Her first job came with Disney, where she played a role in the creation of Celebration, Florida - Walt Disney’s planned town near the Walt Disney resort in Orlando, Florida. “It starts with excellence and dedication from day one,” said Valletta of her career approach.Īfterwards, she left Keene for the University of Colorado, where she earned her Master’s of Business Administration. At Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Valletta earned a Bachelor’s in Business and graduated with a 3.8 GPA - a ‘low’ mark she still remembers for getting one ‘C’ in a choir class.
In her visit to AL DÍA in May, an older Valletta described her young self as a “nerd”. But first she had to get a seat at the table. It’s the same approach Valletta would use years later to conceptualize her idea of cultural intelligence and sell it to boardrooms across the world. “I took it as a project to educate people,” said Valletta. She saw the misunderstanding of her culture as an opportunity to teach. Nowadays, individuals rightly point out the injustice of such assumptions about another’s culture, but Valletta saw no discrimination.
“I think that was my first exposure to the idea of culture,” said Valletta. Valletta’s native Spanish was associated with nearby Mexico, but in explaining her Colombian heritage, she was immediately associated with the “narcos” she escaped. Her presence was also a culture shock for those from the small Texas town. “Talk about a culture shock,” said Valletta. Valletta spent her first years in America honing her English at a small Christian school in Keene, Texas - a small municipality of six thousand just south of Dallas-Fort Worth. couldn’t have been further from her home country. “I didn’t know English and I came with a student visa, pocket translator, suitcase and a lot of dreams,” said Valletta in a visit to AL DÍA on May 29, 2019. At 17, Valletta was sent stateside alone, by parents wanting to keep her protected from the violence in Colombia stoked by Pablo Escobar and narcotrafficking. When Lili Gil Valletta first came to the United States of America from Colombia, she landed far from the corporate boardrooms she now operates in with ease.
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