Alma Gonzalez Email and Phone Number

I have been an entrepreneur and/or senior level manager for over twenty years. One of the most important and difficult lessons I've learned during this time is how to create a high-quality working atmosphere for the group of employees I supervise. I learned early on that the key to any business’ success is a truly cohesive team that genuinely shares the organization’s vision and mission. Team building is not only where I excel as a leader, but it is also the area I most enjoy. As a team leader, I love to get results—whether it's hiring, training, or designing incentive programs for employees. In particular, streamlining operations to improve and exceed key performance indicators is what I enjoy the most. If I am organizing and focusing a group of people, I am not only doing what comes naturally to me, I am also doing what I most enjoy. I have a proven track record of building exceptional teams, during my ownership of Con Sazon, I built a tight-knit team that helped drive my business for over eight years. While at Walmart, I significantly impacted KPIs during my management of the front-end and then improved and exceeded KPIs during my tenure as overnight manager. As a Visual Merchandising Manager at Ashley Furniture Homestore, I translated my selling experience and helped create the processes to effectively and efficiently manage two metropolitan stores. Additionally, I drove the opening store team for the new Outlet store in Poughkeepsie. In 2019, I built three businesses in Washingtonville that were able to show sustained growth through the pandemic. In 2019, I relocated to the small town of Washingtonville, NY in Orange County to provide a better quality of life for my children and my elderly parents. During the pandemic, I completed my MBA and began working on my doctoral thesis: “The Living Business Plan” which proposes a method for small business owners to take their business plan from a startup framework to a useful tool for sustained growth. Business development and entrepreneurship is my passion and I have been fortunate to work with true mentors in the financial and technology fields. Most recently, I have joined the Frost Valley YMCA family as Director of Business Development where I hope to apply my experiences to furthering its wonderful mission.As of May 2024, I closed the retail stores and moved Mamba's Creations to an e-commerce platform to focus on my cosulting and public speaking work as I am now a certified SCORE mentor as well as a member of the Leadership Ulster Class of 2025.