No Stranger to Challenges, Committed to Making Changes…
While born in Madrid, Spain, to American parents, Diva Verdun grew up in a small community in Fort Worth, Texas. The eldest daughter of two, she grew up under parents with high ideals and astute business savvy. No stranger to challenges, she has struggled through tremendous odds, endured life as a battered woman, and survived the mental and financial anguish of a single parent on welfare.
While attending the University of Houston, she studied Graphic Communications and Business Technology until her father was killed in a horrible car accident during her junior year, causing her to abruptly quit school only 9 hours shy of graduation. The grief of his loss pushed her into a deep depression riddled with self-doubt that would later prove to be a twenty-year life struggle with grief, low self-esteem, and co-dependency which placed a severe strain on her relationship with her mother.
Plagued with low-self esteem and fear, her life moved from domestic violence, welfare, and family issues, to poverty and homelessness. After suffering a near-fatal blow to her face, she sustained a triple compound fracture resulting in reconstructive surgery. While recuperating from the surgery, and on the brink of suicide, she found the strength to seek a new spiritual path which would become a powerful journey of awakening and self-discovery that would lead her to a unique formula for self-mastery and elevated self-esteem.
In search of her own career path, she got her real estate and life insurance licenses and even studied for the National Association of Securities Dealers Series 7 exam. As an investment banker, she climbed to the level of Vice President of Sales and Business Development at a business acquisition firm in Irvine, CA, but would later leave this position to form the National Alliance of Black Entrepreneurs. Motivated by the devastation and civil unrest, which erupted after the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles, California, she used the National Alliance to assist in the rebuilding and resurgence of small minority-owned businesses. By sharing business principles, resources, and networking opportunities for minorities and women, this would encourage them to start a business or expand an existing venture.
She developed a business manual and seminar entitled, ‘Vital Keys for Business Survival’, created a national minority business newsletter entitled, ‘Focus on Minority Business’, lectured and counseled with women on welfare, and developed alliances with Fortune 500 Corporations. She also developed programs with banking institutions to reduce loan criteria for minorities, held procurement instructional courses for responding to minority RFPs in conjunction with Walt Disney’s MBE director, and developed a seminar entitled ‘A Cultural Time Capsule: How Our Ancestors Were Exploited for Their Entrepreneurial Talents’.
Diva’s love for business development would foster her own entrepreneurial interests resulting in the co-development of the first and only environmentally friendly perfumes and colognes created from human DNA genetic codes. Under her leadership as Chief Development Officer, My DNA Fragrance has been featured on the Tyra Banks Show, the Today Show, BBC, Newsweek International, E! Entertainment, People, and Wikipedia.
Her entrepreneurial interest has also spilled over into film and entertainment. She is one of the executive producers for the feature film, Eye See Me, a true coming-of-age story about an at-risk youth that changed his life and became a bounty hunter for the FBI. Diva is an ordained metaphysical minister, practitioner, and holistic success coach, and holds degrees from the University of Sedona. She is the CEO of Dr. Diva Ph.D. and the visionary founder and Executive Producer of the DivaStyle™ Intensive, which she formed to elevate self-esteem in young women through self-mastery, personal development, and holistic life empowerment training.
Entrepreneur Magazine acknowledged Diva as an “Entrepreneur with a Dream”. She has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times, the NY Daily News, CNBC, MSNBC, the Chicago Tribune, and many radio and television broadcasts to her name. She has appeared as a guest speaker and trainer at various career trade shows, business networking functions, organizations, and churches. She has been honored by the NAACP in tribute to Women Serving the Community. She was acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau for her work in recruiting and employing the highest number of people in a socio-economically challenged community. Diva co-organized the first and only simultaneous International Multi-Rally for Barack Obama entitled, One Voice for Change Across America, in April 2008. It included 58 international cities from Zurich and Milan to Los Angeles and New York City.
Diva’s unique delivery and presentation style combine entertainment and interactive mediums to engage participants in their illumination and transformational process. She is available to train in the areas of team building, holistic leadership, youth development, entrepreneurial development, and domestic violence, and her signature presentation: Live Your Power through self-awareness, self-mastery, and personal accountability.
