The Filipina Leader in a Male-Dominated Industry

"You have to be really clear on what it is that you want. It's your choice and whatever it is, own it."

- 

You have to be really clear on what it is that you want. It's your choice and whatever it is, own it.

This is the advice of Karen Co-Elmido, RMC Category Director at JTI Philippines, to women. She speaks from experience. After giving birth to her daughter, she made the decision to stop working to focus on her family. It was the first break she took from the corporate world in 12 years since she graduated from college.

For the next two years, Karen was a full-time mother and wife.

"For a time, I was worried it was going to be hard to go back to the corporate world," she reveals. Recruiters told her that it would be a challenge finding job opportunities because of the two-year gap in her resume. "If I had listened to them, I wouldn't have tried to re-enter the corporate world." She sought employment opportunities herself and after a chance encounter with a former colleague, she was back in the office.

SHIFTING INDUSTRIES

Her pre- and post-break employers couldn't be more different from each other in terms of products and consumer profiles. The first was skewed towards women and children, while the current is an established name in the male-oriented tobacco industry.

The scopes of work, however, are generally the same. A lot of math, crunching numbers, data analysis, and problem-solving. The BS Management Engineering graduate from Ateneo de Manila University is still firmly in her element.