Power moms reveal the secrets to having it all

MANILA, Philippines - It’s never easy being a mom. And the challenges can be even more daunting when you have to juggle the demands of family with a high-powered, high-pressure job. That’s probably why working mothers flocked to HSBC’s Hexagon Room at its Bonifacio Global City offices for “Work It, Mama,” an event held by HSBC for working mothers in celebration of Women’s Month. The panel discussion featured senior executives Mimi Concha, Tess Garcia, Piluchi Glinoga, Gigi Pio de Roda and Annette Tirol, who shared the secrets of their successful juggling acts, their trials, triumphs and answer the question women everywhere ask when they aspire to have it all: “How do you do it?”

“Value your support system,” says Piluchi, senior vice president for Credit Risk Management and mother of two boys, Jaime and Alejandro. Despite what she describes as a “profound weakness for coffee,” Piluchi admits that by the end of the day, she sometimes feels completely drained of energy. Fortunately, she lives just a few blocks away from her mother and her sister, so help is only a short drive away. Piluchi has also cultivated friendships with the other mothers in her boys’ school and counts on them to keep her updated when work keeps her from attending events like an important PTA meetings.

Annette Tirol agrees with the importance of a strong support system but warns moms not to take advantage of or abuse their presence. HSBC’s senior vice president for Sales and deputy head of Personal Financial Services, Annette currently has two children and is expecting a third in June. “Don’t wear them out with constant tales of helplessness and whining. Choose when to seek their help so that they’ll happily and willingly be there for you when something really important comes up.”

Mimi, like the four other women on the panel, is proud to have been raised by a working mom. “Working moms tend to breed working moms,” she says. She is senior vice president for the Large Corporate business arm of HSBC’s Commercial Banking division and is a mother of two children, a boy and a girl. She likes to spend time with her kids but stresses it is also important for career women to have “me” time. Mimi likes to spend “me“ time playing golf, seeing movies, reading or shopping. And when spare time is limited, she’ll find a way to incorporate time with her kids into her “me” time. “We shop or go to the salon together,” says Mimi. “It’s a creative way of giving myself a relaxing experience while spending time with my daughter.”

Tess Garcia is a relative novice at motherhood. Marrying later in life, Tess and her husband had resigned themselves to a childless life until the fates dropped a beautiful baby girl into their lives. Tess, a lawyer by profession, says she never crammed so hard as she did the day before she was to meet her new daughter, frantically reading all the parenting books she could get her hands on. Tess was 47 then, an age she worried where she’d already forgotten all the nursery rhymes. But Tess is the picture of contented motherhood and says her daughter gives her work a whole new meaning and motivation.

“Now I can actually leave to someone the jewelry I used to buy all for myself,” she says.

Senior vice president for Employee Relations and Communications for HSBC’s Human Resources department, Tess knows how to maximize her time both in the office and at home, where she finds the most pleasure in cooking, craftwork, decorating and taking care of two-year-old Maria Sophia. Like the other women on the panel, Tess is grateful for her support system: the yayas who have learned to love her daughter almost as much as she does. In turn, Tess goes out of her way to pamper them, frequently bringing them pasalubong from her trips and regularly sending them on vacations to spend time with their own families. “Dapat mataas ang engagement level ng yaya,” she says, laughing, borrowing a phrase to describe one of her professional deliverables for a very domestic concern.

Whether they’re at home or in the office, a working mother is almost always thinking of the place where she isn’t: the documents in her Inbox when she’s at home; the baby missing her when she’s firing off memos from the office. “You’re always a guilty mom because you always feel as if you’re never 100 percent there for everyone or everything,” says Annette. That’s why all five are thankful, too, for modern technology. The BlackBerry, which allows them to stay connected and on top of things at work, even when they’re elsewhere, is a unanimous favorite with the panel. “The Internet is great, too, because now you can enroll your kids online — unless, of course, you forget about the enrollment deadline like I did,” Piluchi confesses with a grin. Even basic technology is of tremendous help. According to Gigi Pio de Roda, HSBC’s chief operating officer, her team already knows her routine. At precisely 2:40 and 4:30 p.m., Gigi is on the phone checking on her son’s and daughter’s assignments, almost as soon as they walk in the door after coming home from school. She also relishes the drive home from work, which she thinks of as her own personal time. She uses this quiet time to recharge and refocus her energies and by the time she gets home, is full of great ideas on how to help her children with their schoolwork and any other issues.

And, of course, these superwomen aren’t immune to envy when they see their stay-at-home counterparts. “You see the moms of the other kids at school meetings or when you happen to have time to drop your children at school,” says Annette, “and they’re wearing sweat suits kasi nakakapag-gym sila! Buti pa sila!”

Their lives are tightrope acts and each day is a constant struggle for balance to make both worlds work — the one inhabited by the successful career woman and the one wherein she nurtures and takes care of the people who love and depend on her most. Still, despite occasional yearning looks at the grass on the other side of the fence, these five women think their career experience has made them better mothers, and vice versa. “Except for the baby talk, which I reserve for my daughter, I probably exhibit similar traits as a manager and a mother,” says Gigi. “I started to become more communicative with my team when I became a mom. Now I’m very good about telling people if I think they did a great job. I’m also good about telling them when they did a not-so-great job. As for my kids, I want to set an example. I want them to be independent and responsible. I want them to know, especially my daughter, that it may take a lot of hard work, but it is possible to do and have it all.”