Claudia Herrmann

I have been working with the Chamber of Commerce since 2011, and I've been in my current role for 4 years. On one hand, I am in charge of business training, so I put together programs to offer a whole variety of skills and business trainings to our community. This includes an 8-class course that we offer twice a year that I designed to walk, especially women, through the process of starting and then growing a company, with information such as writing their business plan, the legal aspects, tax aspects, bookkeeping and accounting, marketing, social media, and AI. We also have 23 skills classes that I coordinate to help women discover their creativity and potential and turn it into a sustainable business. In that regard, we offer courses like professional makeup for weddings, dessert tables for events, bakery for commercial purposes, rhinestone creations, arts and crafts, soap making, candle making, resin art, and many others. On the other hand, I help organize expos for our business community. My most notable professional achievement so far is having trained over 15,000 women online and in person to get them started with their business or helping them grow their business. I also work personally with the Mexican government, which has an agreement with Arizona State University that offers free online training for women only in Spanish. They complete a two-month course called Dream Builder, starting from drafting their business plan until they actually complete their financial numbers, how to pay themselves, how to budget their business, where to find their customers, who the customers are, and marketing aspects including social media and AI. In the last 4 years, we've had 600 women enrolled, and of that number, maybe half of them have already started their business and are pursuing it. Some of those business owners become members of the Chamber, so that's how I can actually keep track of how they're doing. I was born in Mexico City, so I attended German school until I completed high school, then studied law at university and practiced law until I moved here, and then 3 years after. I got tired of practicing law because it was same old, same old, and that's when I started working with the community. I also own commercial real estate and have commercial tenants, so I know about business because I own a business. What I see is a true reflection of what's happening - the majority of new businesses are formed by women, especially minority women. In my English trainings, I would say 80% are women, and of those, 70% are Black women.