IN THIS day and age, women are no longer thought of as purely meek, weak, and submissive. Difficult times call for a change in life perspective thus also changing the way women behave in attaining their goals and in living their lives generally.
Twenty Something just had a two-week hiatus but we return now with more interesting topics that people in their 20s and early 30s can surely relate to. Last Tuesday, May 4, 2021, we invited women bosses Anna Angelica “Bunchy” Sotto-Go, proprietor of Anna Co. Cosmetics (among others) and Krishna Mae Subaldo, brand owner of Toni & Terry. Both coming from different backgrounds and journeys in business and in life, one common thing about these women bosses are the challenges they had to conquer.
Krishna, for one, is a Nursing graduate from the Notre Dame of Marbel University. She is the eldest daughter and the untimely death of her mother has prompted her to stand as co-parents to her siblings. “Napilitan akong mag-mature bigla because may responsibility ako sa family ko,” Krishna shares.
She came from a generation whose trendy college course at the time was Nursing but with the situation of her family, she knew being a starting nurse will not help their finances. And so she started selling anything she could ever get a hold of. It was not easy at first, she even experienced getting scammed in one of the great scams that happened in Mindanao. But she still pushed through. Learning her lesson, she decided it should not happen again and that the best thing she could do at that moment is to move forward.
As for Bunchy, life has put her in different situations that tested her skills and her capacity. She worked in different fields including as a flight attendant for an international airline. “Right after I left my job as a flight stewardess in Qatar Airways, I didn’t know what to do,” shared Bunchy. But this did not leave her doing nothing. In fact, she took different jobs related to sales and marketing, dabbled on a few businesses here and then, before she decided to come up and start her own product line: Anna & Co. Cosmetics.
It wasn’t easy for the both of them. They had hardships along the way. Krishna’s father died in 2016 and so the responsibility to take care of the family grew but by then she had also grown to be the strong, independent woman that she is now. Toni & Terry’s products have now reached all regions in the Philippines and other countries such as Japan, UAE, UK, Dubai, and many others.
Bunchy, on the other hand, shares the rigorous process she had to go through to perfect the formula of her cosmetic and skin care products. It took her a year for the research and development. But as they say, there’s no easy way out to success. And they take every challenge with a brave and resilient heart for themselves and for their family.