Sarah Aparicio

Director, PMO & Customer Success

Location:

Houston, Texas

About:

Sarah bridges the gap between clients and our leadership, engineering, and analyst teams. It’s her job to ensure that expectations are met on time and flag up potential workstream issues.

Sarah graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in Industrial Distribution—chosen for its high job success rate and the ratio of guys (a lot) to girls (a few)—and an unexpected talent for machining and welding. Her consulting career began in supply chain and distribution management with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which was later acquired by IBM (post-Accenture/Enron scandal). In between jumping on a plane every Monday and landing back home on Fridays, Sarah implemented warehouse management systems for multiple companies. It seemed glamorous from the outside, but most of the projects were in small, off-the-grid towns where you typically find distribution centers.

After almost five years of living the consultant lifestyle, Sarah settled into a role at Stage Stores (a retail company, now bankrupt) in Houston, Texas. During her 16 years there, she worked with the IT team serving as an analyst/project manager, bridging the gap between stakeholders and members of the technical team. Her passion for detail—seriously, Sarah has a list for everything and still keeps a to-do list on her paper (gasp!) planner—and timeliness have led her to her current role at Optimal.

When not running her four kids to social commitments, Sarah reads and hangs out with family and friends. She’s up with the lark for her run and bookends her day with fresh, hot coffee in the morning and a cold glass of white wine in the evening.

If pressed—even lightly—Sarah will tell anyone the recipe for the best Ranch Water cocktail. Would you like it? Oh, go on then: 1:1 ratio of Topo Chico (non-flavored. And yes, it has to be Topo Chico) and Casamigos Blanco tequila (yes, it has to be Casamigos. No, it’s not because of George Clooney) and the juice of one lime.

Favorite color:

Black (although she’s frequently told that strictly speaking, it’s a shade, not a color)

Favorite animal:

Seahorse, because the males carry the babies

Education:

B.S., Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University