Our Team
HQ Partners is a small, intentional team, built around complementary strengths and a shared belief that the right questions change everything. We bring together strategic leadership, analytical rigor, and communications clarity so that every engagement is grounded in evidence, clearly articulated, and built to last. We work alongside our clients, not instead of them. And we’re proud of what we build together.
Stephanie Hughes-Quain Founder, HQ Partners
Stephanie has spent 37 years asking the questions most people won’t, and then building the strategies that follow.
As a technology and business strategy executive, she has led transformations across some of the most complex organizations in financial services, healthcare, fintech, and travel. Her career includes:
● IBM Corporation — Senior Program Executive and Chief of Staff to the CIO, directing global technology teams through M&A transactions totaling $2.3 billion, including the IBM PC division divestiture to Lenovo
● Truist (formerly SunTrust Bank) — Group Vice President directing $100M+ annual technology budget programs across a major financial services enterprise
● Travelport — Director standing up the enterprise PMO and delivery governance across a $75M technology portfolio
● PrimeRevenue — Vice President leading enterprise PMO transformation, AS-IS/TO-BE assessments, and AI-driven testing strategy
● iVita Financial — Led full strategic planning and delivery of a proprietary HIPAA-compliant healthcare finance platform from concept to launch in 8 months
She founded HQ Partners because she believes mid-market companies deserve the same strategic rigor Fortune 500 organizations have access to – WITHOUT the Big 4 price tag, and WITH a partner who is genuinely invested in leaving them stronger than she found them.
Her proprietary framework – the Touchstone Discovery Method – is built on one principle: honest discovery before any work begins. Four phases. Thirteen proprietary tools. A structured approach to finding root causes before recommending fixes.
You can’t fix what you haven’t diagnosed. And you can’t diagnose what you haven’t found.
Current Focus: AI Readiness
Right now, the most urgent application of this work is AI readiness. 95% of AI pilots deliver zero measurable financial return — not because the technology fails, but because the business wasn’t ready for it. The organizational gaps were there before AI arrived. AI just made them more expensive.
Stephanie developed the HQ Partners AI Readiness Assessment specifically for mid-market leaders who want an honest picture of where they actually stand before they spend another dollar on AI tools, vendors, or consultants. It covers four dimensions: Business Readiness, Data Readiness, People & Organizational Readiness, and Expectation & Experience Readiness.
It’s free. And the conversation it starts is one every organization needs to have.
Benjamin Quain
Benjamin brings a rare combination of analytical precision and communication clarity to every HQ Partners engagement. With eight years of experience in technical writing, multimedia production, and cross-functional collaboration, he has a natural ability to take complex information and make it accessible and actionable. At HQ Partners, Benjamin works alongside clients through assessments and analysis — then helps distill the findings into clear, high-level roadmaps leadership teams can understand, own, and execute against.
Why HQ Partners
Most organizations don’t have a strategy problem. They have a diagnosis problem. They’re solving the wrong problem, faster, with more resources, and wondering why the results don’t stick.
The Touchstone Discovery Method was built to solve that. It starts with honest discovery, not assumptions, not what leadership hopes is true, but what the evidence actually shows. And it builds strategies from that foundation.
That’s not a methodology we invented last year. It’s 37 years of learning what works, what doesn’t, and what questions nobody else is asking.
Start Here
If you found this page because something in your organization isn’t working the way it should, you’re in the right place.
Here are three ways to take the next step:
★ Download the AI Readiness Assessment (Free)
★ Download the Pre-Engagement Alignment Assessment (Free) — Ten questions that surface what’s really driving your challenges before any engagement begins.
★ Book a 30-minute discovery call — No pitch. No agenda. Just an honest conversation about where you are and where you want to be.
You can’t spell QUAIN without AI.