Author: Rebecca Witonsky

Rebecca Witonsky was the founder and president of Essential Business Planning. EBP produced business plans for companies to attract venture capital and bank loans. She created business plans for two companies that she launched herself, namely Private Equity Research which involved the publication of a Latin America newsletter that successfully targeted investment banks, venture capital, and law firms, and a private tutoring service. She has found successful investments in the US and Latin America, including the public company America Movil and the private company Mercado Libre. She also wrote business plans for two firms in the disability sector. Rebecca discovered her autism at age 36. This discovery changed her life and empowered her to help other people with disabilities. To that end, she worked as an adjunct instructor of personal finance and entrepreneurship at Marino Campus, which served young adults with developmental disabilities. She served on the board of Leadership and Economic Empowerment for Developmental Disabilities which provides entrepreneurship services to the disabled population. From 2013 to 2020, she served on the Florida Rehabilitation Council which monitors the state vocational rehabilitation system. She delivered oral presentations before the Broward County Society of Human Resources in 2015 and the Florida Rehabilitation Council in 2016 about employment issues facing the disabled population. Her educational background consists of a BA in international relations from Brown University and a masters degree in taxation from Florida Atlantic University. She currently works as a researcher and writer for Griffin Hammis Associates, a national disability policy consultancy. This role includes preparing reports on the self employment policies of all the vocational rehabilitation(VR) and blind VR agencies around the country. It also entails researching the issue of subminimum wage workshops for people with disabilities. The role also includes training to become a benefits planner for people with disabilities. She is fluent in Spanish and has an intermediate reading knowledge of Russian language. Her special interest is Russian studies and international relations, and she is planning to become fluent in Russian. She is working on a book about the Russian-Ukraine war and the Russian democratic anti-war movement. She can be reached via email at Rebecca.witonsky22@gmail.com