Maria Salvat is the owner of Bilingual Therapy Services. She is originally from Colombia, South America. While on a visit to Miami she was offered a job. Maria holds a Master’s Degree in Speech Pathology. She has worked in Pediatric clinics, and the Department of Defense. Through her work she has realized the huge need for her services in the area. Five years ago she decided to open Bilingual Therapy Services to not only serve the monolingual community but also the bilingual community. She is passionate about serving diverse social economic status children and their families. Although she has been doing speech pathology for twenty years, she wanted to dive into more of the business aspect of the clinic.

This year she heard about The Women’s Business Center at CEED. The program has been able to assist her in improving and developing her marketing strategy, rebranding, multi-cultural marketing and expansion plans. She was recently featured on WFNC 640 AM CEED SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT. Maria says: “Over the last 20 years working as a speech therapist I have had dreams of helping children from all social and economic standing to overcome different barriers. Although I have all the knowledge for Speech Therapy, I do not have the marketing exposure, knowledge, business strategy, or the social media presence to reach it. This program at CEED has helped me find ideas outside the box, helped me understand marketing, business, social media better. Without the guidance and mentoring in this program this path would be a bumpy ride.”

Since opening Maria has hired 13 employees’. Her employees include therapists, therapy assistants, interpreters, office staff. She will be soon launching a pilot program and hopes to hire additional staff.