Pacita U. Juan
Founder & President of Echostore Sustainable Lifestyle
President of Women’s Business Council (Philippines)
Pacita has been an entrepreneur most of her life, founding start-ups like a coffee shop chain, a Filipino casual food chain, and more recently a sustainable lifestyle store/market and café called ECHOstore.
She co-founded ECHOstore in 2008 and has since won many awards like Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011 (for social enterprise) by Ernst and Young, Social Entrepreneur of the Year by GO Negosyo and Bossing award by PLDT/Smart.
She also heads the Women’s Business Council of the Philippines, an advocacy group for policy reforms to empower women in business composed of women CEOs and COOs. She also founded and heads the Philippine Coffee Board, Inc., the Philippine chapters of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) and the Women Corporate Directors International. (www.womencorporatedirectors.com).
She is also an author having written many books: Kape: A Filipino Coffee Cookbook(2002); BARAKO: The Big Bean( 2005); Introduction to Coffee in 2007; Jeep Ni Juan , A History of jeep in the Philippines (2010); The Barista Manual in 2012; CACAO:Bean to Bar 2013.
She writes a regular column for The Manila Times; Contributes to Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Starweek and other magazines like the Philippine Tatler. and also writes a regular blog in www.manilaspeak.com.
She often speaks in international fora like the Global Summit of Women, APEC meetings and also in many conferences on topics like Sustainability, Women Empowerment and Coffee.
She sits in several corporate boards: Social Enterprise Development Center, Management Association of the Philippines, and Peace and Equity Holdings Inc.
Find her on Linked In: Pacita Juan; Twitter: @chitjuan