Phoenix Publishing president named one of ‘world’s most influential businesswomen’

MANILA, Philippines — Phoenix Publishing House Inc. president Maria Pilar Fatima Sibal has been named one of the “world’s most influential businesswomen” by New York-based International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) Foundation.

Sibal received the nod of the IWEC Awards Committee for her initiatives that allowed Phoenix Publishing to withstand the many challenges that her company and industry faced, including the pandemic.

She attributed her three work principles: modeling resilience, selling skills, and influencing and fostering service as instrumental in the company’s resilience.

“A strategic mindset, knowing the business landscape, and knowing when to diversify are the very key that have kept the company strong and resilient. The company is built on ‘business fortitude’. So while the pandemic has profoundly upturned lives and has caused the closure of hundreds of thousands of businesses and put many more in the brink of closure, the company’s predisposition to openness and the willingness to adapt and diversify has kept it comfortably afloat,” she said.

With the adoption of new tools to cope with the pandemic, the company branched out into other business domains, such as “assessment tools and digital learning resources to address the demand for flexible learning solutions.”

With the growing dominance of cybertransactions, the company launched the Phoenix Aralinks Collaborative Learning Management System (LMS), a virtual, remote learning system now in use in educational institutions.

IWEC is a global nonprofit organization that recognizes women business leaders and entrepreneurs for their increasingly influential and global work. The organization’s mission is to “connect and develop a global network of successful women business owners through working with international chambers of commerce and women’s business organizations.”