Speaking & Global

An introvert turned international speaker™.
A first-generation professional who learned to navigate two cultures.

Oscar Garcia brings lived experience, heart, and practical insight to conversations about AI, workforce development, entrepreneurship, career mobility, leadership, and economic opportunity.

His perspective was shaped long before he ever stepped onto a stage — as a first-generation college student, a first-generation professional, a bilingual son navigating two cultures, and someone who had to learn how to recognize and communicate his own value before helping others do the same.

Today, as Founder & Chief Empowerment Officer of Aspira Consulting, Oscar helps audiences see their human capability differently — and use what they already carry to take intentional action and puruse opportunity.

U.S. Department of State Speaker selections

Countries

Continents

75,000+

Students & professionals reached

The Story Behind the Work

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not. Leadership expands opportunity.

This work is personal to Oscar.

His parents had less than a middle-school education. Growing up as a bilingual Mexican American navigating two cultures, he often felt caught between two worlds. In the United States, he was told that he was “too Mexican.” In Mexico, “too gringo.”

He became a first-generation college student and later a first-generation professional without an academic and career roadmap for navigating higher education, corporate life, professional expectations, or career advancement.

For years, experiences such as bilingualism, cultural difference, family responsibility, adversity, resourcefulness, and moving between worlds could feel like things to overcome.

Eventually, Oscar began to recognize that his experiences had not simply been obstacles. They had also developed capabilities.

Those lived experiences had developed capabilities.

Translation. Critical thinking. Communication. Adaptability. Cultural awareness. Relationship-building. Resourcefulness. Courage. The ability to read a room, solve problems, and connect across cultures.

This realization changed how Oscar saw his own story — and eventually became foundational to his work with first-generation and nontraditional learners.

The question became less about what people lacked and more about whether they could recognize the value they already carried, communicate it, and turn it into opportunity.

How Oscar Connects

Start with lived experience. Then move to action.

Oscar does not approach AI, careers, entrepreneurship, or leadership as abstract subjects.

He begins by connecting with your heart first, before connecting intellectually.

Identity. Family. Fear. Ambition. Work. Belonging. Culture. Opportunity. The experiences people bring into the room before anyone gives them a title, credential, or invitation.

Story creates connection. But connection is not the finish line.

Oscar challenges audiences to ask what they can do differently with what they have experienced — how they communicate their value, use technology, build relationships, navigate change, create opportunity, or make opportunity possible for someone else.

People should leave feeling seen — and equipped to move.

Speaking Topics

Three forces shaping economic opportunity.

AI & the Future of Human Capability

Human Capability in the AI Era

AI matters. But Oscar’s focus begins with people: how they move from AI literacy toward fluency and agility while strengthening judgment, creativity, adaptability, professional value, and responsible use.

The goal is not dependence on technology. It is stronger human capability in a world where the tools will keep changing.

Workforce Development & Career Mobility

From Career Readiness to Career Mobility

Education and training matter. Preparation matters. But learners still have to convert what they know, what they can do, and what they have lived into movement toward opportunity.

Oscar helps audiences rethink career development around professional identity, relationships, career assets, opportunity translation, and the institutional conditions that help people move.

Entrepreneurship & Economic Opportunity

Turning Capability Into Economic Opportunity

Oscar grew up around entrepreneurship before he had language for it — working in the family butcher business, selling, building relationships, solving problems, stretching resources, and creating value.

His entrepreneurship work explores how lived experience, resourcefulness, relationships, technology, and problem-solving can become entrepreneurial capability and economic opportunity.

Published Thought Leadership

12 Life & Career Skills That Go Beyond the Classroom™

A First-Gen Guide to Thriving in Life, Leading with Purpose & Building a Legacy

From ESL student to author, global speaker, and founder.

Oscar still remembers being pulled out of class for ESL support and feeling embarrassed, different, and unsure of where he belonged.

He never imagined that those experiences — or weekends working with family, navigating two cultures, translating, adapting, failing, rebuilding confidence, and figuring out professional life without a roadmap — would one day become part of a book.

12 Life & Career Skills That Go Beyond the Classroom™ grew from that journey.

Part memoir, part mentorship, and part practical guide, the book speaks to first-generation students and professionals who have questioned their belonging, carried the weight of expectations, or tried to succeed while moving between cultures, responsibilities, and identities.

At its core is the same belief that runs through Oscar’s speaking and Aspira’s work: the experiences people sometimes learn to minimize can contain skills, wisdom, relationships, and capability that matter in work, leadership, and life.

Explore the Book →

Global Perspective

A personal story that travels across cultures.

The places change. The cultures change. The economic and institutional contexts change. But many of the human questions remain familiar.

How do people recognize their own value?
How do they navigate systems they did not design?
How do people adapt without erasing who they are?
How does knowledge become action?
How do technology, work, entrepreneurship, relationships, and education become pathways toward greater opportunity?

These questions have helped Oscar connect with students, entrepreneurs, educators, business leaders, and policymakers across very different contexts.

Through the U.S. Department of State’s U.S. Speaker Program, Oscar has been selected 16 times, with engagements contributing to work that has now reached audiences across 19 countries and five continents.

The value is not simply where Oscar has traveled. It is the repeated opportunity to translate complex ideas across cultures — while listening closely enough to understand how context changes the conversation.

Global Visual Story

The work, not the travel.

Different rooms. The same commitment to human connection and practical value.

Audiences

Colleges, universities, and education systems
National and regional associations
Workforce and CTE networks
Entrepreneurship and economic-development organizations
Foundations and conveners
Employer/education collaboratives
Government, international, and public-diplomacy audiences

Formats

Keynotes
Executive briefings
Professional learning
Strategic convenings and moderated conversations
Conference sessions
Workshops

The content and format adapt to the audience. The heart and the human-centered approach remain unchanged.

Global Insight. Institutional Relevance.

What Oscar learns around the world comes back to the work at home.

Oscar’s international work and Aspira’s institutional work inform one another. It expands his perspective on human capability, AI adaptation, entrepreneurship, culture, language, education, workforce change, and economic opportunity.

Aspira’s work with institutions and learners keeps those ideas grounded in real implementation challenges: what people need, what institutions can reinforce, what evidence matters, and what helps learners actually move.

Global perspective informs the work. Institutional practice sustains it.

Explore Career Mobility →

Bring heart, practical insight, and a globally informed perspective to your audience.

Whether the conversation is about AI, workforce development, entrepreneurship, career mobility, leadership, or economic opportunity, Oscar starts by understanding the audience, the context, and what would make the experience useful.

The goal is not simply a memorable hour. It is a conversation people can connect with — and carry forward.

An introvert turned international speaker™.A first-generation professional who learned to navigate two cultures.