Cartier honors Filipina working at helping with student loans

A FILIPINA entrepreneur rose to the occasion and spoke at a gathering for the Cartier Women’s Initiative at the National Gallery in Singapore during International Women’s Day on March 8.

For the past 15 years, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has brought together a diverse community of 262 women impact entrepreneurs from 62 countries who are tackling a range of social and environmental issues. The Cartier Women’s Initiative is an annual international entrepreneurship program that aims to drive change by empowering women impact entrepreneurs. Founded in 2006, the program is open to women-run and women-owned businesses from any country and sector that aim to have a strong and sustainable social and/or environmental impact. Cécile Naour, CEO, Cartier Southeast Asia & Oceania, said during a press conference streamed online, “So far, 262 women from 62 countries across diverse industries and regions have received more than $6 million in support.”

“We strongly believe that empowering women improves the world and makes it ,” said Ms. Naour. “When women thrive, humanity thrives.”

Carmina Bayombong, CEO and co-founder of InvestEd, is the 2019 Laureate (winner) for the Southeast Asia & Oceania Regional Award and the 2021 First Runner-Up for the Impact Award in Creating Opportunities from the Cartier Women’s Initiative. InvestEd helps finance higher education for students from low-income families in the Philippines.

She said that her parents broke out of poverty by earning their college degrees, and while in university, saw fellow students drop out due to the lack of resources to go on with their education. “Higher education is such a powerful tool for success — but not everyone has access to it,” said Ms. Bayombong, speaking from the Cartier Women’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai.

According to her profile on the Cartier Women’s Initiative page, “InvestEd uses its landmark invention, a data-driven success model, to predict and mitigate a young person’s life risks. In addition to traditional factors, InvestEd considers elements such as the likelihood of teen pregnancy, barriers to quick post-graduation employment, and impediments to salary negotiation such as low self-worth… The company assigns a success coach to help the student address risk factors, mitigating exposures traditionally associated with student lending.”

“That intervention, financial resources support plus emotional and coaching support is so powerful in lifting and empowering… families out of poverty,” said Ms. Bayombong. According to her, 50% of their students are the first in their family to attend college. “At the root of our existence is reducing inequality through the power of higher education.” After getting their first job after graduating with the help of InvestEd, the students’ families’ average income increase was at 117%, she said. “When we scale this thing, we’re actually going to be empowering entire communities and entire countries towards progress.”

Ms. Bayombong spoke about her experience in joining Cartier Women’s Initiative. “I literally had no expectations of getting in,” she said, citing that 2,000 other businesses had applied to join in 2018. “My perception of myself as an entrepreneur prior to Cartier — I was just a female entrepreneur who was very small, in the Philippines.

“I realized that I could actually be an entrepreneur who could really build a global business. For me to realize that my potential was that much, I had to go through that program and be told by successful women entrepreneurs that I had that potential. I would never have believed it for myself,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Naour said, “We are here — you, me, everyone here around the tables — to support these women, to connect them, and to give them visibility.

“We will continue to connect women entrepreneurs to the right people, the right organizations… and support their individual journey and be part of a global community of positive change,” she said.

The next call for applications for the Cartier Women’s Initiative will open on May 16 and close on July 14 for the 2023 edition. — JLG