Women Who Matter Series - Sacred Fire Creative

Category: Women Who Matter

Sanna Marin: Pushing for Social Equality in Finland

“The strength of a society is measured not by the wealth of its most affluent members, but by how well its most vulnerable citizens are able to cope. The question we need to ask is whether everyone has the chance to lead a life of dignity.” – Sanna Marin

This admirable quote from Sanna Marin sums up her brand of leadership, which has guided Finland for the past two years. Marin is known for being the youngest person to serve as the prime minister of Finland when she assumed the position at 34 years old. At the same time, she also became the world’s youngest state leader.

Marin became prime minister in 2019 after her predecessor resigned. This automatically earned her and her coalition government (at the time, her party’s leaders were all women, with the majority of them under the age of 35) global recognition. However, more than the fame of such a unique position, Marin would rather be known for pushing for equality.

The prime minister had a working-class upbringing and was raised by her mother and her mother’s same-sex partner. She had no interest in politics growing up and was the first person in her family to attend university. This is where she began to develop a consciousness of politics. She became a member of the youth wing of the Social Democratic Party, which started her journey to becoming prime minister.

She was an elected official of the Social Democrats and served as minister of transport and communications. However, when the Finnish prime minister at that time was accused of mishandling a pay dispute with the postal service, he stepped down, and Marin replaced him as prime minister.

From the beginning of her tenure as prime minister, Marin was respected for her focus on policy and known for her clear thinking. Her agenda focuses on improving the country’s social welfare program, social equality, and climate change issues. Although the global media tends to focus on her being a young female role model, Marin would instead turn the spotlight on the issues she values. These are crucial issues such as equality, closing the pay gap, and pledging to make Finland carbon neutral by 2035.

“We have long been pioneers in gender equality,” Sanna Marin says of her country. “So, maybe it’s not as big a deal in Finland as it would be somewhere else.”

Sacred Fire Creative honors women who serve the greater good. We help women in business become a force of good and create a lasting positive impact, not just in their businesses, but also in their communities. Contact us to learn more.

Monique Lhuillier: Elegance for the Everyday Woman

“I am a perfectionist, but I know how to live life. When I’m working, it’s 100%. When I’m with my friends, I put everything away and enjoy life. When I come home to my kids, it’s pure joy and everything’s worth it. Every time, I really focus, 100 percent on one thing, I’ve learned how to juggle my life and I feel like now I have the perfect balance.” – Monique Lhuillier

What do Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama, and Reese Witherspoon have in common? They’ve all worn Monique Lhullier’s creations. The Filipino-American fashion designer has made a mark on the fashion industry with her sophisticated, feminine, and glamorous ready-to-wear and bridal collections.

From regular brides to famous celebrities, most women have heard of Monique Lhuillier. Her brand is synonymous with elegant and timeless feminine designs, whether in dresses or houseware. The renowned fashion designer has been a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America since 2003. Since then, she has ventured into fragrance, jewelry, and various partnerships with other brands, such as Pottery Barn.

Monique was born in Cebu City, Philippines, in 1971. She spent her childhood in the Philippines before attending boarding school in Switzerland at 15. Monique loved fashion at an early age, and after leaving Switzerland, she attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in Los Angeles. This school is where she met her husband, Tom Bugbee, who also became her business partner. Aside from being her life partner and father to her children, he has also helped her build her business empire.

She began designing wedding gowns in 1996 when she was preparing for her own wedding and couldn’t find anything she liked. Although she eventually found a wedding gown from another designer, this event sparked her motivation and interest in the fashion industry and began a successful fashion career.

Thanks to Monique and her elegant brand, women worldwide have access to sophisticated styles that are designed for a woman by a woman. Whether it is a milestone event like a wedding, or everyday pleasures, like wearing a favorite perfume, Monique Lhuillier continues to add beauty to women’s lives.

Sacred Fire Creative honors women who make a difference in everyday life. Contact us to learn how you can make a difference through your own business.

Leni Robredo: Inspiring the Philippines’ Pink Revolution

“You do not lose sight of what you believe in, you do not lose sight of the goal. You drown out the voices because there are bigger battles to fight.” – Leni Robredo

Maria Leonor “Leni” Gerona Robredo is currently the vice president of the Philippines and one of the most influential and powerful women in the country. While influence and power typically conjure up images of a rich and authoritative figure, Leni Robredo is the opposite.

It’s common for Philippine politicians to flaunt their wealth. However, unlike a typical politician, Robredo is known for being humble and unassuming. She is famous for riding public transportation even after being elected as a congresswoman. She also caught the public’s attention for changing out of her heels and going barefoot after a televised debate. Her office focuses on anti-poverty programs and has the highest rating from the government’s Commission on Audit. Even if Robredo holds the second-highest position in the government, she remains true to herself and her values.

Before entering politics, Robredo worked as a human rights lawyer working with abused wives, marginalized farmers, and other disadvantaged groups. She is a long-time champion of Filipina empowerment and gender equality.

Robredo ran for public office after her husband Jesse Robredo died unexpectedly in a plane crash in 2012. He was the former mayor of Naga City and secretary of the Philippines’ Department of the Interior and Local Government at the time of his death. Robredo often shares how she had to stop working as a pro-bono lawyer when she became a widow because she had three young daughters to support and care for.

Her first role in public office was representative of her home province Camarines Sur’s third congressional district in 2013. This was less than a year after the death of her husband. Robredo principally authored three bills signed into law in her lone term as representative, including the Tax Incentives Management and Transparency Act. This bill aims to promote fiscal accountability and transparency in the grant and management of tax incentives.

Robredo is currently in a tight race for the presidency of the Philippines. Her primary opponent is the son of the country’s former dictator, and some would say her complete opposite. Her campaign has been dubbed “The Pink Revolution” as it brings together multisectoral groups to spread her message of hope, transparency, and transformative change.

If elected as president, Robredo says she will spend her first 100 days in office strengthening the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including giving social aid to those who need it the most. She also plans to continue and expand her poverty alleviation program throughout the Philippines. Another of her main goals is to regain the public’s trust in government through accountability and transparency. Millions of people in the country, especially women, hope that Leni Robredo wins as the 17th president of the Philippines. If she does, she will bring her brand of leadership onto a bigger stage and touch many more lives.

Sacred Fire Creative honors women leaders advocating equity, societal change, and the greater good. Work with us and create a meaningful impact in your niche today.

Kamonwan Wipulakorn: A Leader’s Profile

A well-respected figure in the hospitality industry, Kamonwan Wipulakorn started her career in finance and is now a prominent leader in the Southeast Asian hotel and tourism industry. Notably, she is also one of the few female executives in this male-dominated field.

Although she has a long list of accomplishments under her belt, she is most well-known for her former position as the president and director of Erawan Group. Erawan is Thailand’s leading hotel investment company with a diversified hotel portfolio across Southeast Asia. Kamonwan was also included in Prospects Top 10 Women in Entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia.

Kamonwan’s educational background and professional start

In October 2021, she was appointed Managing Director of Bound and Beyond Public Company Limited (BEYOND). She is also Vision CEO of business investor One Origin and an independent director of Star Petroleum Refining Public Limited, a leading producer of petroleum products in Thailand.

She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and obtained her MBA from Western Illinois University in the USA. Even after these accomplishments, she didn’t stop learning and continued to pursue self-development. She also attended the Certificate Harvard Executive Program in Harvard Business School and the Certificate Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University. Her impressive educational background is a testament to her dedication to continuous learning and improvement.

Kamonwan started her professional career as an associate at a brokerage firm more than thirty years ago and has worked her way up ever since. “I’ve worked in the financial field for 15 years, mainly in investment advisory,” Kamonwan said in an interview with the Bangkok Post. “I left the banks in 2002 to become the chief financial officer of my client’s petrochemical company for five years. But I always had an interest in the hotel business.”

Joining and leading Erawan

Kamonwan joined Erawan in 2008 when she heard about the vacant position of Chief Financial Officer in the hospitality company. After she entered, she continued climbing the corporate ladder. In 2011, she became president and director of the group and joined senior management in 2013.

Kamonwan calls her management style adaptable and always tailored to the situation she faces. She left Erawan in 2018 and continued to hold director-level positions in other companies. Her current positions are Director of Origin Property PLC, Board Member of Padaeng Industry PCL, and Managing Director of BEYOND.

While she was with Erawan, she was essential in driving the group forward and spearheading its expansion in Southeast Asia. She oversaw more than 7,000 hotel rooms and 6,000 workers in Thailand and the Philippines during her time as president of Erawan.

She expounded on how she works with people around and under her management. “My style is very flexible. It’s my job is lead my team to achieve the result we want, so I can be direct and diplomatic at the same time. My other important responsibility is to build my team to succeed me, so coaching and empathy are essential in my routine,” Kamonwan shared.

A goal of learning every day

Her life philosophy of learning and re-learning for self-improvement is reflected in both her personal and professional life. She lives with the goal of learning every day because the hotel industry and the world around her are constantly changing. The only way to keep up is to be open to learning. She believes that the best way to work with uncertainty is to keep learning. Kamonwan also wants others to have this mindset, and she focused much of her attention on staff development.

Another one of her key goals with Erawan was to create and implement sustainable practices throughout its operations. She wanted to develop a sustainable platform for the group to carry it well into the future. The group also gives back to local communities and is mindful that each property should benefit the local community. From hotel construction to operations, the group made sure that locals would gain income from the project. Locals were employed from the hotels’ building phase, and some were employed by the hotels when they were operational.

A product of Thailand’s openness to female leadership

Kamonwan has also shared her experience being a top Thai executive and if being a woman affected her career path in any way. “I’ve never felt that there were barriers for women getting into leadership roles in Thailand, but I do see it is an issue elsewhere. In Thailand in general, you see more and more women given the opportunity to run organizations. We have a very open work culture and are probably in the top 10 countries in the world for the number of women in leadership roles,” she said.

It’s important to note that Thailand is one of the leaders globally that accepts and supports women in leadership roles. According to studies, women hold 37% percent of leadership roles in the country, compared to 24% globally. In terms of education, it ranks first in the world of enrollment of women in higher education. For every man enrolled in university, 1.41 women are enrolled as well.

The world can learn from Thailand’s attitude towards women leading companies and in other leadership positions. Kamonwan explained how the decision-making process works in Thai corporations. “We see diversity at all levels. But in other aspects, we welcome comments from everyone. We don’t do top-down decision-making. Everyone in the company drives the business. Every decision or project, it comes from a team, not from one person. The way we make decisions comes from the different opinions in the team, and it is always cross-functional, and everyone has the same chance to get their views across,” she said in an interview in 2019.

“This approach is quite common, especially among the big corporations in Thailand. That’s why they become so big; I believe that if the organization does not embrace diversity, it is difficult to grow. For family businesses that haven’t yet transformed into that corporate environment, it may be different. There is perhaps not so much diversity there,” Kamonwan explained.

Valuing inclusiveness

Aside from gender diversity, Thai companies value inclusiveness as well. Kamonwan emphasized that it’s more about respecting everyone’s opinion than seeing decision-making as solely coming from management. She has also imbibed this in her own management style and empowers the people around her. For example, when she was working in Erawan, they conducted town hall meetings to encourage employees to give their feedback and comments to management.

Kamonwan is a woman everyone can look up to and should admire. From finance to hospitality, and from an entry-level position to CEO, she made her way to the top through hard work and an open leadership style. Even if she’s leading top corporations, she also makes time for her family. She enjoys traveling with them around Thailand and other countries.

Openness, continuous learning, self-improvement, and flexibility are recurring themes in Kamonwan’s life. Because of these admirable traits, she has led teams of thousands of people to success and continues to be a prominent figure in the hospitality industry. She has made it to the top through the combination of all these traits. “All people make mistakes, but we should not repeat our mistakes. Life should be a process of improvement,” Kamonwan mused. Indeed, these are wonderful words of wisdom from a great leader showing the world how life should be done.

Sources:

Bangkok Times

Grant Thornton

Business Times

Maria Ressa: First Filipino Nobel Peace Prize Awardee

When Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines in 2016, he waged a violent war on drugs that instantly caused deep divisions in the country. Some people agreed with his tactics, while many others considered his so-called war inhumane and unjust. Rappler, a leading digital-only news site led by Maria Ressa, was among those who reported about and spoke out against this drug war.

Who Is Maria Ressa?

Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa is the CEO and co-founder of Rappler. A long-time journalist, she was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila and then in Jakarta for more than a decade. She also held the position of senior vice-president of ABS-CBN’s multimedia news operations. Before Duterte orchestrated its shutdown, ABS-CBN was the largest news organization in the Philippines.

After working for CNN and ABS-CBN, Maria co-founded Rappler in 2012. Since then, Rappler has built a reputation for leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines, with Maria at its helm. Because of Rappler’s criticism of the Duterte government, Maria has been arrested and charged with several crimes, including cyber-libel. This cyber-libel case and how Maria fought against it caught the attention of the world.

Nobel Peace Prize Among Ressa’s Growing List of Accolades

As Maria continues to spotlight press freedom and how the Philippine government tries to curtail it, her list of accolades continues to grow. She was Time’s Person of the Year in 2018. In 2019, BBC included her in its list of 100 most inspiring and influential women of that year. She also made the 2020 Bloomberg 50 list. And she was the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary, “A Thousand Cuts.”

In 2021, Maria was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The other journalist awarded is Dmitry Muratov of Russia. Maria is the first Filipino to win this acclaimed honor. It was given in recognition of her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” The last time a journalist received a Nobel Peace Prize was in 1935.

Ressa’s Court Battles Continue

Even today, Maria faces criminal charges in the Philippines. In June 2020, the Philippine courts found her guilty of the cyber-libel charge. However, the country passed its cyber-libel law long after Rappler published the article in question. She still has several tax and securities cases pending in local courts.

“I hope today’s Nobel Peace Prize 2021 award will remind the authorities in the Philippines, Russia, and around the world of the need to respect journalists and journalism. Independent journalism holding power to account has never been so important,” Maria said.

Recently, the Philippine Court of Appeals has granted Maria overseas travel after subjecting her to hold orders for the last couple of years. She will be delivering a series of lectures at the Harvard Kennedy School in Boston. However, she will return to Manila in December. To attend the awarding in Oslo, Maria would need to file new travel requests before the courts handling her seven pending cases.

As one of the newest Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Maria continues to inspire people around the world. Whether you see her as a journalist, a woman, or an Asian, her story is worth commending. How she fights for the truth and stands up to injustice demonstrates her strong character, worthy of our admiration.

1 23