DR. GUIDO A. MINAYA: 2022 Top Lideres Awards; SWFL

What is your Hispanic Heritage:  I was born in Oruro, Bolivia.  I moved to the US when I was four.

Latin Times Magazine: What area of Florida do you live in?

Dr. Guido: I live in SW Florida, in Cape Coral.

Latin Times Magazine: What is your profession? 

Dr. Guido: I am a business owner of a corporate education and training services firm.

I am CEO and Chief Learning Officer for Minaya Learning Global Solutions LLC.  My firm develops and delivers curricula for large companies, Fortune 500s and Non-Profits.  After earning my MBA from Vanderbilt University, I was promoted to Director of Education Services for Latin America at AT&T, then Lucent Technologies, then Avaya and then Accenture Learning.  I then moved to oversee Asia and Japan learning services for Accenture prior to taking on a global role with Accenture.  When I completed my Doctorate in Education at the University Pennsylvania, I accepted a role with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund as VP of Programs and Scholarships.  Two years later I launched my company, Minaya Learning, based in the San Francisco area prior to moving my firm to SW Florida nine years ago.     

Latin Times Magazine: In your industry, what would you say separates you from your competition. 

We are a small family owned, global business.  My wife also has deep expertise in this field.  Prior to joining my company, she was the head of learning for a large regional insurance company.  She and I are both practitioners leading training organizations for large companies.  We understand how large companies operate and how mission critical workforce development it.  We are very comfortable working with the C-Suite as well as other levels of management as we jointly design and implement solutions which improve workforce performance.  My experience includes managing operations in Latin America, Asia and globally.  Many others in our industry do not have the depth and breadth of experience we have.  

Latin Times Magazine: Why do you feel you were nominated. 

As passionate as I am about workforce development, I am equally passionate about community service with a focus on education, inclusion and diversity.  30 years ago, I was one of the founders of the SW Florida Hispanic Chamber Commerce.  I was also a founder of the top business voice organization in Lee County.  I championed minority business issues then.  After I left SW Florida to continue my career, I continue to champion diversity issues.  I served as the International President for AT&T’s Hispanic Employee Association, HISPA. When I returned to SW Florida nine years ago and I continued to champion these issues.  I presently serve as the Chairman of the Board for the City of Cape Coral’s Oasis Charter Schools.  I also serve on the top economic advisory organization on our county, the Horizon Council, and am on the Executive committee in the role of Secretary.  I launched the Inclusion and Diversity Committee for our County’s Horizon Council.  I also was the Chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for our county wide school district. I am also a founder of Hispanic Vote in SW Florida.   I have also volunteered at the national level with the National Minority Supplier Development Council helping them develop more effective training solutions to their 15,000 members nationwide.

Latin Times Magazine: During Covid-19, tell us about your Biggest Challenge/obstacle and how you overcame it/or are overcoming it. 

Prior to Covid-19, at least 60% of the training projects in our sector were done in person with a small person done a virtual classroom.  Our business mirrored these approaches to training with close to 75% of our activity being done by instructors in a classroom or in a virtual classroom.  Once Covid-19 hit we first began seeing cancellations with our Asia based training projects, then we saw our European projects cancel and then we saw our Americas projects cancel.  And we observed that our elearning related initiatives were still on track and had the opportunity to grow.  We expanded our capabilities in eLearning development and this pivot helped us tremendously.  We also observed that Healthcare providers needed innovative solutions for training their healthcare workers.  We became a strategic partner with our local healthcare provider and won many projects from them.  We also wone several global awards for our innovative work in healthcare.  We have since launched a Learning and Development Healthcare practice and are making in roads into serving more clients in this sector.

Latin Times Magazine: Tell us about your biggest achievement, and how you achieved it. 

I believe our biggest achievements come from truly listening to our clients and understanding their mission critical needs.  At our level we are more like learning architects with a special focus on performance improvement.  For example, prior to Covid, healthcare workers were required to take annual competency assessments in person.  This meant that they had to go to large conference rooms and walk from station to station where someone would assess their competency in a specific area and manually document the results.  Due to Covid this was not longer possible. A healthcare client approached us and asked how they could do this differently.  We worked closely with them and created a cloud-based competency assessment platform.  With our solution over 4800 nurses and CNAs could take their annual assessments virtually.  We were able to introduce the platform on time so the annual competencies could be taken with the results reported back to key overseeing organizations.  This solution resulted in a return on investment and won two global awards from the Brandon Hall for Best Advance in Adapting to the Workplace Culture and Best Advance in Crisis Management.

Latin Times Magazine: What is next for you? What can people expect to see from you?  Locally, I would like to see greater acceptance of economic inclusion for minority owned businesses.  We still have a long way to go of making MBEs an integral of large projects in SW Florida. Nationally, I would like to continue my work in helping MBEs improve their skills and become more sustainable.  My firm was recently awarded a contract to support the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s Learning Center.  We are helping this top national organization with over 15000 MBEs reach out to their members and offer them mission critical learning solutions which were previously only available to very large companies.  

Latin Times Magazine: What does being a U.S. Citizen mean to you?  

I have been in the US since I was four years old.  I am very proud of my Bolivian ancestry and equally as proud of my American upbringing and heritage.  Every immigrant community brings many talents and traditions to the US.  Our Latino traditions of deep family values and hard work are important to the fabric of diversity in the US.  Being a citizen to me also means giving back in talents, time and treasure.  If there is an area of need where I believe my talents can be help to my local community, I am happy to step up and contribute.  My right to vote is an important action I can take to ensure the sustainability of my local community, the state and nation.  And as importantly, being a role model for those who come after us is important to our collective long-term sustainability 

Latin Times Magazine: What is your opinion of the state of affairs in our nation? And what role do you see Hispanics/Latinos playing in the future of our nation.

We are already seeing the impact Latinos have on our local and national elections.  As a growing segment of our population, our Hispanic community becomes a more critical piece of the puzzle in ensuring the safety, welfare and economic prosperity of the entire community.  My perspective on the state of affairs of the nation is that we are seeing a transformation in our evolution as a democracy.  We each have a voice and role to play on the next definition of our nation.  With so many ways to acquire information and knowledge, we need to ensure we are always learning and more prepared for what may come.  I am confident that overtime we will find more common ground.  I am confident of our time that we will see inclusion and diversity as an integral component of every major facet of our lives.  I believe Latinos will continue to become more prominent in every aspect of our nation.

Latin Times Magazine: What words of encouragement can you offer?  

My father, who was a high school teacher, always said “…education is like delicious buffet.  Eat.  Eat.”  Through continuous learning and development our experiences are richer, and our contributions are more profound.  

Latin Times Magazine: Is there anything I didn’t ask that you would like to share?  

We need to see more Latinos on Advisory Boards and in mainstream influential non-profits.  In California there was an entity that focused on this for the Asian-American Community.  The organization has since become national.  It was and is extremely successful in teaching the values and mechanics of public service.  We need something like this for our Latino community

Latin Times Magazine: What is YOUR comida Latina favorita? 

Salteñas, (like empanadas, just better!