Lulu del Rosario  spent much of her business life  ~ over 20 years ~ working for Silicon Valley start ups, specifically in Sales and Marketing for semiconductor chip companies.  She comes from a family with deep entrepreneurial and marketing roots  and considers herself a champion for the reinvented woman.  After leaving the corporate world for good in the early 2000s, she helped establish a creative marketing and branding company with a keen eye for opportunities to help small business establishments.   Life in silicon valley and all its gadgetry left a permanent mark on this gizmo wielding mom.   Her first digital SLR, a Canon xTi,  gathered dust for a couple years until it’s inevitable moment to take center stage ~ the birth of the first grandchild.

Today, two upgraded cameras and a few more lenses (and two more grandkids),  her  photography is the culmination of her search for a real  fulfilling  hobby. At each point of her life, from aunt to wife and mother, to corporate workaholic to entrepreneur to grandmother, Lulu was over-stimulated by experiences that fed the senses coupled with an overwhelming desire to capture each moment.   Family members were early victims as she took her camera on the road. Today, Lulu is the critical eye behind Fototeqnika – a roving camera that is everywhere. Her photographs capture the energy, the emotion, the realness of a moment. An early adopter of social media, she maintains a parallel life as a  promotional product distributor, a social media consultant for small businesses and maintaining three blogs ~ while still working at being wife, mom, grandmother, daughter, sister and aunt.  Lulu brings with her all the experiences of a robust  career ~  strategic sales,  business planning,  branding and creative marketing.

Follow Lulu on Twitter as @CloutandAbout.  You can email  her at contact.cloutandaboutATgmailDOTcom

A N N A  D E L  R O S A R I O,  Editor

Anna del Rosario is a globe-traipsing marketing professional; transplanted San Francisco resident with Manhattan still in her blood. She’s a super-mom to two teenagers, a self-professed foodie and wine-o; a highly discriminating guest at many hotels and a fashionista with comments and opinions about everything. . Her credentials are both impressive and inspirational. Anna began her career in Silicon Valley before it was known as that; moved to New York City directing US public relations for Italian designer Valentino where she sharpened her aesthetic skills and attention to detail. Family beckoned her back to the Bay Area, where she quickly settled back into the high-tech world, working for Oracle and then for a succession of global, public semiconductor companies. Known for taking companies out of a black hole and building a brand, Anna is on constant sensory over-drive. As a frequent traveler who logs hundreds of thousands of miles annually, her (good and bad!) experiences around the world qualify her status as a citizen of the world.

In addition to being a Co-Editor, Anna will serve as the Marketing and Managing Director to Clout & About.  Because of our own high level of expectation for the quality of articles we present to you, we feel it is important that we have guidance and honest constructive critique from an independent voice who has the best interest of our site and our readers in mind.

You can reach her at contact.cloutandaboutATgmailDOTcom

B E T T I N A  J O H N S O N –  G R E E N,  Associate Editor   

Bettina Johnson-Green is a Jill of All Trades, Master of None – just the way she likes it.  Having moved countries mid-teens, she now finds herself culturally confused – in a good way.  She’s got  a firm foot in both her country of birth – the Philippines –  and her culturally opposite country of choice - Australia.   She can fit in almost anywhere and has a blast doing so.  Bettina has worked in the Diplomatic Corp,  the hospitality industry,  the medical field, relocation, sales, market research, has run her own daycare and catering business and her favourite and absolutely the most challenging job of all – motherhood – and now grandmotherhood.  She sees the world from many different angles and hopes to share her experiences.  Being an almost-empty-nester with “4 down, 1 to go”  (well, almost – the front revolving door keeps bringing back adult kids that need to park at home for a little bit for some reason or other)   travel and eating out top her list of favourite things to do.  Just because – now she can!

Bay Area, CA

Being born and raised in  the Mediterranean has always given Joyce Maroon  a zest for life and travel.  It has inspired her  to become  curious about all that comes her way.  Meeting new people, learning new languages, trying all kinds of cuisine and remembering to stop and smell the roses along the way is what keeps her hungry for what’s around the corner.

Currently, Joyce works for a semiconductor company  in Silicon Valley.  Prior to that, she worked at Stanford University in the Graduate School of Business.  As you can imagine,  academia is quite different from the outside world, but somehow both have enriched her  life.  She considers herself blessed to have come into contact with people from all walks of life and this has taken her  down a path of discoveries, challenges and adventures.

Joyce enjoys spending time with her  family and friends.  Other hobbies include reading outrageous novels,  enjoying  a very dirty dirty Martini,  shopping in New York City,  Milan,  Istanbul,  Paris among other cities.  She has a keen fettish for beautiful shoes, but don’t tell anyone (until now).  She’s a  fan of  all foods, especially ones that are hot and spicy.  Joyce mostly enjoys the first smile she  gets from a stranger in a new town, city, village or country.  ” There’s something about a smiling face that endears me to this happy life I live.”

 

Los Angeles, CA

Kana Manglapus has always been passionate about Art & Design. From creating her own personal spaces and helping clients furnish their homes with beautiful pieces of furniture and art, to representing some of the most talented artists of today, Kana feels happiest surrounded by her passions.

Prior to re-locating to Los Angeles from New York in 2006, Kana was the director of Milk Gallery, an arts and events space representing emerging talent in Downtown Manhattan. Also while in NYC, she conceptualized Section Urbaine, a lifestyle retail concept that fused the worlds of fashion, art and design.

In 2006 Kana opened Bahay Home, an interior design gallery in Culver City, where she furthered her relationships with artists both in Los Angeles and New York. Kana’s business savvy and keen eye has always drawn artists to her. In 2009, she began representing fine artists for gallery exhibitions and private sales in Los Angeles, New York, and Internationally.

In January 2011, Kana opened Kana Manglapus Projects at 1346 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, California. The gallery is open most days from 12-5  and by appointment.

Kana lives in Venice with her husband and two children.

New York City, NY

As a Banker, Treena Chirico talks to client’s daily, crunches numbers, and works hard to ensure that a potential and current homeowner has the financing they need. Treena has been in banking for 19 years. Prior to banking, she loved the hospitality industry and culinary, thus graduating from Boston University’s Metropolitan College of Hospitality Management. She is a wife and she’s a mother of two boys, Jack, 15 and Lucas, 7.

Travel is in Treena’s genes. Having traveled to many distant places since she was 4, her favorite song growing up was “I’m Leaving On A Jet Plane” and it still is today. Her hobbies are photography, cooking, painting, gardening and scrapbooking. She photographs almost anything but loves taking photos of her children, her pets, food and nature.  Treena is a novice photographer, recently being gifted a Canon Rebel T2i and purchasing Photography for Dummies.

Most importantly, being a survivor and given a new lease on life, she decided that she would create a bucket list. Two of the items on her bucket list are to write a book and blog. Well, she’s blogged about her trip to Italy last summer and is currently updating the site.  As to the book ~  that may have to  wait until the kids are in college.  In the meantime,  Treena sees that her life is in constant motion and photography helps her to chronicle those memorable moments.

PARIS, France

It’s been quite a journey so far, for our correspondent based in Paris, France.  Yolanda  Zaragoza has a few aces and trophies up her “mom”  and “accomplished woman” sleeves as she settles into semi-retirement -  half of the time in Paris and the other half in Southern California.   A former beauty queen and television host in Asia,  Yolanda then  turned into a corporate working mom (of a son and two daughters)  in America and a community volunteer.   While her ride in life has seen the gamut of smooth and bumpy (life most of us!), she has drawn from the experience and now lives to tell and blog about it all.   Her personal blog, MsEllaneous, is named after the prime time evening show with a magazine format that she co-hosted a while back in Manila.  Now, both on her website and on assignment for and with  Clout & About,  Yolanda shares her talents, knowledge and life lessons / inspirations as life’s dailies.  She’ll also share fashion, trends, good foodie  finds and ‘what’s happening’ from the Parisienne point of view. Expect to find her photographs and detailed narratives as she walks around the beautiful city.  Out and About in Paris, we have Yolanda to be there for us!  Très bien!

 

SYDNEY, Australia

Having lived most of her adult life in different parts of the world, one can truly say Eileen Dolina-Novak is definitely a citizen of the world.  Arguably, her decision to leave university to pursue a professional singing career back in the seventies turned out to be the best decision she’s made. She joined one of the more popular showbands in the Philippines and in the next 5 years her whole life changed completely. However, after 5 albums, numerous concerts, shows in Southeast Asia and a whole lot of fun and excitement, Eileen decided to get hitched, marry her Australian boyfriend and settle down in Singapore to what she thought would be a “normal” life.  By the way, back in high school, she was told she was going to marry a foreigner at a tarot card reading! Who would have thought??

As it turned out, “normal life” involved living in 3 continents, loading and unloading lots of 40 ft containers, learning a couple of foreign languages, exploring different cultures, lifestyles, cuisines, travelling extensively and more importantly having 2 beautiful children.Life seems to have done a full circle now with the family settling back home in Sydney, Australia. She is now back to celebrating Christmas and New Year in the summertime, maybe at the beach and a trip to the snow might be in the cards around June or July when it’s officially winter down under. She has gone back to saying “to-mah-toes” instead of “to-may-toes”, jumper instead of sweater, “ute” instead of “pick-up truck”.Being given a DSLR camera for Mother’s Day one year, Eileen has unofficially become the family photographer, never leaving home without it. Her family has been trained not to touch their food until she has photographed it! And how spoilt can one be to have Sydney and its surrounds to photograph. Eileen is definitely looking forward to sharing her beautiful postcard photos with everyone!