An Interview with Susana G Baumann
An award-winning published author and multicultural communications strategist, guest speaker, business writer, and small business advocate, Susana G Baumann, MAA, MLS, is the president of Excel Branding, and founder and former editor-in-chief of LatinasinBusiness.us.
An Argentinean immigrant, Baumann started her small business, LCSWorldwide Multicultural Marketing Communications, over twenty years ago in New Jersey. LCSWorldwide offered multicultural leadership and staff development training to major pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations, national non-profit organizations, and government agencies in healthcare and education in nine states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas, and California State Libraries. A highlight of Baumann’s career included being part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Spanish Outreach Program trainers’ cohort at WebJunction.com in 2007 and 2008.
In 2014, at sixty-four years of age, and with little knowledge of digital technology, she launched LatinasinBusiness.us, an initiative that advocated for the economic empowerment of Latinas and other minority women entrepreneurs and in corporate America. The organization provided leadership, branding, marketing, advertising, and editorial services through a quality digital platform, digital marketing content, social media campaigns, and promotional and educational events. Over 850 Latina small businesses and Latinas working in the corporate world were featured, gaining thousands of subscribers in the US and abroad.
“Through this initiative, I help women accomplish their goals while avoiding the obstacles and challenges I had to face when I began my business over twenty years ago. They can lead their journey to success by taking control of their own story and networks to finally accomplish their career or business goals,” Susana G. Baumann, president, CEO, and editor-in-chief, Latinas in Business Inc, LinkedIn.
In 2019, Baumann was invited to conduct her workshop, “Speak Up! Tell your Story to Influence Others,” at the Working Mother Media Multicultural Women Summit and Latinos in Social Media Week at Google in New York City. The occasion gave birth to her second book, Speak Up! Tell our Story to Influence Others, published in 2024.
She lives in New Jersey and enjoys the NJ shore when she is not traveling around the world.
Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?
Did you know?
– Seventy-six percent of the human population suffers from glossophobia – the fear of public speaking.
– Most fear of failure comes from not knowing who we are or who our audience is.
– Chemicals like cortisol, dopamine, and oxytocin are released in the brain when we’re told a story.
I wrote Speak Up! Tell Your Story to Influence Others – A Guide to Storytelling with a Multicultural Approach to lead readers in their journey of self-awareness. Most public speakers talk about a topic but seldom talk about how the topic relates to them. Now that’s the story your audience wants to hear!
If you’ve ever felt that traditional leadership communication advice doesn’t quite fit your background or your audience, you’re not wrong. In my research, I found that personal brand storytelling was never linked with multicultural leadership communication. So, I decided to write a guide to help you build authentic thought leadership that is uniquely, powerfully yours.
With this multicultural approach to storytelling, readers are guided to find their best values, character traits, cultural attributes, and leadership skills to forge the stories that are important to them and make them UNIQUE.
Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
A book’s title should never be an afterthought. Beyond being catchy, it must reflect what’s inside. Balancing excitement with assurance proved to be a real challenge — but ‘speak up!’ captured the invitation I wanted to extend to readers. ‘Story’ and ‘influence’ grounded the topic, while ‘multicultural’ became the distinguishing word that set this guide apart from similar books on the shelf. The right title takes time, and this one was no exception!
What part of publishing your book made it feel real for the first time?
I would agree with many authors that seeing your author’s copy is the most ‘real’ and exciting feeling. Paper has a magic attraction that is hard to replace!
What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?
In workshops I’ve led on this book, participant responses told a consistent story: most said it changed how they see certain character traits and cultural attributes — ones they had never thought to value, or had even written off as liabilities to their leadership skills. The greatest accomplishment any of us can achieve is discovering who we truly are, in all our complexity, and being valued for exactly that.
What creative projects are you currently working on?
My third book marks a departure from non-fiction into women’s fiction, with history as its anchor. But the story, as stories do, found its own direction. What began as historical fiction became a social thriller set against the dark years of Argentina’s military dictatorship. Still editing, but nearly there.
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