Granada Corp’s management team has unmatched experience delivering bilingual contact center solutions for companies serving the Hispanic market.

Senior Management

Kit Cooper, Chief Executive Officer

Kit Cooper is the chief executive officer of Granada Corp. Kit oversees client services, employee development and labor market analysis.  He interfaces with all clients from the sales process to project launches to ongoing account management.

Cooper has been doing business internationally since 1999 when he co-founded Hispanic Teleservices Corporation (HTC), a customer service outsourcing company with nearshore operations in Monterrey and Guadalajara, Mexico. HTC was one of the first customer service outsourcing companies in the world to capitalize on offshore markets and the first to target the U.S. Hispanic market through operations based in Latin America. The company raised venture capital from JP Morgan Partners and Citicorp Venture Capital and employed over 1,500 employees at the time of it sale to The Carlyle Group in 2005 and over 3,000 employees at the time of its sale to Teleperformance Group in 2007.

In 2005, Kit received Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in recognition of his company’s achievements. While at HTC, Kit served as president and co-chairman and managed sales and client services, helping the company acquire Fortune 500 clients in the financial services, telecommunications, cable and technology industries.

He is also the founder and executive director of The Quality of Life Project, a 501c3 whose mission is to help people live more enjoyable, purposeful and contented lives. The organization conducts in depth interviews with individuals that are successful in the many aspects of life and then shares the findings through its website, social media and offline community gatherings. Interviewees include well-known folks like Richard Branson, Jacqueline Novogratz and Gary Player to lesser-known but equally interesting and successful individuals.

Kit’s passion for the Spanish-speaking world began in 1993 when he lived in Granada, Spain. He is fluent in Spanish and has over ten years experience in the Hispanic CRM space.

He received a BA in History from UCLA and a MBA from Georgetown University. He is passionate about the subject of entrepreneurship and work/life balance has guest lectured on these issues at national conferences such as South by Southwest and MBA programs including UCLA, USC, Pepperdine and Rice University.

Kit’s greatest passion is his family and spends as much time as possible with his wife Misha and kids Levi, Gemma and Gus.

Carlos Zapatero, President

Carlos Zapatero serves as president of Granada Corp and oversees corporate development and growth strategy for the company.

Prior to Granada, Carlos served as Senior Vice President of Sales at Teleperformance Group, the largest customer support outsourcer in the world. While at Teleperformance, Carlos was instrumental in growing the company’s Hispanic market operations within the nearshore region as well as launching one of the industry’s most successful utilities services practices.

Before Teleperformance, Carlos was an early employee and executive at Hispanic Teleservices Corporation, where he was responsible for business development.  He also worked at American Express where he managed sales of over $45 million throughout his tenure with the company.

Carlos grew up in Lima, Peru but now calls Houston, Texas home.  He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas.

Jim Farnsworth, Operating Partner, Operations

Jim is one of the customer support industry’s foremost experts in WFH. He is the co-founder and senior partner of Virtualwirks, a firm specializing in helping organizations implement their virtual workforce capabilities.

Before starting virtualwirks, Jim was the general manager who built from scratch and led the success of the @Home business unit for TeleTech, one of the world’s largest BPO companies. Prior to Teletech, Jim served as COO at Alpine Access, one of the pioneering firms in the WFH customer support market. These roles complement his leadership experience at MCI Telecommunications, ADT Security Services and in the Federal and local government sector.

Jim Farnsworth has a demonstrated history of providing broad general business leadership for large-scale businesses and their customers. He does this in diverse industries including telecommunications, technology, finance, retail, health care, real estate and general business services. Additionally, Jim has successful experience selling and working in outsourced and contracting arrangements with clients ranging from small business owners to Fortune 100 C-level executives around the world.

Farnsworth is bilingual and holds a B.A. in International Relations and Business from the University of New Mexico.

Patrick McKenna, Operating Partner, Technology

Patrick is a leading expert in the “work from home” (WFH) industry. Patrick was one of the founders of LiveOps, a work-from-home call center company with over 20,000 home-based agents. As vice president of business development, Patrick oversaw revenue growth and was involved in strategy and corporate development. Patrick is the CEO of Keniks, LLC, a San Francisco based ecommerce and technology company that integrates online marketing, traditional offline media distribution and OnDemand workforces to maximize the value of cross-media campaigns.

Prior to LiveOps, he worked on the start up of a services marketplace company, Ingenio, Inc., that was acquired by AT&T in 2007. Patrick also served four years as a Signal Corps Officer in U.S. Army.

Patrick has an MBA from Georgetown University and a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Southern California. Patrick is an active angel investor and adviser to start up technology companies. He serves on the Board of Directors of Rapleaf, Inc and the non-profit Board, Hands on Bay Area. Patrick is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Advisory Board

Fernando Espuelas | Recruitment Outreach

Fernando Espuelas was the founder and CEO of StarMedia, one of the most popular content sites for Hispanics in the U.S. and Latin America with over 24 million unique users a month. Prior to its sale to France Telecom, StarMedia was publicly traded with a market capitalization of $3.8 billion. Fernando went on to start Voy, a digital media company serving the Hispanic market. Forrester Research Voy’s portal at the leading pure play social network in Latin America. Time and CNN named Espuelas as one of the “Leaders of the Millennium” and in 2007 he was honored by being named a Henry Crown Fellow through the Aspen Institute. Today, Fernando mixes entrepreneurship with social activism, hosting Café Espuelas, a radio show on Univision 1020. He is the author of the book Life in Action and has been interviewed and featured in major press including CNN, New York Times, Business Week and the Wall Street Journal.

Jorge Castro | Corporate Governance

Mr. Castro is Chief Executive Officer of Lombardia Capital Partners, a firm that manages $2 billion of equity investments on behalf of pension funds, endowments, foundations, and high net worth individuals. In 2008 Hispanic Business magazine named Mr. Castro among the 100 most influential Latinos in the US. Mr. Castro served as Vice Chairman and was a founding board member for the New America Alliance, a non-profit organization bringing together the nation’s most prominent Latino business leaders to better the Hispanic American community. Mr. Castro is also active in civic affairs, having served as a director of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a water utility serving 16 million residents in six Southern California counties. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University and studied for his Ph.D. in government at Harvard University. Jorge was born and raised in Huntington Park, California and now lives with his wife Nancy and their son Dominic Diego in Pasadena.

Moctesuma Esparza | Community Partnerships

Moctesuma Esparza, an award-winning filmmaker, producer, entertainment executive, entrepreneur and activist, is revered for his contributions to the movie industry and commitment to Latinos everywhere. Esparza established Maya Cinemas, a growing chain of modern movie theatre complexes, and Maya Entertainment, the only Latino owned Entertainment Company targeting U.S. Latinos today. Some of his production credits include: Selena, The Milagro Beanfield War, The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca, and most recently Walkout for HBO. Esparza founded the Los Angeles Academy of Arts and Enterprise Charter School, is Co-Founder of NALIP, Co-Founder of the Smithsonian Latino Center, and founding Member of the Cesar Chavez Foundation. Moctesuma was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Commissioner to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and, most recently, was appointed by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to the planning commission of the National Museum of the American Latino.

Jim Maloney | Information Security

Jim is a renowned information security expert having served as Vice President of Information Security for Amazon.com and Head of Security for Barclay’s banking operations in Western Europe and the UK.  Jim is currently the Director of Information Security for Intuit, supporting their Small Business Group.  He has current CISSP, CISM and CGEIT certifications and has been directly involved in the full lifecycle of security product and services development from both business and technology perspectives. Jim holds an MS in management from Stanford University, an MBA from City University, an MS in engineering from Northwestern University and a BS in system design from Marquette University.

Chad Cooper |  Corporate Finance

Chad Cooper is the head of institutional sales for Roth Capital Partners based in Newport Beach, CA.  He has been with Roth since 2002.  He was was previously a Vice President with eSamsung Ventures and an Associate with Friedman Billings Ramsey.   His focus and expertise is helping private and capital markets and understanding the  Chad received his MBA from Georgetown University and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Southern California.

Rick Ross | Software Development and Client Tools

Rick Ross is the founder and CEO of Ross Software Corporation.  Using a people-centric approach the company specializes in the development of commercial software packages for business, healthcare, scientific, educational, government and non-profit organizations. Rick also mentors business and technology executives and has trained hundreds of developers.  He’s been a featured guest on nationally syndicated radio, founded and led organizations for developers and given numerous presentations at software development and business conferences.  Prior to founding the company in 1997, Rick led the development efforts at firms that varied in size from businesses with a few employees to a national bank and finished his corporate career as an executive for a Fortune 50 insurance provider. During his tenure he directed the development and nationwide rollout of both enterprise and commercial systems.

Al Adamsen | HR Analytics

Al Adamsen is the founder and managing partner of People-Centered Strategies, a management consulting firm specializing in talent management and human resources analytics.  Al’s work is based on aligning HR strategies to the economics of a business and in turn, building metrics and decision-making processes that enable leaders to manage their organizations more responsively and effectively.   Al has worked with leading companies such as Charles Schwab, Ernst & Young, Gap Inc., and Kenexa.  At Gap Inc. Al was responsible for HR metrics & reporting, employee surveys, and workforce planning & analytics.  Al holds an Economics degree from the University of California, Davis as well as a Masters degree in HR and Organizational Development.

Matt Jarvis | Internal Branding

Matt is a partner at 72andSunny, a design and advertising company based in Los Angeles and Amsterdam that serves clients such as Nike, Bugaboo, Quiksilver and the Discovery Channel. Previously, he was the Executive Planning Director for Deutsch/LA where he led the strategy and business development efforts of the west coast office.  Prior to Deutsch, he was president of the retail division of Justice Telecom, an international telco ranked the “#1 fastest growing company in America” by Inc. Magazine in 1998.  Matt grew up in a small college town in Pennsylvania, where both his parents were professors. A graduate of Brown University, where he studied comparative literature, Matt got his start in marketing at Leo Burnett in Chicago. When not directing brand strategy for 72andSunny clients, Matt is surfing or playing with his wife and kids in Venice, CA. He is also a fan of jamon serrano.

Jeremy Kestler | Web Based Training

Jeremy B. Kestler is a corporate learning and development consultant specializing in e-learning instructional design, web-based training development and project management. He has developed global training programs for clients including SAP, The Coca-Cola Company, America Online and the U.S. Department of Labor. Jeremy has also developed e-learning courses for leaders in the cable/broadband industry including Cox, Adelphia, Comcast and Time Warner.   While at Caliper Corporation,  he personally led the course development and company-wide roll out of an online learning management system. He has a B.A. in English from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.