Marielle Valdez honored as Philippine's "Top 10"

By Claud Borejon

Marielle Valdez, the managing director and co-founder of Marketing Valet, was awarded Entrepreneur Magazine’s "Ten Outstanding Entrepreneurs in the Philippines" for 2008. More than 200 nominations were submitted.

The awards dinner was held at the swank Manila Penninsula Hotel on Thursday evening, December 4, 2008. Around 400 people from the Manila business community attended. 

In his opening remarks, Jose Galang, Editor-in-Chief for Entrepreneur Magazine, said the top ten were chosen this year not only for their hard work and financial success, but more importantly for their innovative ideas and gut feel for the market. “While the majority of us are talking about recession, economic turndown and retrenchment, our awardees are discussing plans for expansion, hiring more people, and creating new products. These are the reasons why the awardees were selected as this year’s top ten.”

Paulo Nasol, Claud Borejon, Dante Amoy and Gela Camacho from Marketing Valet accompanied Marielle to the event. "We were sitting tall, not just because our boss received this award, but she gave one of the evening's most moving motivational speeches," says Paulo Nasol, Sr. Project Manager.

In her acceptance speech, Marielle said, “The barriers in the global economy are only imagined. The playing field is much, much flatter than you think. We're a rare breed of company in the Philippines that can provide creative production services to large companies like Adobe Systems and Nokia, but I'm certain we won't be the last. At the end of the day, all we need is the confidence in ourselves and the determination to get away from the 'I don’t think I can do that' mentality. The world market is for anyone who has the skills and desire to participate in it."

Marielle Valdez and Ted Fong, marketing veterans in Silicon Valley, put up their business with just their personal savings as capital. Their combined experiences in high-techmarketing and their single-minded approach to starting their own creative agency brought Marketing Valet to this point in time.

"This award is not just for me, but for the whole Marketing Valet team who had faith in the vision that Ted and I set forth for the company. I'm grateful to them," said Marielle after the evening concluded.