Redefining Leadership Through Action
Carmen Ortiz Larsen
President
AQUAS, Inc
Policy is slow. Bureaucracy is rigid. And yet, transformation still happens when someone decides not to wait for the system to catch up. Carmen Larsen’s journey of more than 40 years proves that innovative, customer-centric small businesses can drive meaningful public sector change. A physicist by training and strategist by instinct, she left a secure corporate role during a personal crossroads to launch AQUAS, Inc.—now a trusted government partner transforming healthcare, food safety, public transit, and agricultural production systems. She built AQUAS with a culture rooted in empathy, integrity, and technical excellence. Her leadership blends ethics, compliance, and modern technology—recently integrating AI in enterprise solutions. Carmen is a community leader and mentor, dedicated to youth, healthcare, housing, and small business advocacy. An immigrant from Italy of Hispanic descent, her multicultural fluency strengthens her national and international consulting. In this exclusive interview with TradeFlock, Carmen shares how transformational leadership can strengthen organizations’ resolve to thrive despite economic downturns
What motivated you to establish AQUAS, and what has kept you passionate about it for over three decades?
In 1979, I left a corporate role as Principal and Manager of Customer Services to start my own consultancy, just before giving birth to my first child. I wanted to create smart, userfriendly, and cost-effective technology solutions that effectively addressed business needs. When negotiating my first contract, I named the company AQUAS, short for Automated Quality Systems. By 1990, AQUAS pivoted to federal contracts, working with agencies like USAID and the Department of Defense’s Healthcare Agency. In 2000, we partnered with the Veterans
"Government projects result in transformative innovation when great leaders are paired with the right mission and mindset."
Health Administration, creating an agency-wide bioethics assessment support system serving over 150 veterans’ hospitals. That work sparked my passion for healthcare ethics, leading to collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital and the founding of BioEthx in 2016. AQUAS expanded through federal projects in agriculture, housing, and health.
You’ve built solutions for everything from healthcare IT to agricultural inspections. How do you balance vision with tactical problemsolving across such diverse domains?
My focus rests on improving the quality of life, supporting human dignity, and promoting safety in how people live and work. AQUAS projects reflect those values in healthcare, public transit safety, food production, and other engagements. We help organizations mitigate risk, strengthen accountability, and enjoy better control over their information by creating business processes and digital tools that work within their environment. The terminology differs across industries, but the underlying systems, structures and methods are similar.
How do you see the role of small, women-led businesses in shaping the future of public-sector innovation in the United States?
Women often bring a high level of adaptability and relationship-building skills, in part because those qualities are essential in navigating both professional and family demands. Small businesses offer the flexibility and responsiveness needed for innovation to thrive. I started my business when I was facing multiple life challenges—losing my job, preparing for the birth of my child, and dealing with personal loss. Innovative thinking was essential back then, and is a mainstay of our corporate culture today. Women-led businesses are agile, rooted in their communities, and are often ahead of the curve when it comes to innovation. Find us at www.aquasinc. com–let’s innovate together
“Women-led businesses are resilient and agile, with a deep understanding of community needs that drives real innovation.
You navigated economic storms over the last several decades at the helm of a technology business, during times of dramatic technological advances and rapidly changing priorities. What gave you staying power in the industry?
We were able to stay in business for decades, a feat that many established businesses could not match during the same period. In my heart, giving up was never an acceptable option. Together with staff and colleagues, we found creative ways to stay above water in times of economic distress, all the while keeping up with the latest policies and technologies that were shaping industry demands for services. Our strategies included client diversification, staff camaraderie, and continuous attention to emerging business trends and technologies. Several agencies in the Federal Government became a hotbed of opportunities for innovation at the start of the 21st century, spurred by the advent of the Internet, modernization policies and congressional investments in the digital economy. We obtained several important contracts partly due to public sector programs that encouraged participation of women-owned and minority owned small businesses in procurements. Large businesses had to partner with small businesses as a condition of contract awards. This allowed us to forge new partnerships and establish longer-term relationships. Many public sector organizations were tremendously open to innovation, and we were eager to participate.
In your experience, what’s the most underrated quality of a truly transformative leader?
I believe it is the ability to listen with empathy and to collaborate with people across cultures and perspectives. Transformative leaders are visionaries; they know how to engage people to come along on the journey. They listen and connect the dots, recognizing what matters to others, and shaping plans to achieve real change. Beyond vision, successful transformation depends on integrity, inclusiveness, and the persistence to follow through in spite of challenges. It is not just about ideas. It is about building trust and alignments that last.
Featured Magazine -
