What keeps Gretchen Ho going?

MANILA, Philippines - Since making the decision to join showbiz, Gretchen Ho has become one of the busiest young celebrities around and considered as the most sought-after sports personality host and social media influencer.

Aside from keeping up with her volleyball as one of the mainstays of the Petron team, she is busy hosting three shows on ABS-CBN’s Sports & Action channel (formerly Channel 23): Team U (with Piolo Pascual and Gerald Anderson), Gameday Weekend (Saturdays) and The Score (weeknights at 9:30) as an actor/co-host. She also co-hosted the recently-concluded Mr. & Ms. Chinatown pageant for the second straight year.

As someone who’s used to being challenged on the court, developing her talents as a host is something that Gretchen welcomed because it helped her discover a different side of herself. Ever since her student days at the Ateneo, she enjoyed getting into varied activities and treated each one as a learning experience. Hosting tapped into her need to have something new and challenging all the time.

“It’s a different track for me,” says the 23-year-old athlete and TV personality. “My personality kasi, mas gusto ko ‘yung gano’n, na na-cha-challenge ako all the time.”

Gretchen, who’s managed by Cornerstone Talent Management (also the management of Sam Milby, Richard Poon, Erik Santos, Yeng Constantino and many others) learns from the veteran hosts she works with but at the same time, has a sincere appreciation of what she has to offer as a newbie.

“I think ‘yung advantage ko right now is that I’m an athlete. I’m also very young, so youth is an advantage for me. Right now, I am still looking for that one thing that would make me different. But yung image ko for myself is a very fun, very adventurous, very athletic host, that is also intellectual. ‘Yun ‘yung gusto ko for myself. But ‘yun nga, I have to watch different people host and find myself because it’s a step-by-step process.”

But Gretchen isn’t just busy with on-camera activities. Off-camera, she is an in-demand cover girl (she was recently on the covers of Women’s Health and Front Runner, a magazine advocating the sport of running to keep fit and healthy).

She is also becoming a favorite celebrity endorser. Among her active endorsements are Cardams, Holcim, Aqua Dailies Contact Lenses, Petron, Under Armour, Smart, Sony, Beverly Hills 6750, Diet Diva, and she was recently launched as the new face of Vitress with Solenn Heussaff and Kim Jones. 

Gretchen also won “Hothlete Of The Year” in the last Yahoo Celebrity Awards and was also named one of the best dressed that night. She was also handpicked by Net 25’s Chinoy TV to be its latest host.

Surprisingly, Gretchen still finds time to attend to her own business, The Inspired Project, which she and a few other partners thought up to bring people inspiration that they can have handy all the time. They offer lanyards, shirts, phone cases,  posters, jackets and other items printed with inspiring messages.

She explains the rationale behind the project: “When we’re down, we usually get uplifted by the inspiring messages, things and people we see around us. The problem is that we only get to see them at random times and places. So I thought, ‘What if we can bring these inspiring things with us, so that as we get inspired, we also inspire other people?’”

You can check out their stuff on Facebook at http://facebook.com/InspiredProject or by following them on Twitter/@inspiredprojPH.

In the midst of all this, Gretchen continues to find new things to challenge her. Personally, she says, her goal is to keep reaching higher and keep improving herself as a person while inspiring others more.