Bluespark Welcomes New Project Manager

In 2016, we made a conscious effort to grow — both with clients and employees.

Because our development process is focused on prioritization and phases, we require a lot of work managing projects to ensure they start and end successfully.

This means we try to fill project manager roles with individuals who are process-oriented and results-driven. Natalie Lestini, who has more than 15 years of project management experience, fits the profile.   

Natalie approaches life and work like she's solving a giant jigsaw puzzle. She loves sitting down with the fresh puzzle box (which, in our case, is a project) and engaging with it as it takes shape. In web design and development, each piece forms part of a larger picture and the full scene comes into focus with help from the entire Bluespark team. 

This kind of collaboration and the ability to work with all sorts of interesting people, each of whom brings their own level of enthusiasm and experience to the table, makes each project unique, challenging, and exciting to Natalie. 

"Putting this puzzle together requires foresight and vision and finding your way around obstacles," Natalie says. "I find great satisfaction in working with the team as well as the client to overcome these obstacles and drive toward completion."

Originally from West Virginia, Natalie enjoys moving "every seven years" to places that have included Indiana, Washington, D.C., and Vermont. 

Her career path started in frontend development where she met a project manager who changed her life — and her future.

"I had the chance to work on a large cross functional team at my first dev job," Natalie says. I was so fortunate to meet and be led by a project manager that really became my mentor (and still is to this day). She essentially helped me form my mission statement and my eventual career path."

And this path brought her to Bluespark. Her past experience as a developer gives her a unique ability to communicate within — and fully understand — the development process and community. This is critical because of Bluespark's highly iterative approach and commitment to the open source community. As a project manager, Natalie works closely with both the Bluespark development team and clients, helping create pathways of communication, collaboration, and transparency.

After work and on the weekends, you will likely find Natalie outside — sometimes hiking and usually with a camera, as she enjoys observing the world through a lens. She's an avid reader, traveler, consumer of real Italian food, and is proud to have "a fair amount of geek credentials." Feel free to verify this. 

One of Natalie's life goals is to eat a superior meal in every province in Italy.