Cristina Ramirez: Finding Her Dash

Jan 1
5 min read

Updated: Apr 3

Some founders build companies from spreadsheets. Others build them from lived experience.

Cristina M. Ramirez, Co-founder and Chief Program Officer, created the DashStrom Curriculum through a series of transformative life experiences. The challenge of going from the couch to completing three Ironman triathlons taught her a lasting truth: we become stronger and more confident by pushing through struggle, persisting, and ultimately succeeding.

It wasn’t a theory. It was a belief she tested—again and again.

She Wasn’t “The Athlete”

Cristina will be the first to tell you: she was not an athlete growing up.

In fact, if you had gone looking for her in the gym as a teenager, you were more likely to find her in the back, smoking. Fitness was not part of her identity. She was never the kind of person who moved effortlessly through gym class or sports. In fact, by her 20s, Cristina was battling addiction and suicidal thoughts. Eventually, she hit a breaking point—and chose to enter rehab.

Recovery and Rebuilding

They say that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to make a real life change. After rehab, Cristina realized that she truly wanted something different for herself. She was sober, met her late husband, and became what she had always wanted to be: a mom. But though she had healthy habits, fitness wasn't one of them, and she wanted to be active with her boys .... so she began to run.

Running changed her life.

It was hard.

It demanded discipline.

She started with a neighborhood 5K where she struggled. But the feeling on the other side of the finish line? The deep sense of accomplishment, the clarity, the pride? It was intoxicating. She then set her eyes on triathlons and ultimately the Ironman.

She trained and finished three.

She felt forever changed. Tested. Like she could really do anything. Cristina says that training and finishing these elite races helped her find her dash; her inner confidence, grit, and growth mindset she never realized she possessed.

She was convinced that had she owned some of this mindset as a child, maybe she would've made better choices for herself. She wanted her boys to grow up with that dash, but they would not run with her.

It Started as a Running Club

Even at just 5 and 7 years old, Cristina's sons were into music, not sports. She worried they, like her, might miss out on the priceless lessons she had earned through racing as an adult. Committed to changing the story for them, she wondered:

If I get their friends running, would my boys run too?

In September 2015, she started a running club in her boys' elementary school in Miami, Florida.

Cristina took her 20 Run Club Kids to a local 5K race. Most of the children cried. They complained. It was hot. But then something shifted. When they saw the finish line and heard the crowd cheering them on, they sprinted to the end.

They said they felt invincible.

She knew she had hit on something. What if she created games for that afterschool program where kids had the same elements of the race: a struggle followed by a success all while being supported by a great coach.

Cristina began creating the curriculum, on the field, with the kids. It was a balance of making the games challenging enough to be meaningful AND fun enough for the kids to return. It worked. Teachers and parents started commenting that the “run club kids were different.” They were more confident. They were carrying the lessons they learned on the field into the classroom and into everyday life.

Soon other schools began to call, and she expanded the program across Miami.

Cristina had created something that was not just another after-school activity. It was a confidence-building experience disguised as a run club.

Screentime Comes Into Play

In 2018, Cristina began teaching other moms across the country how to do what she had done: build a meaningful run club business while empowering children in their own communities.

This allowed her the opportunity to see the curriculum at work across the country, and the results were the same. Children finding their dash, and taking that to all areas of their lives.

It was jet fuel.

But Cristina saw an avalanche coming. The run club was amazing, but times were changing. Screens and AI became even more predominant, and the youth mental health crisis became her focus. She needed to adapt the curriculum, make it even more powerful, and find a way to scale so that millions of children had access to it. She had to transform from a "run club" to a leading-edge company to fill the void in the youth enrichment market.

She went looking for help and soon found Dr. Ketaki Desai. Cristina immediately recognized how Ketaki's values aligned with hers. Ketaki recognized the promise of Cristina's commitment to expanding the vision beyond its grassroots start. Even more, she shared the vision for bringing the field-tested DashStrom Program to every child.

Cristina and Ketaki co-founded and incorporated DashStrom in 2024. Together, they are growing the team, building the company, and bringing in advisors and investors to help turn a powerful program into a far-reaching movement.

Resilience In Practice

Cristina is the first to admit she doesn't always recognize the resilience story of her own life. Her high school years were spent in three different continents, each with a different language and culture to navigate. She began her career on Wall Street and moved to Silicon Valley, where her early career success led her to an overseas position that felt too big for her skillset. She cofounded a non profit in Chile that still is operating today, 20+ years later. And when her sons were born, she became a preschool teacher, a move she lovingly calls "from Wall Street to Sesame Street." These experiences set the stage, and built the grit, for the ultimate transition of her life: becoming a widow. In 2021, her husband of 20 years suddenly passed away and life fell apart. But unlike the past, where something this traumatic would have led her straight to an unhealthy escape, Cristina went back to basics. Movement, nature, and practicing the same mindset skills she has been teaching children for years.

It's why she knows the new DashStrom Youth Curriculum works. She's seen it in thousands of people, and most of all, in herself.

As a speaker, corporate trainer, bestselling author of Empowered by Discomfort, and award-winning coach, Cristina has helped thousands of people — from children to CEOs — challenge limitations and uncover new possibilities. Her work is known for being both deeply empowering and highly practical.

Clients often say that Cristina changes the way people see themselves. “The training changed my life radically with a confident mindset, it changed me and continues to have a ripple effect on all my people.”

“Cristina has helped me find the inner strength that I never knew I possessed.”

That combination of honesty, wisdom, and action has become one of her signature strengths.

Cristina’s journey: from addiction to recovery, from the back of the gym to elite racing, from Wall Street to preschool classrooms, from one small school club to a company with eyes on a national presence — is more than a founder story.

It is proof of the very thing DashStrom teaches children every day:

You can do hard things.

You can grow through challenge.

And the most meaningful work always begins outside your comfort zone.