She was born into a poor family — her father was a family driver and her mother a househelp — but brains, perseverance and innate leadership skills propelled Analisa Leonor Balares into getting an Ivy League education that eased her way into becoming a rainmaker at Wall Street, a valuable manager who brings in business from wealthy clients.
But wanting to work toward a more inclusive and sustainable world by helping empower women and girls made her quit the corporate world in 2008 to put up Womensphere Foundation, a global organization that seeks to accelerate women’s advancement in leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship.
New York-based Balares was recently handpicked by Swiss global banking giant UBS as one of its inaugural batch of “Global Visionaries,” described as a select pool of 10 extraordinary people who dedicate their lives to projects, research, movements and technologies that have the potential to profoundly impact our lives and the society we live in.
“Analisa understands the economic benefits of higher participation rates of women in the workforce and that a holistic approach needs to be applied to women’s education and development,” said Simon Smiles, chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management.
Added Smiles in an Inquirer e-mail interview: “Analisa has drawn on her own experiences to design Womensphere’s distinctive community and ecosystem approach (and) apply it for women’s development in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) subjects across all socioeconomic classes and generations.”
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