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Are you fed up with the corporate bullshit holding you back? Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. The ultimate launchpad for entrepreneurs ready to seize control and unleash their creative genius. Hosted by Phil Better, the podcast mogul, each week he's breaking the chains of conventional work with bold strategies, raw insights, and inspiring success stories from the entrepreneurs who took the risk and invested in themselves. This is your call to arms. Invest in yourself. Break free from someone else's rules and build the empire you deserve. Now let's dive headfirst into today's explosive episode.

Welcome back to another amazing and milestone episode here at Investing Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Phil Benner, the podcast mogul. And I'm here with a powerhouse guest whose work is transforming opportunities for diverse business communities on a global stage. Today, we're thrilled to introduce a leader who has dedicated her career to expanding export opportunities for. Expanding. Sorry, expanding export opportunities for historically underserved businesses. With an impressive two decade tenured at the US Department of Commerce, she was the inaugural director of the Global Diversity Export Initiative where she opened doors for minority women, LGBTQ veterans and disabled owned businesses, helping them go global. Her impact doesn't stop there.

She's led groundbreaking teams like the Global Design and Construction Team and the Global China Team and founded Be Bold, an employee resource group driving diversity at the International Trade Administration. As a champion for diversity, equity and inclusion, she received numerous accolades including the William E. Morton Memorial Award recognizing her trailblazing contribution to the field. With a background in computer science from Spelman College, a Master's of Public administration from usc, and a global credentials in logistics and international business, she is a true expert at bridging cultural and economic boundaries. She's also celebrated a one year anniversary in her current role. And it's an honor to welcome the remarkable Terry Bash. Terry, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. And I'm like, wow, who is that? I want to. It's you.

It's you. I swear it's you. It's your bio that I always send. I swear. I hope it was your bio because if not. Oh my God.

Now, now. That was me. That was me for sure.

Terry, welcome to the show. I'm very happy to have you here.

You.

You are the CEO of Global Ala. You just told me that you're celebrating one year in this role, which. Congratulations. You've accomplished so much in your life so far. But I want to know, why did you start down this road? What made you decide? You know, you Wanted to be this figurehead, this powerhouse in creating change and bringing people who are underrepresented to the forefront.

You know, it's interesting, you know, I think I've always been doing this work my entire life, but I just didn't have a title that says that's what I'm doing. I think from whether it was attending an hbcu, going to Spelman, or doing public administration. I decided to do public administration while I was an undergrad after I had a stint at a summer program at Berkeley, because I never heard of public administration before, but I knew I didn't want to do business administration because I think business administration is business, right? And public administration's public is solving the problems that, you know, that are public problems, right? And bringing about, you know, solutions and order in that regard, where as businesses, if you can't make a profit, then why bother, right? And that's what a business is. So I started on this journey with Global LA last year, and I saw it as an opportunity to take all the skills and all the background that I have been building while I was at the Department of Commerce and use it here locally in Los Angeles. And there's a lot of things that are happening here in la, and this is like a once in a generation time in Los Angeles that I don't think many people realize because we're going to be hosting the World cup in 2026, which is less than two years away. And then we have the Olympics in 2028 in less than four years. This is a. There's.