MEET OUR CHIEF ELEVATE-HER OFFICER

Hi, I’m Anna Marie Cruz, founder of Entrepinayship, a term I coined while leading Entrepreneurship Training Programs in 2014 within the Los Angeles Filipino and Filipino-American community.

I have always been a believer in entrepreneurship as a mechanism to control one’s destiny, but it was a microenterprise consulting project in Vietnam that revealed to me the role of entrepreneurship in empowering women, especially in vulnerable communities. During this project, my team supported the creation of a sustainable business for women weavers of an indigenous tribe with no prior entrepreneurship experience. As a Marketing Consultant, I helped bring together players in capacity building, such as textile experts, resources such as capital, and market linkages that allowed this fledgeling business to reach international customers.

From this experience I had the unique opportunity to witness firsthand the impact women can have within the family and community-at-large when they control the purse and are empowered economically. Each woman I interviewed individually shared dreams that extended beyond themselves and on to their children and their children’s children.

When I returned to Los Angeles in 2013, I sought to continue making a positive impact through entrepreneurship, specifically in the Filipino community. I became a Business Counselor at a Women’s Business Center housed at Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA), which is where the idea for Entrepinayship was born.

Guiding the mission to elevate Filipina entrepreneurs is my vision for every Filipina to realize her full potential. By bringing together our diasporic community, we have the potential to harness our global economic power and influence to support the “Whole Entrepinay” whether she is in Los Angeles (US), Payatas (PH), or Milan (IT), in fulfilling her purpose on this planet.