Las Cruces administrator lands on list of Top 50 Women Chief Administrative Officers
Editor's note: This article was updated March 11 to reflect a correction in the previous positions held by Barbara Bencomo. That included interim assistant city manager.
Barbara Bencomo had lived in Las Cruces for 15 years, working remotely for other companies before she started her career in city government in 2010.
After 14 years in a number of different capacities, Bencomo is now part of the executive team under outgoing City Manager Ifo Pili as Chief Administrative Officer. She was recently named to the Women We Admire list of the Top 50 Women Chief Administrative Officers of 2024.
Women We Admire is a membership organization of the most accomplished women executives and leaders in the U.S. and Canada. Women We Admire provides news and information about today’s women leaders in business, entertainment, sports, motherhood, medicine, law, and many other fields.
"It does mean a lot to me, but I will say that I have had great team members who make that recognition possible," Bencomo said in an interview with the Sun-News.
"It is a lot of behind the scenes work. I enjoy learning and enjoy feeling like I am making things better and the City has definitely allowed me to do that."
Prior to entering city government, Bencomo worked for Hewlett-Packard, where employees were encouraged to move around within the organization and supported women in leadership roles.
Bencomo said her experience in Las Cruces City government has been no different.
"I have worked in male dominated environments and they were supportive of professional development and diversity in the workforce," Bencomo said. "I have found the same thing here. I don't feel that being female has hindered those opportunities."
At Hewlett-Packard, she developed financial models for integrated circuits manufacturing and capacity planning, analyzed workstation pricing and bids, and recruited candidates for corporate-wide hiring. At Huron Consulting Group, Bencomo analyzed operations, labor productivity, and valuations for hospitals across the U.S.
The City posted a job for a management analyst in 2010 and Bencomo was hired. It was the first of many new positions that Bencomo has filled throughout her career.
She was also the first in her role in her current position, as well as MUNIS project manager and chief of staff. She also served roles as interim assistant city manger and interim and interim deputy finance director. Bencomo currently leads policy development and review, sits on the boards of the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley and The Bridge of Southern New Mexico, and co-chairs a regional advisory council to recommend expenditures from opioid settlement funds.
"I came into the job thinking I'll try this," she said. "I had never worked for government before, but I really loved it. It made me feel more connected to my community as I learned about the different services we provide."
Taking on different roles when called upon
Bencomo spent her first five years with the city as a management analyst, where she developed training for employees that focused on improving programs and services, identifying problems and how to implement solutions.
She used her technology background to help the city implement automated processes for hiring and dispersing payments to vendors, which became more valuable during the pandemic when employees were working from home.
Bencomo was interim city manager in 2021 when the McHard Firm released its findings in its investigation into Visit Las Cruces, the city's convention and visitor's bureau, in 2020. The report listed violations of procurement code, bid rigging, anti-donation clause violations, mishandled public money and undisclosed conflicts of interest within city government.
"By the time the report was released, on the finance side we had already implemented changes related to procurement, but we also needed to implement a tone, where if people saw things that they didn't think was right, they felt comfortable so they could raise those concerns and they would be addressed," Bencomo said.
Who will replace Ifo Pili?
Bencomo would not say if she planned to apply for the city manager position after Pili's recent announcement that he is returning to Utah.
Bencomo was hired when Terrence Moore was city manager and Pili is the fourth city manager she has worked under.
While she wouldn't confirm if she would seek to fill the seat, she acknowledged there will still be a learning curve for whoever fills the position.
But Pili's replacement will be an internal candidate.
"I do appreciate the faith that Council has with our internal staff to post the job internally," Pili said during last week's City Council meeting. "That's a big deal. I think for a transition, we have a ton of applicants who are very much qualified to continue. I think the public can have confidence that we will continue to move forward."
Jason Groves can be reached at 575-541-5459 or jgroves@lcsun-news.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @jpgroves.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Las Cruces administrator lands on list of Top 50 female chief admin officers
