On October 27, 2021, I was privileged to attend a webinar hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) of the Philippines, entitled “Striking Stereotypes: The Rise of Women Leadership”.
The first speaker, Mariels Almeda-Winhoffer, is currently the Vice President and Global Managing Director of IBM. As such, she is responsible for the operations of IBM and Cisco across all geographies, focusing on IBM-Cisco’s overall success by bringing the best of IBM to deliver on the promise and commitment as Cisco’s trusted partner. She joined IBM in 1985, where she held several roles in technical, services, and sales management. Her key roles include Vice President for the Industrial Sector, Business Development Leader for Global Technology Services, Strategic Outsourcing Sales and Services Executive Leader for Electronics, Aerospace and Defense and Automotive Accounts, President of IBM Philippines, and General Manager of Global Business Partners for Asia Pacific. In 2009, she was recognized as one of the fifty outstanding Asian-Americans in business. In 2012, she became the first woman to hold the highest post in the Philippine office of IBM and has been recognized for her industry leadership, deep client insights, business development, strategic partnership, global experience, and overall outstanding leadership skills. Mariels holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Computer Science from Fordham University. She is married to Ernest Winhoffer and has four children.
Mariels introduced herself by sharing that she is a proud Filipina, born and raised in the Philippines. She went to Assumption College (which made me even prouder because I went to the same school) then moved to the United States for her college education at Fordham University. She landed her first job at IBM and has been with the organization for 36 years.
Wanting to give context to how women have been progressing in the industry, she shared that she’s going to focus more on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) opportunities for women leaders and how important this is for the future. She explained that more than half of the workforce are women; however, only 27 percent of them hold careers in the world of STEM. She cited that 80 percent of STEM careers are primarily computer and engineering-related and she believes that it is in this space that women are underrepresented, which has a lot to do with some of the perceptions she shared.
The STEM workforce accounts for about 7 percent of the overall occupations in the U.S. She further explained that women are progressing in the area of social sciences (careers in political science, sociology, and psychology) and believes that we are moving in the right direction. In recent years, we have seen some improvements in the world of STEM as female representation has improved from 8 percent to 27 percent. While this is a good sign, she said that it’s not enough. There are still some perceptions that are causing some level of hindrance as to why women are not advancing in the world of STEM.
- Employees prefer to work for men. There is still a sense of bias going on. Some may have preferences of working for a male than a female leader.
- Male leaders tend to be unwilling to share responsibilities with women. This is a bias that is not only found in the society’s perspective, but even among organizations.
- Women tend to prefer to be second-in-command and opt to handle secondary sets of responsibilities.
Mariels shared that IBM has this culture of diversity and inclusion that allows women to be empowered and take on bigger roles and responsibilities. Part of the management’s deliverables is ensuring that they are hiring a diverse group of people in the organization. They have had an extremely targeted set of hiring process, but they would really look for women talents. Mariels believes that this is part of the reason behind the success and progression of the company.
Available studies prove that gender equality drives sustainable growth. IBM participated in surveys, which showed that organizations that focus on diversity and gender equality actually perform better and are 61 percent more productive than others. She explained that when you have a diverse group of employees, it creates and stirs some creativity, innovation, and openness that results to a higher level of competitiveness for the entire organization.
Mariels shared that, at IBM, she co-chairs a council where they promote the hiring of Asian women talents. They offer programs that drive technology skills and provide students with the opportunity to be hired by IBM. Other organizations around the globe joined this program, as well. In the Philippines, ongoing programs in Taguig and Cebu drive education and skills that focus on STEM. Fifty percent of the students are women. This is one progressive approach of encouraging women to pursue the STEM career path.
Mariels shares she started in the Finance Department of IBM, moving across several departments. She shared that she had the opportunity to actually build systems, one of which was the AS400. Based on her personal journey, she believes that it’s still a man’s world out there, especially in the technology and information systems industry. And aside from being Asian, it was also difficult for her to articulate exactly what it was that she wanted despite knowing her job and exactly how to do it. She realized that, in the long run, if one wanted to be recognized in any organization, one has to know her value proposition. “Who are you and what do you want to be known for?” This is all part of this career progression that she experienced in IBM.
The second speaker, Maan Mariano, is the Vice President of BDO Unibank for the European and Middle Eastern regions. She is responsible for expanding the presence of the bank in the territories she serves. She did not prepare any presentation, but just wanted to share a story.
There was this little girl who grew up in a traditional family dominated by women. As she was growing up, it was inculcated in her that the measure of a woman’s success is her ability to raise good children and that starting a career on her own is close to impossible because there will never be a balance between family and career. She was raised knowing that it was the man’s responsibility to work for the family and the woman’s responsibility was to run the household and take care of the children. She was trained to never argue and stand for her beliefs, especially with elders or male figures. This girl applied the same principles in her life until she had her own family. So many people would ask how a woman can navigate her way into the financial world, which is dominated by men.
Maan believes that women tend to sell themselves short and not plan for their future due to lack of confidence. Women lose a clear vision of what they really want to achieve in life mainly because of how they were raised. She shared that women have to play an active role in continuing to develop themselves and evolve. She is a graduate of Human Resource Management and so, when she entered the banking industry 24 years ago, she had zero knowledge in financial modeling. And because her responsibilities involved financial modeling and credit training, she had to get a mentor in the organization and enrolled herself in training courses and certificate studies. In other words, she made it her responsibility to learn. She emphasized that we always have to find opportunities to improve. She further added that men do not always have to be women’s competition. In fact, they can also become allies in creating a more diversified world. Women also have to remember that they have that superpower of showing empathy, nurturing ability, and the passion to be whoever and whatever they want to be.
The third speaker is the first Filipina General Manager of an international hotel brand in the Philippines. Anna Liza Vergara joined Marriott International more than 27 years ago, working her way up the ranks to become Manila Marriott Hotel’s Resident Manager in 2009. She currently holds the position of General Manager and oversees the operations of Sheraton Manila Hotel since its opening in 2018. Despite being in a predominantly male world, she continues to advocate for women empowerment.
Anna shares that she is a graduate of the University of the Philippines. Having a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Administration, her career path is really focused on this space. She started her career at the Hyatt Regency Manila, where she stayed for a year and a half. She was then hired by the New World Hotel as acting front desk supervisor, where she stayed for 15 years. She then had a boss who told her that she had to learn how to push herself. That was when she grabbed opportunities to learn more about her job. She left New World as an executive reporting directly to the GM. In 2009, she joined Marriott Manila as opening resident manager. Nine years later, Sheraton Manila hired her.
Anna shared that throughout her journey, she realized that the positions she held were normally just offered to male or foreign employees. But because of her passion and love for her job and the opportunities that opened, she was able to land these positions that led her to her current seat as the general manager. She also gave credit to the people who believed in what she was capable of doing. These people were all willing to break the status quo, to give her a try and stop stereotyping. Anna said she believes she was at the right place, at the right time, and with the right resources to back her up.
Key Takeaways
I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to witness distinguished women leaders talk about their personal journeys in climbing the ladder of success. Being a woman myself, balancing life as a single mom and an executive search professional, I found this webinar to be extremely refreshing and empowering. Having listened to how these women have navigated their way through the predominantly male spaces they’re in made me realize that we can do it if we believe in our own capabilities. We should believe in what we can do and give whatever we can to accomplish these goals. In this man’s world, we should know our value proposition and communicate with impact. We should not let anyone define who we are. Instead, we should let others see that despite all the perceptions and biases still going around, we still hold special powers to reach the top and lead organizations.
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