Sonya

After working in senior-level management roles for over 15+ years prior in multiple industries, including spending years at The Times Mirror Company, the former parent company of the Los Angeles Times, where she held General Management roles and served as a key member of executive management for one of their subsidiaries, Caravan Express Publications where she worked for 11 years, Sonya leaped in faith, and in 2008 her first business launched, S.A.E.L. Institute, which produced a multinational professional adult learning organization that she strategically established and based abroad in Europe. Servicing & partnering with some of the biggest corporate entities in the world, from CNES Space Agency, SPGP, BBDO to working in contract roles within HSBC Assurance, ING Bank, Sopexa, Mercer Management, Guerlain, to name a few. Delivering professional development programs that were designed and led to meet the business needs of all of her clients and ensured the growth for all parties involved. This was the period when she witnessed and learned how to manage and service foreign clientele as one business entity servicing one another, negotiate and cultivate partnerships & nurture relationship management, along with adhering to foreign customs, traditions, and regulatory management guidelines.

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In 2011 her product line BOREA was born. She collaborated in helping improve the livelihoods of women who work in cooperative communities based throughout North Africa, where she traveled back and forth to, and worked on-site to know and understand the feeling of this labor-intensive product, ARGAN Oil, and to learn first-hand from the women working for big manufacturers how they would like to see and be included in the production and development moving forward, as well as it relates to their personal needs. Their stories were the impetus of developing the line and the offering of a wellness product made from nature.

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An unwavering, insatiable appetite for world travel, in 2014, the Color Me Culture Lifestyle brand was conceptualized. With her signature tagline, "Live Your Best Travel Life'', she entered the leisure and tourism industries which was no small task. Consolidating over 20 years of travels to dozens of countries, sourcing, writing, and editing content on expat living, destination travel, repatriation, home, accessories & decor, wellness abroad, her vision to help others realize their dreams seeing and doing as much in the world as possible she holds the belief that, "home protects the dreamer, but the dreamer must go out into the world to make their dreams come true". This venture grew into travel magazines, new destinations, partnerships & relationships with companies based in South America, Asia, North America, and more.

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A native of Los Angeles, California, Sonya has always associated herself with various worldly initiatives. For many years her path has been linked to connecting and building culturally diverse relationships and pioneering inclusive development projects, something that has always been present in her character. She recorded audiobooks for the seeing impaired global community with the Library for the Blind, became a project coordinator for UN Online Volunteer Program, managing development projects in the Philippines and Fiji. Volunteered with the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots Program, trained to be a Facilitator with the Pachamama Alliance in England, and worked as a Researcher with DAF. She also participated in panel discussions on Women's Rights at UNESCO.

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Built on the building blocks that she began putting into place over 25 years ago because she saw the hole, lack of encouragement, and support for pushing people to think and live outside of their box at any age. “To widen my horizons and vision to realize some of my dreams, and as the explorer that I am, I left my beautiful homeland alone, and embarked on a new adventure. I lived and worked abroad for decades." After studying psychology and business administration courses at Santa Monica College, she crossed borders, studied and received her certification in adult language training from the American University of Paris, learned to speak the French language from Alliance Francaise and other language institutions. Years later, she continued her studies in Destination Services with Dwellworks, and is certified as a Intercultural Trainer, Relocation Mobility Specialists, Supplier Vendor and, in 2021, she obtained her certification in Human Resources Management.

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Sincerely by S. is a compilation of tools, techniques, training, designs, and more. New life chapters, aging, and inclusivity challenges with the perceptions that are attached to them is something that Sonya has lived through, on multiple continents and has a deep sensitivity for. With a portfolio spreading across lifestyle living, travel and tourism, entrepreneurial business ventures, building and management diverse teams, and ownership, plus creative design she has broken down barriers to ensure that generations ahead of hers has an outlet and access to ideas to never stop growing and learning, and for the generations after hers, to be courageous, innovative, remain curious and be kind in all you do.

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“I felt the need to materialize the love I have for human expansion, potential, fulfillment, and aspirational living at any age. I created Sincerely by S, as a go-to platform and ideal place for personal, social, and professional development capacities that sums up in an inspiring and unique way the skills and tools that can be applied and implemented in lifestyle living, appropriate for any industry, small business, corporate programs to individual and personalized needs."