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In this compelling episode of Journeys to Leadership, President Leocadia Zak sits down with Veronica Maldonado-Torres, President and CEO of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. From aspiring recording artist to influential business leader, Veronica shares her transformative journey of self-discovery and resilience. Learn how she navigated the complexities of entrepreneurship, championed small businesses, and advocated for minority communities in the corporate world.
Veronica’s story is one of perseverance, She offers powerful insights on embracing your “jolt moments” — those pivotal times that redefine your path. Whether it’s overcoming personal setbacks or challenging societal inequities, Veronica’s message is clear: true success comes from leading with purpose and authenticity. Tune in to explore how Veronica’s strategic vision and commitment to empowering others have made her a driving force in Atlanta’s business community.
Creators & Guests
What is Journeys to Leadership?
Journeys to Leadership assembles the collective wisdom of local, national, and international women leaders representing a cross-section of industries and organizations that drive our world. From career trajectory and turning points to game-changing wins, the Journeys to Leadership podcast will enlighten and inspire emerging and seasoned leaders through authentic and engaging stories that will enrich their own leadership journeys.
This podcast is produced by Agnes Scott Alumna, Sydni Michelle Perry '21.
VERONICA MALDONADO TORRES
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Veronica Maldonado-Torres: [00:00:00] And, uh, maybe not feeding into what others perceive of you, of what you should do or should be. I believe those jolt moments help us to become driven. And that's what it helped me do. To define what your life should look like, you know. To reflect and recognize those gaps of where you are, where you want to be.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Illustrate and chart that course. Validate that plan. Execute and have no option but to win at thriving in your life.
President Zak: Hello, and welcome to Agnes Scott College's podcast, Journeys to Leadership, where we explore the paths of inspiring women leaders from around the globe. I'm Leo Kadiazak, president of Agnes Scott and the host of this podcast.
President Zak: I hope that our guest stories not only encourage you, our listeners and leaders of today and tomorrow, but they also inspire you as you take the next steps in your own journey. Today's guest is a highly versatile and visionary [00:01:00] Latina businesswoman, small business champion, business mentor, and community leader with over 20 years of professional experience and success.
President Zak: During her tenure as a program director of the Georgia Mentor Protege Connection, she supported the development and growth of over 150 businesses with corporate engagement. In 2022, Veronica was recognized by Atlanta Magazine as one of the 500 most powerful leaders in Atlanta. In 2021, she received the Corporate Diversity Champion Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award from the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
President Zak: And in 2018, she received the distinction of one of the top 50 most influential Latinos in Georgia by the GHCC. Known as a people and business accelerator, Veronica's solution oriented perspective and strategic thinking, [00:02:00] coupled with her excellent communication and consensus building skills, propel those she encounters to achieve desired success.
President Zak: Please join me in welcoming the President and CEO of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Veronica Maldonado Torres. Welcome to Journeys to Leadership, Veronica. We're so excited to have you.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Well, thanks for the honor of being on this show and, uh, spending time with you and the great work that Agnes Scott gets to do day in and day out.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: It's an honor to be here. Thank you.
President Zak: Well, thank you. We're delighted to have you. And on our show, we understand that leadership doesn't just happen. It's a journey. During our time together, we hope to explore your journey. The ups, the downs, everything that we can fit in during the time that we're together today.
President Zak: So let's Let's first find out a little bit about the chamber. Tell me about the chamber and what does it do?
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: The GHCC is this amazing power network where our Hispanic community, [00:03:00] um, is getting the resources that they need, but plugged into the general market. We are a bridge, a bridge connected to community, to entrepreneurship, to corporate institutions, local governments, and, um, professionals.
President Zak: And it's led by an amazing president and CEO, you, um, and we'd love to learn a little bit about your journey. Sure. So let's. Let's sort of go back a little bit to as you were growing up. Yeah. Um, did you imagine yourself being the president of the chamber when you were
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: a little girl? I never imagined myself being the president of the chamber.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: No. Have a
President Zak: president period.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I did imagine something larger than what I could understand of myself. I always felt a call since I was younger that I would be doing something different. Bigger than I could imagine, but I could never really pin what it was, um, in so much that I, you know, told my mom when I was younger, I was like, mom, I've got to make [00:04:00] sure that, you know, my teeth are good.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be giving interviews. I'm going to be, you know, helping people. I didn't know how, I didn't know what, but I knew that I was going to be doing something that could leverage my voice for the greater good. Um, Um, maybe being a voice for the voiceless and, um, and what I will say about my younger years, um, is that, uh, the vision that I had was primarily to be a recording artist.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: So at the age of eight, um, I already knew that I, I wanted to be, you know, a singer really. So are you going to give us a little rendition? I am very happy to give you a rendition of anything that you ask for. I do have a couple of songs on Spotify and maybe some more coming up, but that's just for fun these to work those
President Zak: into the podcast.
President Zak: Absolutely. So. Yes. So when you told your mom that you, you know, you have to be a certain way because you thought you were going to, you know, have a position and use your voice. What did she say? Uh, well,
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: you know, I, [00:05:00] I, I think that you become sometimes what you see. And my mother is a powerhouse in her own right.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: She came here over 45 years ago. Um, and with the support of my grandfather, they launched and grew a family owned business. So I saw my mom being out in the community. I saw my mom volunteering. I saw my mom as a business woman. Um, I did have kind of this image beyond kind of speaking and, um, being, and, and really for me, it was, you know, Lyrics have so much power, words have so much power, um, beyond the music and kind of sharing that.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: She knew I had a passion for music, but I think as I look back, it was more of a passion for expression and storytelling, and giving people hope. Hope, you know, for me, that's what music was for me. Uh, lyrics were, were leveraged and the poems, um, that I would fall in love with and the stories and the people were all about giving me [00:06:00] a sense of hope.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And I, um, grew up in a time where going back and forth to Columbia, South America, where my family was from Cartagena specifically, you know, I would come from a beautiful
President Zak: location, by the way. It's so gorgeous.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Yes. But I saw the contrast between, you know, maybe how we lived here and how living there was, although my family, you know, in Colombia, um, you know, is a family of business owners as well, but I could see some of the disparities in the community.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And I will never forget seeing this young boy asking for, for change for coins. And I was very young. So this was extremely impressionable for me to be witnessing somebody kind of begging and asking for money. When I was growing up, living in a time of Martin Luther King stories in our school, learning about civil rights and, um, really wanting to, uh, make sure that everybody had that dream.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I wondered, why is it? And what was so different about this [00:07:00] child and myself that he was begging for money and I was not. And so that really left a mark for me. And um, I brought that back, um, with me every single time and it, it allowed me, you know, I think as I grew up and what really shaped me was what can I do to be successful?
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Um, hope to provide hope and belief of greater possibilities that we are not limited by anything even if limitations exist. So she was like, she opened the door, she said, anything you want to be, she would tell me when I was little, you know, you can be anything that you want to be as long as you work hard for it.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And um, I think that if you ask folks, I am not afraid of rolling up my sleeves and getting the work done.
President Zak: It's so wonderful to have those role models, but you also mentioned early on you wanted to have your voice. Yes. And oftentimes people don't associate voice, social justice with business. Right. How do you combine those?
President Zak: [00:08:00] How do those fit together for you? Sure. Because often people think, oh no, corporations, business, bad. Um, but you put them together.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: You know, I take a look at it from the lens, especially with our community and many minority communities, that entrepreneurship is the pathway to economic freedom. And economic freedom, I think, is owning your own future.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I witnessed that many of the folks that my mom and her, her friends that we were surrounded by were folks that were paving their own path. Regardless if, um, you know, they could have chosen other options, they were deciding to forge their own path. And I think that what we all, you know, what we all want in this, um, quest for, um, freedom.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: you know, believing that we can achieve and have what we want in this world, which is what America is a symbol of in many ways to so many of us that come here, um, that bring our families that, um, [00:09:00] grow up believing that you can do anything and be anything you want to be. Um, you know, it's, it was a natural integration and thought process for me because that's the lens in which we saw it.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Um, the, that pathway of, um, you know, making sure that. That there we didn't understand the inequities back then that we see now, which in many ways, you know, the pandemic exposed many of those inequities, whether it was, you know, a health and health inequities or, uh, capital, uh, access to capital or, you know, leadership or educate whatever the inequity was.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I feel like the pandemic really exposed a lot of that when you saw A lot of the communities, um, that were impacted deeply and, and, and what has been able to do now is what can we do to ensure that, you know, after, after seeing what's been invisible and what many people have maybe be taught, have spoken about, but now that we see it, we were still long enough to see it, [00:10:00] right?
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Then what are we going to do about it? And I feel that, um, that's just been something that's. been a natural part of my history with my family and our community. And, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it would be very hard for me to pry that away from my kind of my ethos and my spirit, because that's what I've eaten.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Breathe, you know, breathe, eat and sleep is, you know, how did, how do we just make this world a little bit better for everybody who just wants to have the best life at the end of the day?
President Zak: You mentioned the fact that you followed your path, you know, follow your vision. How did you know what it was? How did you have the sense, because often people are exploring, did you have a mentor, clearly you mentioned your family, what helped you find that path?
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Well I'll tell you, I had to, um, reimagine my life. Uh, you know, when I graduated from high school, my yearbook says most likely to become famous actually. Uh, [00:11:00] and, uh, it wasn't for, um, not that I believe I'm famous per se, but maybe in my, maybe in my sphere. I'm looking for, you know, fame in all the right ways, right?
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And all the positive connotations of being able to use your voice for that. I will definitely say, um, but I think that I had to re imagine what my future would be because I really did have aspirations of being a professional recording artist. Um, I was signed to a record label at a very young age, an independent record label.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: They tried to pick me up at age 16. Mom and dad said, you're too young. You need to finish school, yada, yada, yada. Um, and I'm so grateful to them that, you know, um, during those years where I'm sure, um, I really was vocal about knowing that that was my path, that they, they, uh, they aligned me in the direction that I needed to without squashing my dream.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Um, but after, you know, uh, years after, um, being invited to, to, to sign this, this record deal, um, I found myself. [00:12:00] Um, as a young, you know, naive, you know, uh, girl who all she wanted to do was if I ever had a platform, use it for something good. And, um, I had some amazing producers and wonderful people around me, but I also had a machine.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: of the brand and the narrative that they wanted me to be. And, um, fitting with my age, which was a narrative around, you know, being in the club and talking about nightlife. And I said, this is not my brand. This is not what I represent. I made a very, difficult, um, decision, uh, in many ways to step away from that, the contract that I had really dreamed of having, cause I knew it was going to open the pathway for me, but not at the expense of what my voice would be shaped as.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I was unwilling to compromise on who Veronica Maldonado at that time, you know, [00:13:00] wanted to be in the public eye and she wanted to be more about hope and dreams and overcoming adversity because. I had gone through adversity, you know, because adversity had made me stronger as a human being. Um, and I wanted to be able to, to lift and, uh, encourage.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And so I stepped away from that opportunity very disheartened and saying, I'm going to learn absolutely everything about the music industry before or entertainment industry before I get back into that industry again as an artist. And you know, life took me down a different path and that's where I say that I had to reimagine.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: There was a definitely a, um, There was a mourning period where I, um, understood that I needed to learn more about that industry, but still had to kind of figure out what were all the things that I was good at when I was growing up. I, I was, uh, you know, an amazing athlete growing up. Um, I think that a lot of your sport.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Oh, fast pitch softball. Oh, good from the age of eight. [00:14:00] Um, all the way to college, you know, I got injured and so I couldn't play, but I need to come to you next season. I threw out the
President Zak: first pitch. Really? It was a little bit like bowling.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Oh, I'm happy to give you tips. All right. Good.
President Zak: All right. I'll be, I'll be there next season.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And what I loved about it. The sport is that, um, I, it was, you know, working in a team environment that, you know, you've got to bring in, you know, that one that didn't have maybe the best skills or the best, and you've got to fold them in and find a way to make the team the strongest. Right. And, um, and it's, uh, I always.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: say it. There is no I in team. I really dislike hearing the word I it's a we it's a we. I know that I have to build my own capacity as a leader to bring my strength. But if we're going to win collectively, we've got to win together. And that means leveraging everybody's strengths and skills. And understanding where I have [00:15:00] maybe my own development areas because I hate using the word weakness, you know, the word weakness is, is one that I, I really don't like talking about.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I really don't like to say because I don't think that we are strong or weak. I think we have really strong things that we need to lean on and the other areas you bring a team around. So I learned that, um, from softball. I learned those leadership skills. skills from, um, helping to lead a team. I was the captain of my softball team.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Um, you know, my, my senior year, they give, um, an award for like the athlete of your class. I got the athlete of the class. Um, and uh, you know, was it, you know, uh, all state, you know, years over years. And, uh, but it was because for the ability of bringing people together and encouraging them. And I would always say, you know, um, you know, it's not over until, you know, there's, until the fat lady's there.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: You remember that? There used to be a saying, you know, but it's not over until it's over. I'm a never give up. [00:16:00] Until the very last like, you know, winning is, is going down swinging, right?
President Zak: So how did you, what was your next transition? So you're learning about the entertainment industry.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And then I got picked up.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Um, I had a great friend who was my manager at the time. He was like, look, Veronica, you know, while you kind of figure yourself out. I was, I, I ended up working for an, um, an advertising, um, industry Uh, advertising company for a short amount of time that really put on a lot of cultural community events. One of them happened to be at Plaza Fiesta, which is a renowned, um, you know, uh, cornerstone of our Hispanic community here with so many different little businesses.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: But the goal of that, uh, advertising company was to, you know, draw people closer and expose those businesses and drive economic development. So I was already doing it without realizing it, you know, fresh in my, you know, young twenties. Um, but I, as I kind of figured out what did I want to do or who I wanted to be, my manager called me and said, [00:17:00] Hey, EMI music marketing is searching for an artist development representative.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And I was like, well, that's amazing. What does that mean? Um, and they were like, you know, you would help. Because it was the distribution company, you would help them. They had 26 record labels underneath them. You would help them pinpoint where the Latin genres of music should be going in the entire southern region of the United States.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And I was like, OK, well, that sounds great. And this was my first like real people job. I mean, I'd worked in my family business. All of my life since the age of eight, right, answering phones, cold calling, you know, talking to the press men and customer service, doing bindery work, you name it. I knew everything in my family business, but it was kind of like my first, first real, real job in the world.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And I was excited because it matched my passion for music with something that I don't think I had to Um, and that's when I discovered which really was my passion for business. My passion for business development. My passion for, um, sales. My passion for, kind of, winning. You know, and, and, and I'll say [00:18:00] winning.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: I have a passion for winning for other people to win. For communities to win. And I know that, um, winning can't come at any cost, right? It's, it's winning for the good. But when I look back at my career, you know, I really think that, you know, The key to my, um, how to help me through navigating, like, the path was just following my curiosity.
President Zak: That's
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: fantastic. And my passion. Whatever moved me and got me excited, you know, I paid attention to that. I pay attention to what excites me. I also pay attention to what drains me.
President Zak: Well, that is absolutely fantastic. And Veronica, I want to thank you for sharing your story. And as we're wrapping up, do you have any last words of encouragement
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: for our listeners?
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Uh, absolutely. I think leadership looks different for everyone. I think we all have the ability to lead. Whether we're at church, whether we're at home, whether we're in a small community, a large [00:19:00] organization, a small business, we all have groups that we can lead. And most importantly, the most important thing we can do with our own lives.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: It's leading ourselves, leading ourselves. So I think that what I'd love to share, um, with our audience today and something that I, uh, I went through a really difficult time in 2013, um, personally and professionally, I was just winning at so many things, but personally I was really depleted and, um, I needed to step back and re imagine and redefine what success meant for Veronica.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: And, um, During that time, I call it my jolt period, and it was how do you jumpstart, you know, your life in the trajectory that you need to Um, and be obedient, take that leap of faith and trust, because sometimes those jolt moments, whether it's the pandemic for some, whether it's a loss for another, um, or just pressure of too much, paying attention to that jolt moment and allowing it to bring you the awareness of [00:20:00] consciousness about what's going on.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: who you want to be, where you want to be, why you're there. Um, I would say to our audience to pay attention to the jolt moments, um, to afford yourself the opportunity to ask yourself those questions, um, to be okay with maybe making a different turn, um, and, uh, maybe not feeding into what others are saying.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Perceive a view of what you should do or should be. I believe those jolt moments help us to become driven. And that's what it helped me do. To define what your life should look like, you know, to reflect and recognize those gaps of where you are, where you want to be. Illustrate and chart that course.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: Validate that plan. Execute and have no option but to win at thriving in your life. And so I hope that everyone can take away this mindset of, um, being driven to thrive and defining what that means for you as a leader, as an individual, um, and redefining what success means to you on your own term, because at the end of the day, when we look back on our life, [00:21:00] on our, on our, on what we do, you know, the hope is that we have a sense of fulfillment in what we did day in and day out.
Veronica Maldonado-Torres: So. That's my words.
President Zak: Wonderful. Veronica, thank you for sharing your story with us. To our listeners, I hope you are encouraged and inspired. Thank you for listening. Thank you to our producer, Sydney Perry, for making this podcast possible. I am Leo Kadia Zak, and this is Journeys to Leadership.