a way given to the association and the guild because I had to be one of the initiators in the board of directors where I lasted several years. I remember that when placing the first benefits to being a partner we created the concept of a section within Security Sales called Securum, I remember that I proposed this name, that "security" in Latin and it stayed.
For many years I wrote for security industry magazines, I had a column called Polémica Segura where some of the writings I did created a before and after in some aspects. Many people still remember it, especially those of the old school.
So apart from all the time I spent collaborating with WINGS I organized the first and second election of president, it was also a very interesting experience ... then I had the opportunity to collaborate with Alberto Álvarez to create the national committees that would no longer be chapters and will become national committees. Alberto gave me the joy of being recognized for a trajectory of more than 30 years in the industry which I appreciate and will always thank motivated simply by the trajectory maybe as old not for so many years but it was really also something meaningful for me.
On the reasons for my recognition I can summarize them in two aspects that I think are important: first the fact of always considering that the security industry has to have a guild where it has a voice and that can be manifested in other latitudes. The second is in the aspect of access control to identity and related technologies, because I consider myself one of the first who professionally worked in depth on the subject and that somehow also several people who worked collaborated or that we had some relationship because they learned something from me and I learned something from them; and that several generations that somehow have me as a reference in several ways, some of them even to not be like me, but it seems to me that with the vast majority I have a positive balance and I definitely feel like a person who contributes the industry and I hope to continue doing so.
VDS: What has been the evolution that the industry has had in your country in the years you have been working in it?
Humberto: Today we talk about technology that maybe we could not imagine and the development of it has been really important in a very short time, from the point of view of collective industry there is a totally manifest maturity in the guild aspect and there are too many people working in an associative way on different fronts and that has also given an important vitality to the sector. Finally, the aspect of the technological implementation and the convergence of the same in the operational aspects of the companies generates that the clients by obligation and by force become the central and neuralgic point not necessarily to fulfill the maxim that the client is always right, but to really create a culture of security where the client has also benefited from what he needs where in that environment the experts in each of the facets can participate to achieve that task. There I have also seen that evolution has been very important and finally it is the opening, that is to say there are more and more players who do not necessarily increase the quality but plurality and that is when we have there a new challenge that is the reference and quality obviously with contaminations such as quackery, so it is important to rescue the concept of expert from the testimony and not only from sympathies or friendships.
VDS: How do you see the future of this industry in terms of threats, demand, advances and possibilities for expansion in Latin America?
Humberto: The industry has a future that is the continuation of the present and is challenging in the face of the threats that have to do with the terms that are going to be given with the convergences, for example: could it be that the telecommunications computer industry ends up being the one that absorbs as a part of a subsystem all aspects of security both physical and digital? Could it be that companies from the point of view of administration and integrity turn security into a strategic category and that it becomes an insertion within those of the value proposition of companies? I see it as very likely and the threats in that environment indicate that we are going to see some kind of changes.
We will see that the demands for services rather than the purchase of products will grow and obviously the way of selling and the participating channels will also evolve and we will have a total dependence on what would be the internet and all the systems in the cloud and finally Latin America will have to make decisions in each of the countries and in each of the actors regarding the path they must follow, that is, in some countries you see how the industry is trying to protect itself. Others may not be looking for protection but evolution trying to reach other instances and through other means, but we the actors and the generations to come. There is an important generational change that is taking place gradually, so today in a company we can see up to four generations actively living together and making relevant decisions.
I don't like this classification very much but I have to do it because it is part of today's conversation, so we see baby boomers, with generation Z, with millennials and centennials working in the same company and each one contributing and defending their positions. This wealth of opinions truly marks an enormous possibility that in Latin America we will learn to do it as soon as possible.
Outstanding
The Professional in everyday life
Humberto has been married since 1990 and has two children: Santiago, the eldest, and Mariana.
"Today my life takes place between traveling to the United States and Mexico and some other countries, although with the pandemic we are a little parked. My residence in Mexico is in León, we have just over 20 years of living here, it is a beautiful city that I love has many characteristics that made it very attractive for us. Since I was young I have liked sports, although the reality is that I lived a sedentary life since I got married, but before that I was selected youth in handball teams and then I played rugby for some time, and this virus called rugby remained in me latent, which has also left me great friends. " commented the Professional of the month.
Humberto also enjoys reading and cooking. He says that he learned to speak English at once and now he also handles Portuguese: "I have always liked languages, I think I have ease for them so today I work in three languages basically, although Portuguese I have left it a little I have used it again because where I am currently studying the academic resources I use are Brazilian, so my classmates are very young and Brazilian, but it's a language that I feel very comfortable with that I handle quite well and that I love."
Finally, Humberto considers himself a controversial person, something he says has brought him inconveniences but also positive things. "I always say what I think and sometimes I don't have the ability to manage myself and that causes me encounters or disagreements. Normally the relationships I have are binary because they are very tense very extreme or are very affective and those in the middle because they are simply the everyday ones. I defend and am a fan of teams that are controversial, so I am an ingrained follower of the Eagles of America in soccer in Mexico, I am a passionate fan of the Dallas cowboys; both teams have given us great satisfaction and great sadness and disenchantment, and in rugby because I am a fan of England which is also one of the most controversial teams. "
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