Taína Benítez | CEO, Leadership + Global Program Developer

 
 

“I am delighted to share Taina’s work as an emerging thought leader in cultural intelligence” - Dr. David Livermore, Social Scientist, co-founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center and Author 17 books including “Leading with Cultural Intelligence.”

Taína Benítez is the founder of Teach With Love® and the creator of the L.O.V.E.® (Lift Others’ Voices Every day) framework—a research-based model that helps educators and leaders turn cultural intelligence into daily practice. Through her professional development workshops and leadership trainings, she helps schools and organizations reimagine what inclusion looks like when belonging becomes a lived habit… not a one-day training.

Her work began with a question that followed her from childhood: What would it look like if every student felt seen? As a first-generation college graduate who dropped out of high school in ninth grade, Taína knows what it feels like to be overlooked in learning spaces. That experience shaped her life’s work… to help others build communities where every voice belongs.

Rooted in more than twenty years of building communities across five continents, Taína’s approach blends storytelling, reflection, and actionable frameworks. Her workshops move educators beyond awareness toward authentic connection… teaching them how to see difference as strength, practice empathy as strategy, and lead through the language of cultural intelligence.

Taína’s professional development series invites schools to go deeper… to build systems that sustain belonging long after the training ends. Her L.O.V.E.® framework weaves together the capabilities of cultural intelligence so teams can translate values into behavior. Each session challenges educators to lift others’ voices, examine their own biases, and create classrooms and workplaces where everyone feels valued.

Rooted in her Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous Taíno heritage, Taína’s work carries the rhythm of community, storytelling, and resilience… reminding us that teaching with love is not just about what we do, but about remembering who we are. Her work has reached educators and leaders in more than thirty countries. A certified cultural intelligence facilitator and award-winning educator, she has led programs featured in national media and embraced by schools striving to align their best intentions with their daily actions.

Taína’s story and philosophy are captured in her recent interview, L.O.V.E. in Education: An Interview with Taína Benítez on Cultural Intelligence, which explores how the framework came to life and why it continues to transform the way educators see one another.

Today, Taína continues to teach with love… through every program, every workshop, every story, and every conversation that reminds us what education can be when culturally intelligent best practices lead the way.

In the words of Dr. David Livermore, co-founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center,

“I am delighted to share Taína’s work as an emerging thought leader in cultural intelligence.”

Taína holds a B.A. in Organizational Communication and a Master’s in Educational Leadership. She has presented alongside top educators and thought leaders at conferences worldwide, continually learning from the communities she serves. Her extensive cross-cultural experience spans Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where she helps leaders develop the skills necessary to communicate across differences with intention, strategy, and vision.

A proud wife and mother of three sons, Taína is also a passionate traveler and advocate for BIPOC leadership. Whether she’s advising policymakers, coaching executives, or mentoring future changemakers, her leadership is grounded in the belief that every voice deserves to be heard—and every leader must learn to listen.

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T Benitez