Ashley Blake

MA, Media Studies - University of Texas, Austin

BA, International Studies + BS, Print Media - Oregon State University

Cultural Detective Facilitator Certificate

Hi, hola, oi, marhaba, namaste! I am a cultural consultant, travel specialist, and location-independent entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience in 50+ countries across Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East working with individuals + teams + organizations to leverage the power of cultural flexibility to better connect + communicate + coordinate by cultivating awareness, exposing cultural gaps, and embracing difference.

Far too often, seemingly minor cultural cues – like a casual greeting, a look or gesture, a tendency – go unseen, ignored, or dismissed as an inherent conflict and this – this is where can we miss an incredible opportunity to transform obstacles into catalysts for expansive thinking, dynamic impact, and exponential growth.

Cultural competency is the key and we will unlock that door together. 

My professional background includes event production, publishing, international tourism, freelance writing, startups, bookkeeping, operations, and project management, giving me a unique perspective into the complex dynamics of logistics, communication, and decision making that businesses face every day. 

I am a certified Cultural Detective Facilitator and hold an MA in Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA and BS in International Studies and Print Media from Oregon State University with minors in Spanish and Music. I am a fluent Spanish speaker with conversational Danish speaking skills and studies in German, Arabic, and Portuguese. I am also the founder of Traverse Journeys, an adventure tour operator providing impact-focused, small group trips around the globe.  

Everyone has a journey…

My own cultural path began when I was young growing up on the West Coast of the United States, influenced by my Danish grandparents who would send me postcards, stamps, and coins from their global travels. I started studying Spanish in high school, my first glimpse of language as a door to culture and my primary region of focus as I studied and ventured throughout Latin America and Spain. 

After obtaining my undergrad degrees in International Studies and Print Media, I worked in concert and event production before taking a position as a tour director to festivals in Spain and Germany (putting those language skills to work!) and sending me to China and Canada to host clients at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

In the years that followed, I continued to dive deeper into culture through both real life experience and academia. My undergrad thesis explored music in Costa Rica and I paralleled this subject in my Masters program, focusing on music for social change in Brazil. Themes including diversity, hegemony, oppression, race and class, social inclusion, and solidarity emerged. This guided me to look at culture and society in context, taking into account the past to explain the present and holding up the mirror to consider my own subjectivity.

Through this time I continued to do consulting work in a wide range of industries from bookkeeping for wellness studios, to admin for a tech firm, to co-founding a CPG (consumer packaged goods) company in natural foods, to teaching business English in Seoul, South Korea. Not only did I gain experience in the world of startups, executives, and investors but I also cultivated valuable cross-cultural skills as I navigated business from different geographic locations and managed interactions with counterparts from various cultural backgrounds.

Both personal and professional travels continued to take me to different parts of the globe where I saw various beliefs, value systems, and perspectives at play. Some made sense; others were confusing or at times even grating. But what I came to recognize is that it’s not always about agreeing with cultural difference. What matters is acknowledging and accepting that it exists. By doing this, we learn to better respect others while challenging our own cultural conditioning and expanding our mindset.

My first formal foray into cultural consulting started in 2016 working with Sharon Schweitzer, an internationally recognized cross-cultural trainer and speaker as well as Betsy Neidel, a professional intercultural coach with a US-China focus. 

In 2017, I founded Traverse Journeys, an impact focused adventure tour operator with small group trips in 25+ locations across the globe. This is my day-to-day, boots-on-the-ground cross cultural training grounds as I forge relationships with international partners while introducing a primarily North American clientele to incredible people, places, and experiences that spark transformation. Each interaction allows me to put cultural skills in practice while I continuously gain new tools and insights that directly translate in my cultural consulting work.