A female Filipino executive residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been chosen as one of the 100 most influential Filipinas in the world by the Filipina Women's Network in the US, a report on Dubai-based The National said.
Mrs. Mary Jane Alvero-Al Mahdi, who started work in Dubai as a textile factory worker, was one of the winners in the category of innovators and thought leaders.
The category “recognizes women who have broken new ground in the marketplace, have delivered new and unique applications of emerging technology transforming the way people think, in the fields of sports, literature, the arts and pop culture, or have improved the lives of others by helping develop a product or service in the fields of science, engineering, technology, or medicine,” according to the Filipina Women's Network.
Nominees in that category included international singers Charice Pempengco and Lea Salonga-Chien; fashion designer Monique Lhuillier; actress Monique Wilson; and Sen. Pia Cayetano, the report on The National said.
In 2008, Alvero-Al Mahdi became the first Filipina to win the Emirates Business Women Award. A year later, she became one of the recipients of Illustrado magazine's Women of Substance award. She was also included in a coffee book featuring success stories launched by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce.
“Looking at the list of women around the world, I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really deserve it?’... It is really amazing to think that a lot of women are starting to break through glass ceilings,” Alvero-Al Mahdi told The National.
Before she graduated as a chemical engineer, Alvero-Al Mahdi worked in the Department of Environment and National Resources, particularly in a project to revive the Pasig River.
Upon graduating, she worked abroad to support her mother and four siblings in place of her father, who died just before she was set to travel abroad, according to an article on Gulf News.
The chemical engineering graduate went to Dubai in 1992 to work as a quality assurance officer at a textile company in Jebel Ali, where she earned Dh1,000 a month. Because her boss recognized that she was over-qualified for the position, he supported her move to Al Futtaim Wimpey Laboratories.
After six years of work, she was headhunted for the Geoscience Testing Laboratory, for which she now stands as the CEO.
“I started from humble beginnings. Although I’m their chief executive, my work ethics have not changed. They should consider themselves fortunate because they did not have to go through a lot of jobs to get to where they are right now,” she said. — Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News
