Arlene Padua Martinez is the founder and CEO of MyKartero, a Philippine logistics platform that helps small businesses and overseas Filipinos ship around the world. She served as president of the Philippine Marketing Association in 2017 and 2018 and now leads the Asia Small Business Federation.
As a CEO, a solo mom, and a widow, she has spent years learning to balance building a company with being present for her family.
RadVoice Indonesia sat down with Arlene for a candid conversation about raising four children on her own, the setbacks behind MyKartero, and how she leads.
Building a Career in Logistics while Raising Four Children Alone
After more than three decades in logistics, Arlene Padua Martinez left corporate leadership to build her own business and prioritize raising her four children as a solo parent. (Photo by Arlene Padua Martinez)
Arlene never set out to work in logistics. She started in retail and door-to-door sales, selling encyclopedias and food, and discovered her love for sales and marketing there.
In 1995, she joined TNT Express and entered logistics, a field largely dominated by men. By her account, she rose to become the first female country manager of the International Mail Group, which later became Spring Global Mail, and then took another country manager role at a postal group owned by Sweden Post.
Over 31 years across international logistics, courier, freight, and postal services, she has had a front-row seat to how global commerce works and how businesses of any size can reach customers across borders.
“I didn’t plan where I am now,” she says. “It was a journey of opportunities, a journey of challenges, and meeting people who helped me where I am today.”
But the job that built her career also kept her away from home. As a country manager, her days were full of meetings and constant travel, while she was raising four children alone. A widow and solo parent, she has raised them on her own for more than two decades.
Her youngest was only a year old when she lost her husband, and her eldest was in her early teens. Too often, she had to choose between professional opportunities and being there for them.
In 2010, she left her job and started her own company, Post10 Worldwide, a cross-border logistics firm serving the networks she had worked with before. Post10 has since closed, but it marked the start of her life as an entrepreneur.
“I wanted to be a present parent to my growing children,” Arlene recalls. “Money can’t cover for what will be lost with the growing-up years of my children.”
Her choice was tested soon after. While she was still getting Post10 Worldwide off the ground, a publicly listed company called her out of the blue and invited her to an interview for a vice president role in its commercial team.
She met with the chairman of the board himself. Then he mentioned that the job would involve extensive travel.
She stopped him and said she was not planning to go back into employment. The answer surprised him, and, she admits, surprised her too, once she realized what she had just turned down.
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Every Parcel Is Someone’s Dream
Arlene’s corporate career taught her how to build businesses. Her work in industry associations showed her another side of leadership.
“Leadership is not about having a title. It’s about accepting responsibility and being willing to serve,” she says.
That lesson was tested in 2018. Around 5,000 parcels from the Philippines were stranded in Singapore for three to five months, putting more than 1,000 small businesses at risk. Arlene, an international postal logistics expert, was asked to coordinate with the shippers, even though she had no part in causing the delay.
That meant calling the sellers one by one, absorbing angry customers’ complaints, and helping each decide whether to send the parcels on or bring them back. She even paid last-mile delivery costs herself.
The work lasted a month and a half and took a personal toll on her. One weekend, during a family lunch for her son’s birthday, a customer kept her on the phone for two hours.
“I lost the opportunity to enjoy the meal and celebrate my son’s birthday, but that was okay,” she says, “because my heart back then was really looking at how I could help them.”
The experience changed how she saw her industry. “The value that I see in every parcel is somebody else’s dreams coming to life,” she says. Each one meant a livelihood, a family, or an entrepreneur trying to reach customers overseas.
It also showed her how hard reliable cross-border shipping was for smaller businesses. Post10 Worldwide, which she founded in 2010, has since closed, and Arlene turned her focus to a new venture.
She set out to build a platform that would make international shipping accessible to them. That became MyKartero, launched in 2019, a platform where anyone can book a pickup online and ship to more than 200 countries, with delivery across more than 7,000 barangays (the smallest administrative divisions in the Philippines).
The company is bootstrapped, so she funded it herself, with no investors to fall back on.
Facing Setbacks and Finding the Courage to Keep Going
Building MyKartero came with setbacks from the start. After six months of preparation, the IT developer disappeared with the platform on launch day. With the launch planned at a Department of Trade and Industry logistics services event, Arlene presented a concept paper instead, relying on photos of the pages and designs her team had made.
A bigger blow came in 2025, when changes to US shipping rules disrupted the company’s main shipping route. Shipments dropped to zero and stayed there for more than five months, leaving MyKartero with cash flow problems and debt.
Customers voiced their frustration online, and Arlene renegotiated with partners and restructured operations. Her biggest worry was her employees. She is grateful they stayed and worked with her to find a way forward.
It was also a lonely moment for her. “I don’t have anyone to cry to,” she says. “I don’t have someone to pat me on the back and say, ‘You can do it, or we can do it.’ I don’t have that.” Her faith carried her through the hardest days.
Leading with Purpose
Arlene’s leadership style has moved from the performance-driven approach she learned in corporate life to one centered on people, purpose, and family. She sees her employees as people whose work supports their families, and that shapes how she makes decisions and measures success.
Rather than focusing only on targets, she wants her team to grow through their work. “I don’t want you to leave the same person,” she says. Arlene hopes that when an employee leaves MyKartero, they leave with stronger skills, more confidence, and a higher market value.
Her approach is hands-on. When the business is short on resources, she carries boxes, makes bookings, or calls customers herself. She does not see leadership as being removed from her team’s day-to-day challenges.
Being hands-on doesn’t mean having every answer, and she is candid about her limits. “Leadership is not about appearing strong all the time. It’s about being trustworthy, especially when things are difficult, being authentic and human,” she says.
That same honesty runs through her advice for young women who want to build careers or businesses. “You will never be ready, so you start now,” she says. And through it all, she adds, they should not compromise their values.
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Beyond Work, Toward a Lasting Legacy
After years of putting work first, Arlene has learned to make room for rest. Her daughter once told her that work had become her “idol.” Now, recharging means quiet moments and time with her grandchildren.
She also hosts TitaMomsh’s, a TikTok Live devotional that airs every day except Sundays at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. (Philippine Time), and has published a devotional book, with two more in the works.
Her dreams stay practical. She hopes to keep building platforms that support women and young entrepreneurs through MyKartero and the Asia Small Business Federation, so more of them can reach new markets and access financing.
She does not want her legacy defined by titles, businesses, or awards. Instead, she wants it to be about the impact she has had on others, whether helping an entrepreneur reach a new market or encouraging a young woman to believe in herself.
“I hope people remember me not for the positions I held, the businesses I built, or the awards I received,” she says. “I hope they remember how I made them feel.”
This Interview with Arlene Padua Martinez was conducted on November 4, 2026. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
