Alyssa: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Women of Ambition podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Calder Hulme , and today we are going to be beginning a little bit of a shift in our podcast experience together where we've been examining ambition, how women experience that and talk about that. And we're gonna continue on that same path, but I really want to start looking at how culture, ethnicity, religion, all these different things that influence our socialization, affect the way that we think about ambition and manifest it. And then some of the barriers that make it harder to be maybe. Who we want to be. And so today we're gonna look at a little bit a personal experiences of ambition, certainly, but also looking at it within the context of being a Latina in the United States. Today our guest is Natalie Alhonte . [00:01:00] Natalie was born in Bogota, Colombia and moved to the US when she was six months old. During her upbringing, she always had a passion for languages, storytelling, culture, and intersection of public policy and entrepreneurship. She moved to Washington, DC in 2001 to attend American University in their school of international service. After graduating, she began a career in global public affairs, including leading the work. For clients looking to build campaigns around ideas, not just products. After that, she moved to New York City to build a social good incubator working directly with Ariana Huffington, while in New York. She also hired, she was also hired to assist with all aspects of communication for the Brazilian government ahead of the World Cup and the Rio Olympics. Wow. Natalie then returned to Washington to help build the Latin American. Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council for her former boss, Peter. Natalie: Schechter Alyssa: Schechter. Okay, thank you. She's now the director of strategy for the Latin America Practice [00:02:00] Group at Wilkie. Also founded by a Latin. Latina and an investor in immigrant foods, a gastro advocacy restaurant dedicated to celebrating the contribution of immigrants to the United States, and she resides in Salt Lake City, Utah. Not too far from me with her husband son, Sammy and their two dogs. Thank you so much for being here today, Natalie. Natalie: Thank you so much for having me, Alyssa. Alyssa: Sorry If I, I messed up some of those words there. Reading and podcasting at the same time is rough. I'm used to just kind of going off the cuff. Natalie: It's hard. There's a lot of tongue twisters Alyssa: I'm also very, very aware that you are trilingual, at least correct Portuguese, Spanish, and English, and so, I have very minuscule knowledge of those languages, but my pronunciation is horrible at this point. No. So please forgive me and correct me. Please correct me. Natalie: Yes, absolutely. I, yeah, we're here to learn from each other. [00:03:00] Absolutely. Yes. Alyssa: Well, thank you so much for being willing to come on the show and talk about just this complex world that, that you live in and that you navigate and that you're so knowledgeable about. So to start, this is our first question we always ask, do you consider yourself to be ambitious? Natalie: Oh, I love this question. And actually I think you know, when I received the invitation to be here with you today, it really set me on sort of a journey of sort of trying that word on. I think it's been a while since I've sort of categorized myself as ambitious, but, you know, really getting familiar with the, the definition and, and. To, its very core and maybe not so much of the archetypes that maybe we have associated with it. I would definitely claim it. I, I would also say I'm very driven a funny story about that. I actually, if I had a memoir, I think I would have. Titled it Driven because I learned to drive so late in life. I actually just learned [00:04:00] to drive six months ago after being, you know, a, a, a true and blue New Yorker. But yeah, so driven, ambitious are definitely things that I would say are part of, of who I am. Ambitious for myself, but also ambitious for others, I think is another thing that I would say. I, I'm one of those people who really. Get so much in really success and. I've seen other people accomplish things like finding their own voice and seeing what they're capable of as well. But the one caveat I would say about ambition is that I would say yes, ambition, but not at any cost. Hmm. I think this is the new, the new learning for being my life. Especially as. I've become more multi-dimensional, becoming a mother becoming a wife, becoming, you know, trying to be a better friend and also just a better, you know, person who takes care of [00:05:00] myself is saying at ambition. But there has to be a very careful consideration about what the impact is on myself, on others. And definitely growing up in New York where there was a little bit more of a cutthroat culture being on the other side of what ambition on the negative side can look like I've always ...
