About

Mission and Leadership

Vision

Our vision is to transform community and organizational cultural relations for the common good by equipping leaders to successfully connect, create, and collaborate with diverse groups of people. By doing so we will create a large group of leaders who will be naturally inclusive, equitable, and empowering. These culturally transformed leaders will naturally create cultures where people long to be.

History

Bilingual America is a cultural communications company that was founded in 1992 in Atlanta, Georgia by Ricardo Gonzalez. We grew from a very small start-up to a national company over our first several years. Our core training courses initially were our Spanish and English training for Hispanic professionals. We were the first company to offer Spanish training by telephone, and this was well before Skype came along. We even had packages that offered calling cards (if you remember them) to our students so they could call their instructors for tutoring!

Our flagship course was our Spanish Power course which took two years to develop and has taught now thousands of students to speak Spanish well. The principles of the course training process were built around Ricardo’s teaching in his book, The 12 Hidden Truths to Learning Spanish. If you would like to read the book, you can request a free copy here. Our first English

In the year 2000 we added our first cultural training course which was called Success with Hispanics. This course was decommissioned in 2019 when we came out with our Cultural Mastery course. In 2005 we designed and published our Lideres Exitosos course which is in Spanish and designed for Hispanic leaders to develop their leadership skills. In 2016, we reimagined our English training and launched our Inglés Poderoso course which is an English refinement course for Hispanics who speak English to some degree but need help in structural refinement, accent, and presentation skills.

We have been blessed to have a Fortune 500 client base through the years ranging from companies like Coca-Cola, Georgia Pacific, SAP, AT&T, FEMA, National Roofing Contractors Association, Home Advisor, Kimberly Clark, Smithfield Foods, The National Kitchen and Bath Association, American Staffing Association, Randstad North America, and many more.

Leadership

FOUNDER AND CEO: Ricardo Gonzalez

Ricardo is an author, public speaker, and internationally respected advisor to leaders. He is the author of multiple books including The 6 Stages of Cultural Mastery, The 6 Stages of Cultural Sales, The Cultural Transformation Manifesto, and The 12 Hidden Truths to Learning Spanish. His next book, To Belong or Not to Belong – Real Talk on Creating a Culture Where People Long to Be is due for release fall of 2021.

Ricardo is also the principal developer and instructor of our Cultural Mastery, Spanish Power, Inglés Poderoso and Líderes Exitosos courses.

You can read Ricardo’s full bio and body of work at RicardoGonzalez.com.

DIRECTOR: Noenia Rodríguez

Noenia has her MBA from the Universidad Latina in San José, Costa Rica and has been with Bilingual America since 2011. She is a skilled administrator and corporate trainer. Noenia runs Bilingual America’s day-to-day operations.

She is an expert in program design and works closely with Ricardo in the design of all new courses and has also been very instrumental in the creation of our Cultural Mastery Community of Leaders. She has a deep passion for organizational culture and human development. Noenia oversees our network of consultants and coaches and is also part of the consulting process we go through with large organizations to ensure attention to detail and measurement of results.

Advisors

We are very fortunate to have a strong Leadership Advisor Council that provides us with their counsel, encouragement, and support. The following leaders all actively provide guidance to Bilingual America, so it can fulfill its mission of creating culturally healthy and skilled people, teams, organizations, and communities. All of them are also clients, former clients, or partners who support our work.