From Kentucky, USA, to Manila, Philippines: My HighLevel LIVE Featured Speaker Journey

I am based in Georgetown, Kentucky, USA, and was born in the Philippines. I was invited to be a featured speaker at HighLevel LIVE Manila, HighLevel's first LIVE event in Manila. Held August 8–9, 2026, at the Manila Marriott Hotel at Newport World Resorts, the event included my session, “Closing the Growth Gap: Turning Admins Into Specialists.”

From Kentucky, USA, to Manila, Philippines—this speaking opportunity connected where I have built my business with where my story began.

I was born in the Philippines. Today, I live and lead Growth Gap Co. from Georgetown, Kentucky. Being invited to bring my work back to the Philippines as a featured speaker made this milestone personal.

My journey through freelancing, business ownership, and writing Closing the Growth Gap shaped the message I brought to that stage.

I was there to share a message that matters to both the people building systems and the business owners relying on them:

What was HighLevel LIVE Manila?

HighLevel LIVE Manila was an in-person gathering for the HighLevel community, bringing together platform leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, and people building businesses with the technology.

HighLevel's official event page identifies it as its first HighLevel LIVE event in Manila and lists me among the featured speakers.

For me, the significance was also personal. My business is based in the United States, and my Filipino roots remain part of who I am. This invitation brought those two parts of my life together.

My session: Closing the Growth Gap—Turning Admins Into Specialists

My presentation focused on the progression from completing assignments to understanding and recommending improvements to a business system.

An admin may receive a request to build a workflow or update a CRM.

A specialist needs to understand what the workflow supports, what should happen before and after it, and how the team will use it.

That distinction changes the questions we ask.

Instead of starting with the configuration, we examine the business process:

• What is the customer trying to do?
• Where does the current journey break?
• Who owns the next action?
• What information does the team need?
• How will we know the change is useful?

These questions help connect platform knowledge to practical business needs.

Why I brought the Growth Gap to this stage

In my work, the Growth Gap is the distance between attention captured and revenue realized.

A company can attract interest while its internal processes struggle to move that interest forward. An inquiry arrives, but follow-up is unclear. A campaign launches, but the CRM does not reflect the next step. A team is available, but everyone waits for the founder to decide what happens.

The people implementing the system have an important role in addressing those gaps.

They need the context to understand the work, the skills to implement it, and clear authority to make recommendations within their responsibilities.

That is the connection I wanted the session to make: software tasks become more valuable when they support an understood business process.

The D.A.B.A.O. Framework™ behind the message

My presentation used the D.A.B.A.O. Framework™ to explain how diagnosis becomes working infrastructure.

What this means for founder-led businesses

The admin-to-specialist discussion matters to founders because it affects the support they receive.

If every assignment requires you to supply the full diagnosis, the solution, and the instructions, you are still doing much of the thinking behind the work.

A stronger working relationship gives your team or provider the context to identify issues and bring recommendations back to you.

For example, someone may ask for a booking reminder. A specialist can help examine the surrounding process: whether the booking is recorded, who owns the appointment, what happens if it is rescheduled, and how a missed appointment is handled.

That kind of thinking helps the founder delegate with greater clarity.

It also requires leadership. People need defined goals, access to relevant information, and clear decision boundaries.

From a Kentucky business to a Manila stage

Being born in the Philippines and building my business in Kentucky are both part of my story. Returning to the Philippines for this speaking opportunity gave me a chance to bring that experience into the room.

I came to the stage as a US-based business owner with Filipino roots, sharing lessons from the work of building businesses and helping clients connect strategy with systems.

I know what it means to start by doing the work yourself. I also know why developing your ability to understand the business behind an assignment matters.

The message I wanted to share was practical: build your platform skills, learn to diagnose problems, and connect your recommendations to the outcomes the business needs.

There is room to grow through that work—one process, one recommendation, and one improvement at a time.

How this connects to Growth Gap Co.

Growth Gap Co. is based in Georgetown, Kentucky, USA. At Growth Gap Co., we connect marketing strategy, CRM, automation, and execution for founder-led businesses.

The same principle guides that work: understand the business first, then build the infrastructure supporting its goals.

My invitation to HighLevel LIVE Manila gave me an opportunity to teach that approach to a wider community.

It was a speaking milestone with a clear purpose: share a method people could bring back to their work.

About the author

Joanna Sherrow is a Philippine-born, US-based entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Growth Gap Co. in Georgetown, Kentucky, USA. She is the author of Closing the Growth Gap, creator of the D.A.B.A.O. Framework™, and a featured speaker at HighLevel LIVE Manila 2026.