Bonifacio Global City, March 9, 2023– Payoneer Philippines, as part of International Women’s Month, held WOMENtrepreneur 2023, an all-women outsourcing leaders meetup where personal stories, insights, and advice are shared to help empower women whose dream is to make an impact and influence social change for themselves and others.
In some cases, society makes places a stigma that has caused women to restrict themselves and opt out of pursuing their dreams.
Vanessa Janssen, President of Guerilla Staffing Solutions together with the other panelists were asked about the biggest obstacle they faced as female leaders in their career, she answered “The biggest gender roadblock we face as women is not understanding our power, our own voice, our energy when we walk into a room, these eventually leads to me experiencing self-doubts” In her early years as a leader, she believed that she needs to be perfect in every way. She instilled in herself that in order to gain respect and be viewed as a competent leader she needs to know every little thing and do everything by herself and that eventually came back to her as a self-destruct, “A feeling of self-doubt, indecisiveness and fear to make mistakes. I thought I needed to be perfect and whole in everything I did. With this came self-destruction and the inability to delegate, I tried to take on things by myself rather than look up and see the support around me.”
Vanessa learned a hard way that there is no such thing as ‘perfect.’ Through this realization, she started to view things from a different perspective and that’s when everything began to fall into place. And now instead of just relying on herself, she started to ask people for help and support. The bond and relationship inside the office became much stronger and harmonious which resulted in Guerilla Staffing Solution excelling in the outsourcing industry, “I am proud to say, that I am surrounded by many strong and independent women in our company all aged from 23 to 45, 4 of them are my sisters and another 2 are our Chief Accountant and HR Manager. They each bring so much to the table, and I have the privilege to learn from each one of them every single day”- Vanessa Janssen, President of Guerilla Staffing Solutions.
Vanessa also shared that it was her Dad who influence her to be who she is today– her mentor and role model, “My mentorships also came from our Dad, now being a father of 5 daughters, under one roof you can imagine what he had to deal with – but I am grateful to say that he always empowered us, his daughters that we could do anything we set our minds too and he never made us feel any dream was too big or too out of reach – he just said dream bigger and more.”
Finally, Vanessa advises all women who aspire to become the next generation of leaders to never let their self-doubt hold them back and to never let society’s standards dictate that they are not good enough.
“Find your voice, find your style – as unique as it may be, wear it like the clothes you wear every day and be proud of who you are. This confidence and empowerment can take you places you never dreamed of, don’t let fear, self-doubt or your circumstances hold you back in any area of your life.” – Vanessa Janssen, President of Guerilla Staffing Solutions.
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