Devon Mitchell is CEO of DSN Energy Corporation. A competitive duathlete, aeronautical engineer, MBA, entrepreneur, and leadership expert, Mitchell founded DSN to facilitate strategic partnerships with US-based businesses, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations to provide training, mentoring, and leadership programs to the oil and gas sector in Guyana.
Mitchell’s family migrated from Guyana to the US when he was 10 and since, he has found success and a fruitful business network as an aeronautical engineer and Anytime Fitness franchise owner.
When Exxon Mobil, several years ago, discovered in Guyana one of the largest hidden oil reserves outside of the Middle East, Mitchell immediately recognized the opportunity to give back to his home country, his specific intent being to engage the Guyanese workforce and ensure they benefit from their own economy.
The only English-speaking country in South America, the Guyanese culture trends closer to the Caribbean, with British influences on education, for example. A country of fewer than 1 million, a sizeable number of people leave the country to work or study – drawing those residents back to Guyana could prove essential to engagement, and that will only be realized by creating opportunities.
From that vantage point of having first-hand knowledge of Guyanese culture and close personal connections, Mitchell decided to “look within and leverage” the skills and connections he acquired in the US to revive opportunities in Guyana. It’s a repeatable process of bringing diversity of thought and problem-solving to every country with an emerging, frontier market.
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Devon –
https://www.linkedin.com/in/devon-mitchell-038079137/
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:01:00] Wendy: We are laughing. We are rolling. And I am welcoming you to the next episode of the Global Marketing Show. The episode shot here recorded here at the EXIM Conference in Washington, DC and our prior guest, who is, a world Trade Specialist from Delaware, recommended that we talk to Devon Mitchell, who's here with me now. He is the CEO of DSN Corporation. He is a duathlon competitor and winner. He's a rocket scientist. He has an MBA, he's an entrepreneur, and he's a specialist in leadership. So, Devon, welcome.
Devon: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the great introduction. Just a few clarification, I, two things. 2019 [00:02:00] competed in the world duathlon championships in Spain. Great experience. Second thing on my intro, as much as I would love to take it, not a scientist aeronautical engineering or aeronautical technology really is helping to kind of understand all the workings of aircraft and how do we support that. Yes.
Wendy: To me that's a rocket scientist.
Devon: Okay. Officially, I'm a rocket scientist. The rocket scientist. There we go. Thank you.
Wendy: So, you competed in Madrid in the duathlon. Now you know there's a cultural thing going on here because I have done triathlons in my past, but awesome. The swim is missing from the duathlon. Yeah. You said there's a good story, so I'm so curious
Devon: to hear. So the Swim, the swim portion of it is missing a member of, I also am an own entrepreneur, owner of any time Fitness and Antime Fitness.
Eyes and one of our members came in and was telling me that he [00:03:00] wanted to work out, and so I said, well, let's figure out how we can help. And one day comes with a bike and he is like, Hey, I want to do triathlon. I'm like, great, let's, let's figure it out how to do it. The challenge was I wasn't able to leave work to go train on the swim side, so I was like, I, I just can't in the middle of the day leave and.
So he was like, he came back and he's like, Hey, how about we do a du Athlon? And I was like, well, what's a du athlon? He's like, no, swimming, so that means that you can do it with me, . So I was like, sure, let's do it. And in 2018, so you qualify the previous year for, so in 2018 we had to train and qualify to, to, to run in 2019.
And in 2018, the championships was. South Carolina. Mm-hmm. . So we packed our bikes up, we rented it, we rented a [00:04:00] a vehicle and drove down. And during the drive from Delaware to South Carolina, we bonded and it justly him and I became brothers. It was him, myself, his son my daughters. We were, we drove down.
It was really, Wow. It's so, it was really interesting from someone joining our gym to now becoming a friend of mine who's now like my brother, right? I say like my brother, but is, and we both went to Spain and competed. Oh, how so? It was cool that member of our gym was able to kind of come to our gym, experience what we do, how we help our community, and then ultimately help him achieve something that he wanted to.
So, which I, for me, I think kind of when you kind of think about accomplishments, right? I think for us, year, last two years we're in [00:05:00] 22. In 2020, he wanted to compete in do triathlon and he went to Georgia. To do the Augusta triathlon, right? Yeah. And he was training ready to go and which was so, ended up getting into the water and got a heart attack.
Oh
Wendy: no, really? That is not what I expected you to say.
Devon: Not right. So here's what happened, survived. And the reason he survived and is back at a hundred percent is because he was going. because of his fitness, right? So his doctor was like, Hey, if this is like, literally you needed to thank the folks that you go to the gym because because of your strength, you're able to recover in the fashion.
So I, when I tell you to tell you the story anyone asks me, that's for me is kind [00:06:00] of for the gym, why we have the gym, why exist for our members and our community. So, so, Get to a place that ultimately gets them stronger, right? Yeah. And for whatever, we don't know what happens, but as long as we, we believe that as we have this existence, our members providing that space for them to go to a place.
To make healthy happen is something that we love to do.
Wendy: Yeah. Yeah. Well that's certainly a global message. That's good for everybody. It doesn't matter where you live in the world. Yeah, it does not. Okay, so I'm having trouble putting together why, Carla, from our last global marketing show episode, Uhhuh
Has worked closely with you? Yes. You're, you're an owner of any time Fitness You are. You travel internationally. Yeah. But there is some hidden secret here that we're gonna pull out of you. Okay. Yeah. So what do you, what work are you doing internationally that she, uh, raves about? Gotcha. You.
Devon: So what we, what we work on internationally is in a country called Guyana.
[00:07:00] Mm-hmm. . So Guyana, the last seven years, Exxon Mobil discovered one of the largest reserves outside of the Middle East. And so we visited the country to find out what opportunities are there for US-based companies, small business manufacturers that are producing something that they can go to Guyana and, and be a part of.
Wendy: Okay. So tell tell the listeners where Guyana is located and how you got involved in that. Running a franchise fun
Devon: fitness club. Yes. Awesome. So Guyana is in South America, south of ve. North of Brazil. So connects between Brazil and Venezuela. If you've ever heard of the Amazon, most of the times we're talking about Guyana dish.
Just don't. Cuz the Amazon runs through the Amazon River, runs through Guyana and empties out into the Atlantic from Guyana. Hmm. So it starts in Brazil or Yes. And runs through Guyana and [00:08:00] empties out. In the Atlantic Ocean.
Wendy: Okay. And so how did you get involved with Guyana?
Devon: So I was born in Guyana. So initially I was, came here as a kid.
My parents migrated to the States. I was maybe 10 years old. So I had, my formative years were in Guyana. And so when I heard that oil was discovered in Guyana, I said, you know what? I've been in the US training, learning, doing so many. Maybe there sh, maybe there's an opportunity to return back home and see how we can help with the training gap, knowledge gap in country that we can kind of bridge that divide.
So that was the reason that I went back in 2019 and I've been going back prior to that, not on and off maybe, maybe about five years. But that visit was, I wanted to. How can [00:09:00] I help? How can I help bring more resources, identify places and things that we can do to help? So that's why I visited, I went back in 2019 specifically for that.
What
Wendy: a fascinating story. There's that connection to the home country. Yeah. That you've been successful here and how can you develop. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that story a couple of times before and it's. inspiring. Ah, thank you. So tell us what's going on in Guyana now with what you're doing.
So what
Devon: we're, what we're focused on is really kind of engaging the workforce and how we can help bridge that gap, right? Because we know oil and gas is gonna bring tons of additional resources. There're gonna be tons of development that's gonna go on in any country. But specifically with Guy, the, there are less than a million people.
So, Training piece or, or folks needed to kind of get up to speed with what's gonna be coming to the country is [00:10:00] going to be critical. In our view. We think it's gonna be critical. So for us is how do we help provide resources that folks can have access to and help them to kind of be a part of the growth of that
Wendy: economy as opposed to a large company coming in and taking it over and depleting the natural resources, which,
Devon: which large companies like any other company, right.
It's a, it's an emergent market. It's a frontier market. Folks are gonna go to that space and go, and we're, we're asking ourselves, there's a couple of things that we believe we add value, that we understand the culture we're from there. There's, there's a, there's a personal connection. There's a, there's a, a legacy com component, right?
So for us is whether we do it or any anyone else does it, we want to see the resources be used in the. Leverages what they have. So the question is just how do you be a part of that? Right. Right. How can you help from your vantage point? Because [00:11:00] a, a multinational is gonna look at it from their vantage point.
And, and for us, I think all the resources that go into that is going to just make it better or make it more accessible for other folks to go in and kind of understand how they can help.
Wendy: Right. So the, the population as a whole, Benefits from this resource that the country has. Yeah. So what kind, what skills or resources or what are you doing hands on the ground to
Devon: develop this?
So right now, what we are, the, the areas that we're, that we kind of look at going into country is what's needed. We, in 2020, we came back after 2019, sat down with a group, family members, friends. Acquired an oil and gas staffing company. Hmm. So we, we said, Hey, how do we, you know, how do you get a part of this?
And contacted the folks in country and it was, Hey, are you in [00:12:00] the oil and gas space? No. You need to be in the oil and gas space. Right. So prior to that, we were not, so the question came back to us was, well, how, what do you need to do? Find a partner or become an oil and gas get into that space. Two, one or two ways.
We look at, well go get training or find a partner, right? So we look at how did we help scale. Part of it is you can either go through a merger and acquisition. by a, you know, some partnership that you could leverage. Right? And we looked at the partnership route and that's initially where we engaged in looking for a company that can help to take us to Guyana.
And then realized that the initial opportunity from a partnership turned into an opportunity for an acquisition and, and so we started engaged the company and ultimately acquired [00:13:00] that. And that company is now a majority owned Guyanese investors. With the leadership being part of the folks that owned it previously that they're been doing, they're been doing a tremendous job at kind of helping us to guide through leveraging what they've done for the last 20 plus years in the us and then ultimately our goal is to see how we can pivot that opportunity to the g.
It.
Wendy: That is fantastic. I mean I just love that story and it's thinking creatively and as an entrepreneur and you know who the stakeholders are and the benefits. Yeah. So that's really good. So you grew up kind of bicultural cuz your family was from Guyana and you grew up in the United States. So what are, as you, you know, that's a real advantage as you step, you know, just aside and you look at the cultural.
You know, the culture's coming together and is it a US co, you know, who, who do you think will actually [00:14:00] come in and partner to do the oil and gas discovery or extraction? So
Devon: currently ExxonMobil and ExxonMobil's partners are in Diana. They're, they're currently extracting, I think there's about close to 250,000 barrels a day on two rigs.
And ExxonMobil has close to 30 plus discoveries in the. . So discovery was between nine to, I think it's 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Um, so there's a significant amount and ExxonMobil is doing a fantastic job working with the local economy, working with the local government and administration to kind of bring those resources to.
Wendy: Okay. So talk to me about like the cultures working together and what differences you see there, and then what language, how they're communicating all that way and how. Right. Yeah. It's
Devon: an English speaking country, the only English speaking country in the continent, the South [00:15:00] America. Mm-hmm. Closer to English, speaking culturally closer to the Caribbean, right?
Mm-hmm. So from an education standpoint, British edu more of. British kind of school system, metric system. The, there's a large diaspora outside of the country, so you think about guy having less than a million people, the diaspora makes up about close to 400,000 people outside the country. So there's a tremendous the tremendous opportunity for intellectual properties, kind of folks learning the things that they've done outside the.
How do we get them to reenter? What opportunities provide themselves for them to bring those skills that they've acquired outside the country and now an opportunity for them to do some stuff back
Wendy: home. Okay. So you're really pulling together the people that have moved from there to the United States, right.
To all
Devon: over the world. So that's our goal, right. I think some of the things is, we look at it from [00:16:00] my vantage point of, okay, I'm here. There's some things that. I'm not leaving. There's some things that I can do here in the US that can benefit folks in Diana, and I'm sure there's other people that may feel the same way.
Are they some opportunities to partner and get them into that space so they can leverage their expertise and knowledge that they've acquired outside of the us And
Wendy: how are you building that diaspora, that
Devon: community? So a couple ways we, we, we look to do that is engage the, there's a Dias diaspora unit in Guyana.
In conversations with that unit to kind of understand what are the needs and how can we help fill those, fill those gaps there. And, and just from visiting the country on a regular basis, we're looking at what, what are the gaps? Kind of what places can we add value? Can we bring some talent or some resources that, whether it's training, whether it's to some type of, [00:17:00] of mentoring, whatever opportunities that we look at.
Mm-hmm. , you know, how do we move that to Guyana? So for instance, Delaware World Trade Center. Well, there's a great amount of businesses in Delaware that produces manufacturing, that they do a lot of other jobs. That may be an opportunity for them to move and become an export or a partner with a company in Guyana.
Now you have some skills transfer. You've got some capital transfer that just by. where I live, live in the state of Delaware and the resources that are there, the World Trade Center, engaging with your previous guests or Karl Stone. Yeah. And identifying companies in our state that may benefit from that.
Oil discovery and the economic boom in the country.
Wendy: Okay. So they might, might not be from ga, but they might have an interest or be able to help that skillset in. Yeah. Wow. So you're really putting together [00:18:00] quite a collection of people to benefit the, the country, because
Devon: I, you know, we, we, I think ultimately it's learning from what we see here is that when you collaborate, right, you've got different ideas, you've got different opportunities, different options that you could bring to the table.
And just from going to school and knowing that, you know, you're working projects and you've, you've, in order for you to be successful, Bringing different ideas, bringing different people to the table. And then you now get a, you, you get a different perspective on a problem that you didn't look at before.
And now we, we say, well, is there an opportunity to do that in Guy? Okay.
Wendy: All right. And so, you know, it's really interesting when you're, when we're talking to a company about how to develop. mission that everybody can rally around or, or it's to develop a culture, you develop a mission that everybody can rally around and you're naturally doing this of how can we [00:19:00] benefit the people of Guyana by using, making sure that this natural resource that's been found benefits the country.
Yeah. Yeah.
Devon: I, I, I, you know, I, it's, it's one of those things, for me, it may be just this natural inclination. anywhere. If you have, how do you, for us, one things that we say is, you know, we, we, we, we have a motto. We say, look within and leverage. Right? Look within your network, look within the fe, the people that you talk to, your, your contacts, and then leverage that relationship, right?
So literally that's what we did. You know, after I got back in 2019, I asked the question, who do we know? What are they? , right? Let's revisit all the people, you know, look at, I've got these contacts in my phone, let's revisit what they're doing. Can they help? Is this an opportunity to my [00:20:00] interest them? Right?
Right. And that's how we found our initial kind of investment partner that kind of put our deal together was through that model of let's look within and leverage. Do we know a group of investment bankers that this may be something that they would be interested in? And it was literally within a week came back, Hey, I think we may know someone.
And we had started that conversation.
Wendy: Right? And so you leverage your duth on and your health club, and your Guyana and your MBA and your undergrad and rocket scientists. One
Devon: of our partners goes to my gym, right? One of them. What? One of them goes to the gym and the question? Hey, do you know ah, anyone in oil and gas?
Oh yeah, I know this guy. What does he do? Can we have a conversation with him? And, and literally those we, we look at. That's how it starts.
Wendy: That's fantastic. We talked to somebody earlier Jorge. On the, he, he's a podcast episode from [00:21:00] this XM series. Okay. That does clean energy. So the oil and gas burns, they capture the carbon.
Yeah. They clean it and they put it back into the system. Right. So if you want me to connect you to him Yeah,
Devon: definitely. Yeah. And all of, so for instance, all we again, that's the concept for us, right? For me it's, it's, yeah. Kind of our model look within the. Yeah. Just by us having this conversation, it's like, hey, that may be something that helps, whether it turns out to being something or not.
It, we, we, we want to build upon those relationships because we think you, you make a connection and ultimately you, at some point you revisit that and see what fruits can beer from that on both. On both ways. Right? Right. So we, we look at how do we really. Understand, here's an opportunity. How can we leverage this opportunity?
Because I may look at it from one vantage [00:22:00] point. You may look at it from another point and say, okay, you know what? In order for us to do this, maybe I just need a piece and I can go off and do that and something else you could do you. But at the end of the day, we all bring a different solution to the problem that we can now go execute and it becomes something.
It's larger than what you initially started looking at.
Wendy: So this is a global marketing show, and this is touching on something that we've never covered before. Usually we're touching on communications and translations and marketing and sales. Yeah. Oftentimes we touch in on relationships, but what you have just talked about is if everybody takes a second and looks at the relationships around them, you've got connections into all over the world with all.
Specialties and how do you leverage that when something you're passionate about and you can pull together the team to make a difference in the world. Exactly. Right.
Devon: And that's global [00:23:00] marketing. It's our look within leverage. Yeah. And in every facet that that we've done something, we've been successful.
It all came from a conversation of someone with you, right. Asking the question. I went to Spain because I asked a question. Right, right. Hey, okay, well who do we need to help? I'm sure we can call a company that sells bikes, right? ? Yeah. Hey, could you help us? Oh, sure. Well, you can ride our bike. Right. Right.
And when you're done, give it back to us. ,
Wendy: you are just the type of person that makes things happen. I love it. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. So we're gonna have to wrap up now cuz we're out, out of time and I'm sure you wanna get back to the conference. Not a problem. What words of advice would you have for anybody who's interested in exporting or uh, wants to get better at exporting?
Devon: I the, I think the, the time for small business. To export. It's, it's, it's probably never been [00:24:00] this collective organization that's focused on exporting. We say that, you know, there's been enough conversations around small businesses being the engine of the US economy. Now thinking about how do you leverage those, those same small businesses to expand into the global market?
If these, if it's the engine of the US economy and you provide the resources for them to go do that, they're gonna go do the same thing outside of the US because they're geared, that's how our small businesses are wired to perform. And so we look at how do we leverage our small business network, the folks that we know that are in those spaces.
Can we, can we ask the question of, here's this opportu. Take a look at it, tell me if it makes sense, if it makes sense, how do you, how does it make sense from your vantage point? Right? And then how do we engage Now that works out, you're bringing [00:25:00] additional capital, you're gonna bring additional resources, you're gonna bring additional talent to a solu to add to a solution, right?
To a problem. Mm-hmm. , because the, the, the way I would look at it and the way I would bring those, It definitely may not be the same way you would do it, right? But if now, if it's three or four different people looking and saying, Hey, you know what? I think if we did this, we can do that. And now it's like, Hey, wait a minute.
Let's collectively go and say here's a solution we believe would make sense for your problem.
Wendy: Oh, you're an, you're amazing. You're really amazing. I loved hearing this story. I love to thank Carla from the Delaware World Trade Center. Yeah. So, you know, I'm gonna ask this question. I prepped you.
Okay. What's your favorite foreign
Devon: word? My, my favorite, my favorite foreign word is bread.
Wendy: Okay. So tell me what that means and why.
Devon: So sore. [00:26:00] Is friend. You're my friend. You're my like, like what we would say is like, if you, you've got a good friend, what would be a word you would describe your good friend?
Like, that's my road dog or whatever. It's a, it's a, it's a slang for, this is someone that you hold near and dear to that, that that person that's your, your near and dear friend, so it's, so
Wendy: that's a guy from Guyana. Of brethren, which sounds like brethren.
Devon: Right. Which is an old English word of brethren.
Exactly. It's, it's, I love that. Yeah. And it's, it's, you're, that's the community, right? That I, I think it's part of me growing up in a village. Yeah. And in the, the village, you know, we hear the, the takes a village to raise. Yeah. Well, I grew up in that village that raised that child. Right. And so it, it it's knowing that in order for you to be successful, everyone in [00:27:00] that village has to work together at some point, right?
Right. That whether they are doing something else is how do you bring that collective into, and I think when, when I think of a problem, when something shows up to me, I'm always looking at it of, okay, how do we bring the resources around this? But it's how do you bring the village around? To create a, to create something successful.
Wendy: Yes. Yes. Well, I hope I can consider you my breadwinner. Yes. . . Alright. Where can people reach you if,
Devon: oh my LinkedIn profile? It's my name, which is
Wendy: D e D E V O n O N, yeah. Mitchell. Mitchell. M i t c h e
Devon: l l. Yeah. And email, my email. What's your email? It's Devon. D e v o n dot mitchell
dsn energy.com.
Wendy: Okay. So you can find them on, on LinkedIn, Devon Mitchell [00:28:00] DSN Energy, or at your email. Yeah. So thank you so much for taking the time and speaking with me and share your wise, sharing your wise, wise
Devon: words. Oh, thank you. Thank you for, for giving me the opportunity to share with you and your.
Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you.
