meet the woman behind the brand -
Latoya H. Smith
I was born and raised in Muskegon, Michigan. The oldest of four siblings with one sister and two brothers on my mom’s side. But truth be told I’m a product of a blended family with step siblings that I consider family as well even though we don’t share the same blood.
In the 6th grade I was double promoted and matriculated to the 8th grade. As a result I graduated from high school at age 16 and college at 20.
I attended one of the best universities in the world, Michigan State University (Go Green!). I studied Business-Supply Chain Management and also studied abroad twice during my undergraduate studies. This is when I fell in love with the world and all of its cultures.
When I graduated, I took a role with a global conglomerate company called Textron. Why? Because they offered international assignments and I was able to take advantage of those opportunities living in both Montreal, QC and Bonn, Germany.
But I get bored easy and I’m always curious, so after a few years I decided to take a leaf of faith and pursue the Big Apple. I got accepted into a Master’s Program at NYU to study entertainment, media and technology. I thought I wanted to be on the business side of show business, ha! Great experience that I do not regret living in NYC and exploring areas I thought I was interested in, but let’s just say I quickly realized that the traditional Corporate America was more of my playground.
After graduating from NYU, I joined General Motors and moved back to Michigan to be closer to my then boyfriend now husband and family.
11 years and 9 roles later, primarily within sales and marketing, I am currently the Head of Strategy and Business Planning for our GM International Operations and Chief of Staff to the Senior Vice President and President of GM International (GMI). GMI includes all markets outside of North America and China, which is 60 countries and about a million vehicles sold across those markets. I love what I do and I love the company I work for. I travel the world, meeting our teams, governments, dealers, business partners from different countries to improve our business and market share.
Now that’s me in a nutshell, but to learn more about my family, go to Get To Know The Smiths.
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Get to know more about me and my family through some of these blog post
