Today we’d like to introduce you to Valentina Gomez Bravo.
Valentina, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Since I was a little girl, I always knew leadership was part of my path and purpose. Whether it was running a lemonade stand during the summer, a “haunted house” at my grandma’s house with my cousins on Halloween or a comedy show during Christmas, having my own business and leading a team was my favorite thing to do.
I started my first job at 7 years old at my grandmother’s pharmacy promoting the products over the counter to the customers and handing out promotional materials during the summer. My first real job though was at a record label when I was 19, also in Marketing and PR; I worked with a famous boy-band at the time, so I was basically being paid to be a groupie, and I loved it! That was my first taste of working and putting together alliances with big brands.
After that job, I moved into working for Red Bull, also communications and PR, what a fun job to have, to say it gave me wings is not an understatement, I grew so much. Soon enough, I started at big advertising agencies were, of course, the clients were amazing; I was a fan of the brands and consumed most of their products so it was an honor for me to be able to put my ideas into their businesses.
Many years went by and it was an amazing journey but I felt there was a ceiling to my talent and ambition; I also felt my morals and values were starting to not match with those of the companies I worked in, so it was time to make a move. I decided to become an entrepreneur!
Since I had been a professional dancer for years already (it was my second passion and second job), I went all in and got into the performing arts business. With a group of partners, we opened several dance studios, a clothing line, a costume company, an event producer and a photography business, all built around the world of dance and performing arts. I was living my dream!
A few years after having the time of my life, I got the news from my doctor I couldn’t dance anymore, and although I kept working on dance as a business, I now had a ton of free time (I wasn’t dancing myself) and I needed to stay busy. That’s when I decided to go back to advertising and revisit my other passion: Brand Creation & Brand Building. This time, on my own terms, and Bunker +58 was born!
Has it been a smooth road?
I wish I could say it’s been a walk in the park, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Being young and being a woman always represented an extra challenge to some extent but that has made every accomplishment even sweeter and has turned out to be an asset. You just have to learn how to use your superpowers.
Believing in yourself, your skills and talent is key to waking up every morning wanting to take over the world. Also, finding some great people along the way that can support you and encourage you have also been crucial to keeping that fire lit and the machine running.
It takes a village! And to throw some other catchphrases out there to complement, that’s because there’s power in numbers. I wouldn’t have accomplished so much by myself. Perseverance, courage, honesty, integrity, empathy, and passion have been instrumental in my journey.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into Bunker + 58 – Branding and Design Studio story. Tell us more about the business.
After working for big brands for over a decade, when I started my first businesses I realized there was no high-quality top of the line work available to small-to-mid-size businesses without having to hire huge advertising agencies and pay outrageous retainers while being one more small account in a sea of bigger clients. Which is why when I created Bunker +58 I decided we would become that partner that’s missing for entrepreneurs today.
BUNKER+58 is a branding and design studio dedicated to working with influencers to grow their brand, monetize their message and make a difference in our world. What Do We Do? We provide modern brand design and implementation along with social media strategy, web design & development, and brand consulting services. We are the premier, go-to branding and design studio that works with female influencers dedicated to improving the status quo to make the world a better place.
Our values-based culture and approach to serving our clients is the heartbeat of BUNKER+58. The core values help guide three things: 1) How our company is run 2) Whom we take on as clients and 3) Who is on our Dream Team. All three must be in alignment with our company to perform at peak potential. We operate with high INTEGRITY + PROFESSIONALISM and expect the same of others. We see the BEAUTY in the world to inspire our CREATIVITY. We strive to continuously grow our INTELLIGENCE to better serve our clients. We act with KINDNESS and practice EMPATHY with everyone. We value HONESTY and QUALITY work that goes above and beyond.
We are not your average creative team, We work under the premise of generating competitive alliances that allow us to grow alongside fellow startups and enterprises that are seeking to step into a new era of marketing and branding. Our goal is to set business owners and companies with a solid and awesome brand foundation they can build on and start creating and growing the brand and business they’ve always dreamed of.
We are most proud of turning 5 years old this May and being able to say the founding team has stuck together all this time and we’ve grown to include new awesome experts and artists to it. The best is yet to come and we can’t wait to work with more amazing people in the future.
For good reason, society often focuses more on the problems rather than the opportunities that exist, because the problems need to be solved. However, we’d probably also benefit from looking for and recognizing the opportunities that women are better positioned to capitalize on. Have you discovered such opportunities?
The past year has been filled with some wins for women all over and I have no doubt we are getting closer than we’ve been in previous times to gender equality across the board but there’s still work to be done. We need to keep fighting to have all the opportunities that are available to anyone, anywhere. As women, we are “particularly well positioned” to take any opportunity we want and can come across. It is not our condition as women what can define our opportunities and who we are; it is our condition as resilient, powerful, compassionate, talented, beautiful and loving human beings what will take us to new heights in the future.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bunker58.com
- Phone: 844-928-6537
- Email: info@bunker58.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/WeAreBunker58
- Facebook: Facebook.com/WeAreBunker58
- Twitter: Twitter.com/WeAreBunker58
Image Credit:
Victoria Garcia Studios, Brianne Hardcastle Photography, Paola Marin
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