Filipinos across the world have been creating significant impressions about their talent, wit, and dedication to work. They raise the Philippine flag a notch when they achieve even small things in their career and life.
Canada-based Filipina entrepreneur Maiden R. Manzanal-Frank belongs to the Global Filipinos worldwide who have been lifting the image of Filipinos and its people.
When she moved to Canada in 2010, she was told to take the first job that came her way. For her, it was not a good piece of advice. What she did was contrary to that adage. She found a job that best reflects her transferrable experience, skills, and knowledge. She has a profound experience in the non-profit social development sector, and she used it to launch her career in the country; and then worked as a diversity coordinator for the City of Abbotsford. Through her pivotal role, she led a half-a-million dollar grant on diversity and inclusion to foster intercultural and interfaith relations with the city’s multicultural residents. The project she spearheaded achieved an award in the Fraser Valley for its outstanding outreach and communications.
“Working with many project partners, stakeholders, and volunteers of the project was a great platform to improve the community residents’ relations with their neighbors and brought tremendous goodwill and friendships between organizations and individuals that continued up to this day,” she said.
Because of her contribution, she became a Bhichai Rattakul Rotary Peace Fellow in 2015, completing a Professional Development Certificate in Peace and Conflict Transformation from the Rotary Peace Centre at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
During her stay in Abbotsford, Maiden was involved in several volunteer board roles in a non-profit organization that shelters vulnerable women and their families from domestic violence.
“This volunteer role made me more aware of the issues of domestic violence and the multifaceted range of support the women and children need to bring their lives back to stability,” she said.
Maiden is fortunate to have found a vibrant community that embraces her contribution. The job led her to more opportunities, meet new friends, and find faith in the community, which led her to a successful settlement and integration into Canadian life.
Maiden has worked in the social development space in the Philippines and internationally for more than 15 years. She also traveled to more than 30 countries and worked in 15 areas of social entrepreneurship, immigration and settlement, diversity and inclusion, health and women, and advocacy.
She moved to Alberta in 2015 and calls it her home now. Presently, Maiden is a senior consultant for GlobalStakes, a management advisory organization that provides dramatic results for on-purpose organizations in Canada and internationally.
As a senior consultant on strategy, change, engagement, and impact, she can work with many diverse organizations all over the province, the country, and even internationally. With an adaptive approach, she can work at different levels of the organization, whether at the board level, staff level, or partner or network level.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Maiden experimented with virtual delivery of her services, including online teaching, online group coaching, and online keynote presentations. She found that, if given a chance, most organizations can work virtually on some of the organizational issues they need to resolve or address without face-to-face interaction.
As an online educator, she loves to impart her knowledge to mid-level professionals in the peace, conflict resolution, and development sectors and coach them in their leadership development strategies. She touches their lives and expands their perspectives on navigating a complex environment and becoming more adaptive and effective leaders within their spheres of influence.
Maiden has also launched her first book on global impact leadership, ‘Provocateurs not Philanthropist: Turning Good Intentions Into Global Impact’’ which is ready for order at Barnes And Noble and Amazon. The book provides distilled insights for everyday leaders, whom she calls ‘provocateurs’ who are making a global impact on their work in developing countries through partnership, collaboration, and service projects.
Her dream is to continue building her consulting practice, write more valuable books, and touch more lives and organizations so that they can create an impact globally.
