Empowered Authenticity

At the age of 22, I had graduated with my first degree in engineering. I thought I knew it all - how to squeeze myself into that box inside the corporate world and become successful. Not only did I, but I figured out how to carve out some of the pieces of myself to get my career blooming.

Fast forward to today and I am a graduate of the Emerging Latino Leaders Multicultural Leadership Program. A program that has shown me the benefits of my multicultural background and skills. One that has given me the flashlight to explore myself and my capabilities as a multicultural person and to now use them as a leader. This program has given me the words I had been looking for to be able to follow my thoughts and to understand and process them more effectively. It has also shown me the mental muscles I had not fully used before giving me the tools and the nourishment to strengthen them. So instead of squeezing and adapting into the box, I made the box expand and adapt to me.

This program, and many others like it, focus on diversity and inclusion in a workplace. They empower us as individuals by sharing stories with one another as a group. With the amazing guest speakers that we have had during the program, it has been clearly demonstrated just how beneficial it is when you dare to bring your full authentic you everywhere you go.

I want to give special thanks to Sonia, Cesar and LB for seeing us and tailoring the program to us. That way we saw ourselves and dared to adapt the surroundings to us too.

The more I grow into my multicultural being, the more I see the world clearer and get a global understanding and perspective of things. The future for successful companies is global understanding. Many companies will benefit from our multicultural global view, lifestyle and comprehension of things.

Even if it looks like the Western culture is the central culture, you need to remember that there is no center in a globe.