If you are seeking a conference in your field or industry, there are a thousand and one to choose from. There are conferences for virtually every subject area you can imagine. Gina Rosales is a Filipino and Japanese American, and former Google employee who realized that as a budding female entrepreneur of color, there needed to be more conferences that made her feel supported and encouraged and that provided women of color the career guidance that is necessary to create a thriving business. With this idea in mind, Gina launched the Entrepinays Summit, which is “a weekend gathering of pinay entrepreneurs filled with panels, interactive workshops, mentoring, and meaningful connections.” Gina sat down with Forbes to discuss her career trajectory, why she started the Entrepinays Summit and how entrepreneurship can be fostered through sisterhood.
Janice Gassam: Could you share more about yourself for readers who may not be familiar with you?
Gina Rosales: My name is Gina Mariko Rosales…I was born in the Bay Area…second generation. My background is, I’m Filipino and Japanese American…I started working in the non-profit sector, I was a dancer, I used to run my own non-profit dance company and work in the non-profit world and then I actually went on to work at Google. Thought I’d only stay for a one-year contract and ended up staying for about seven years. The majority of that seven years was with Google X, which started off as the innovation lab of Google and then spun out into its own group within Alphabet. It focused on all of the new technology that are five, ten, 20 years out from being accomplished…I worked on with the self-driving car team and I was the first administrative business partner for that team and I managed demos, and a lot of operations for the demo team…I had always been doing events and through the self-driving car team I started doing marketing events, press and policy events related to the car…that’s kind of how I got into really doing larger scale marketing and tech events. How I got to where I am, which is entrepreneur is…I actually experienced some death in my family—a really close cousin of mine died by suicide and at the same time that was happening, dealing with that and really re-evaluating my life. I was also living in San Francisco when the tech boom was huge and gentrification was really super rampant here in the city…all of that together inspired me to start my own company…now I’m the founding owner of Make it Mariko…we’re an all-women of color event planning team, based in SoMa—the Filipino cultural heritage district, and that’s kind of the root of a lot of the big events and community work that I’m doing now.
Gassam: As a first-generationer as well, I understand that sometimes our families put an excessive amount of pressure on us to succeed. How has your background, being a Filipina and Japanese American impacted your decision to pursue entrepreneurship?
Rosales: As the generation of immigrant children, whose parents came here and did so much sacrifice to get us to where we’re at, I think our parents sacrificed so much so that we could have financial security and safety. It’s very ironic that for our generation, safety and security is important but we have that privilege of feeling safer and more secure than they were. Now we have different goals of really seeking happiness…it’s very different from our parents’ generation. When I wanted to quit Google and told my parents that I was going to quit, the first thing was like ‘why?’ You know, ‘why would you ever want to do that? You have such a great job, with the best company, they’re so flexible…it’s safe, why would you want to quit?’ They just couldn’t fathom the idea of our generation not interested in having a job for 20, 30, 40 years and just retiring. We really want to find happiness, find creativity and also really give back. It’s not just about our small little nuclear family that we want to take care of—we also want to build with our larger communities and help each other. Of course, my parents were very reluctant, [they] did their best to encourage me not to take those risks because they love me, but now that I’m four years into my business and they see the vision of what I’m trying to do and they see the impact it will make in the community…I think they’re very proud. They can feel proud while also not having to worry because they see that along with taking huge risks, we’re also being safe and I’m financially secure.
Our team that plans the Filipino Night Market here in SoMa, we actually were awarded by the mayor’s office. Our supervisor of our district chose us out of many residents to receive an award at city hall…it was so great; my dad came to city hall to watch me and he was there with his camcorder filming the whole awards ceremony. I was wearing a t-shirt that said, ‘Daughter of an Immigrant.’ It was meaningful to me because, they’re taking pictures in city hall with me wearing this t-shirt loud and proud and I don’t know if my parents ever fathomed that that would be something that we would do.
Gassam: So, tell us about the Entrepinays Summit. Can you explain more about what the purpose of the summit is?
Rosales: The word ‘Pinay’ is a general term to just speak about Filipina women. Actually, the root of the word historically was used to talk about Filipinas in the United States…this word that is so broadly used originated with our unique experiences, as Filipino-Americans in the diaspora and in the U.S. The word ‘entrepinay’ just means a Pinay entrepreneur; a Filipino woman entrepreneur. I heard about the word when I was on a panel actually. My friends lead a summit for young Pinays looking for mentors—it’s called The Fly Pinays Summit, and he actually borrowed the term from another Pinay in L.A. who also has their own business called Entrepinayship…she also does mentorship for Pinay entrepreneurs. When I heard this word, I was so inspired and I just had this lightbulb moment, because I finally found this word to describe my unique experience, as a woman of color Pinay entrepreneur…not even just a woman entrepreneur but my experience as a short, brown, really young-looking, Filipino woman has had its own challenges…I left city hall doing a big pitch…I get into a Lyft and the Lyft driver looks at me like, ‘oh are you just getting out of school?’ Last year, I planned and produced the Google Search holiday party, which was like a 5,000-person event. In terms of logistics, so much planning and I’m here at the event, leading the event and I’ve got many managers talking to me like ‘listen sweetheart’ and calling me ‘sweetie’ and it’s just like…the challenges we have to overcome…proving our worth, proving our experience…and just because of the way we look, we have ten times more to prove than other people.
That experience, finding this word…I was really drawn to building community around that because when I started my business, I only knew two other Pinay entrepreneurs that I could look up to…and that was tough. I’m so thankful to have them, and I just really wanted to have this next generation have more resources, more women to look up to, I wanted them to be able to Google this word ‘entrepinay’, and these beautiful brown faces talking about leading million-dollar companies, and see their potential. It was just kind of the next step because of the work we’re already doing…we’ve been working on building the Filipino Night Market where you’re finding businesses, cultivating them and helping them get into brick and mortars…it’s just a natural next step that I wanted to gather the Filipina business owners that we were discovering.
Gassam: What value does this summit provide for the Filipina business owners who are part of it and also the people who attend the summit?
Rosales: This is our second year…our main tagline with the event is ‘building sisterhood in the hustle.’ The root of everything we do is rooted in Pinay-ism…which basically just means a sisterhood. We tell everyone that there’s no way we can help each other in business if we can’t be there for each other as sisters first. So, sisterhood and Pinayism is the foundation of everything that we do. Once we have that trust, then we can help lift each other up to the next level of our businesses. The beautiful part of being Pinay and an entrepreneur is there’s something naturally in our culture that…we are motherly, we’re nurturing, we’re caretakers…the fact that so many Filipino women go into nursing…there’s something in us but there’s ways that we can cultivate that nurturing aspect of us as entrepreneurs as well. What we’re finding is, the women that come to the summit, they’re really interested in having the independence of running their own business and seeing their visions come to light…they’re really interested in building community. The work that we’re doing in the summit isn’t just business planning—it’s about branding and marketing and PR…we’re thinking of capitalism and the role of capitalism in our lives and decolonizing that. How can we build businesses that are sustainable and will cost us less but also giving back to the community…and also being critical of the capitalist mindset and what we take from it? And that’s been the most powerful work that I see happening in the summit.
Gassam: What is your advice for someone who wants to start a summit or do something similar? What have you learned along the way?
Rosales: My biggest fear in doing the second summit and expanding the number of attendees was that we were going to really lose that intimate, personal vibe. The smaller one, we had 130…this year we had over 250. What I realized after this year was that it’s not about the number of people that you have but the key is in the culmination of the experience…as an event planner that’s my entire focus…my entire focus is on creating experiences that matter…how you set the tone of the day…that allows people to feel safe, and feel that they can open their heart and get vulnerable…that’s something I haven’t been able to feel at other conferences…I’ve been to many, many conferences…never once have I been in a space where I felt…seen. That’s the biggest part…creating this diversity of speakers, and topics and really building the flow of the day that gives space for reflection and grounding…and connecting with people…it’s about how you make people feel.
One of our biggest success stories so far in the past two years is, this beautiful woman…who owns a CBD and wellness company called Magpie Alchemy, she was actually a scholarship recipient. We do an aspiring entrepinay scholarship and it’s like, there’s no age limit because you can start a business at any age. It’s the folks that are looking to start their business and need that leg up and give them a free ticket…she received a scholarship year one and year two…she ended up opening a brick and mortar, and at the year two summit, she spoke on a panel…she actually started her business because of endometrioses and chronic pain. She said that after the first summit, there was a woman that she spoke with sitting next to her and this woman, they ended up connecting because they found out that they both had chronic pain and…that was like her support system that she found. I was just so amazed by that. She told that story at this year’s summit and I think somebody else said that they did the same thing too because of that…that’s what matters…those are the things that matter. Those connections that are more than just mentors, those are like lifelong friends.
Article Credit: forbes