Filipino actress and operatic soprano Christine Duque will debut as an author via her book "Walking in My Shoes: Shattering Glass Ceilings in Corporate America" which will come out in March.

"Walking in My Shoes: Shattering Glass Ceilings in Corporate America" is an empowering narrative that shines a light on the experiences of Asian women in the corporate world. Through the captivating story of Christine Duque, readers are taken on a journey through her personal struggles and triumphs in the workplace, navigating discrimination and inequality as a woman of color.

Beyond the challenges, this book is a testament to Christine’s resilience and determination as she overcomes adversity to pursue her goals. Using a clever metaphor of different shoes, the author shares her own adventures and the stories of other Asian women along the corporate ladder, ultimately shattering the glass ceilings of Corporate America in her stylish heels.

Christine is A Global Executive recognized for her expertise in developing award-winning customerexperience strategies and technology solutions. She has a proven track record of driving growth for major Fortune50, 100, and 500 companies. She has held influential roles at Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, and prominent marketing agencies within the Aegis Dentsu, Inmar, and United Business Media networks. 

Renowned for her exceptional customer experience strategies, Christine excels in leveraging data, artificialintelligence, and delivery platforms to achieve sustainable growth.

She has successfully formed partnerships withtechnology companies, resulting in the creation of innovative products and services that enhance competitive advantage, customer engagement, and loyalty. Christine's approach integrates branding, data analytics, andtechnology to drive impactful results. 

Furthermore, Christine has been an integral part of the Salesforce Partner ecosystem for over 15 years and currently serves as a member of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Partner Advisory Board. She played a key role in the consulting team that collaborated with the Salesforce Data Cloud product team and oversaw four global client pilot programs, successfully transitioning them to the first Salesforce Data Cloud production environments. 

Since the launch of Salesforce Data Cloud/CDP for general availability in 2021, Christine has delivered numerous DataCloud proof-of-concepts and implementations. Her valuable insights continue to contribute to the product advisory board for Salesforce Marketing and Data Cloud. 

In addition to her professional achievements, Christine is a highly sought-after speaker and thought leader in theindustry. She actively participates in speaking engagements and publishes insightful works on topics such as customer transformation, artificial intelligence, marketing technology, analytics, and sustainability. 

Moreover, she is dedicated to promoting diversity in the technology industry and advocating for the advancement of women and under represented minorities.

In her book, Christine uses the clever metaphor of different shoes to share her own adventure and stories of other Asian women along the corporate ladder, ultimately shattering the glass ceilings of Corporate America in her stylish heels. Christine also channels her efforts towards philanthropy and academia through partnerships with esteemed institutions. 

Currently, she serves on the Oxford University Kellog Commission on Sustainability and the University of California - Irvine Graduate School. Her unwavering commitment to education and positive impact is truly commendable. In recognition of her accomplishments, Christine was honored as a finalist for the L.A. Times B2B PublishingInspirational Women Leadership Award in the Corporate Executive category in 2023. 

Aside from her professional achievements, Christine holds a degree in Vocal Performance, Music History, andTheory from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music. She is also an accomplished actress and operatic soprano, achieving a significant milestone in her musical career with her debut at Carnegie Hall.

Christine recently had a Zoom meeting with the Philippine media to discuss her book. Here are some excerpts from the media conference:

Manila Bulletin: How do you feel now that your first book is about to hit the bookstores?

Christine: "Nervous because, you know, I have worked in many of these big corporations and many of these stories, as you can see, you know where the stories come from. But I think to me, it's not because I hate these corporations. I love that it's more about how we got to do better. And these things happen. These microaggressions do happen. And I want to acknowledge that, and I want corporations to be accountable to want to be better and drive genuine conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion."

Manila Bulletin: How long did it take you to write the book? What were some of the challenges you encountered in writing the book?

Christine: "The first three chapters I sat on for a year, one year, and there are eight chapters in the book and then four or five, and the last of the chapters were written somewhere between Christmas and New Year. I didn't seriously get sick because I couldn't sleep. I had, like, bronchitis and asthma, and I just got my laptop and started typing. My brother in the Philippines is also a very skilled writer, and he and I had been talking about this book for a while, and he said keep writing and keep writing. And he eventually kind of became my editor, so it was pretty fun to do that. And the next thing I knew, I had just started. I was sending chapters, and a couple of people with some of my thoughts were, I know, people who were interested in certain issues and what they're like, and then one of my friends started sending it to a couple of friends of our publishers. They're like, we need to publish this now. It's right because I'm sick. So I mean, there was always a thought about the book, but let's see how this is. Coming together, and it's coming out right now, is a little nerve-wracking."

Manila Bulletin: "How do you think the corporate world would react to your book?"

Christine: "I've sent out a couple of pages for people outside of my circle to get some ideas and free reads in the manuscript, and I've been overwhelmed by the people's reactions to the bulk, saying it is a powerful book. It is a conversation for now, that you know; even though he describes some things that happened to me, I do it respectfully. What they also love about the book is I use the metaphor shoes, so every chapter is a shoe to get that, you know, I talk about, let's say, pointe shoes, and how you have to beat a pointe shoe for it to be quiet. And then once you use a point she wants, you throw it. I talk about the dispensability, disposability, and silence of a point shale and tie that to Asian labor and what people expect us to be like that silent, disposable, indispensable, so I lose a little bit of lover cleverness around that. Still, it also tells a little bit about my story. But a girl from the Philippines who was a performing artist eventually went to the United States, you know, by Australia to study school and go to opera, like happens, right? It's like this idea that life does happen. You don't go from point A to point B and climb to corporate America. And there's some of that story and some of the immigrant stories about being hardworking, diligent, and disciplined. To want to go after your dreams and be something like that. And then to somewhat be disappointed that these systems are in place that are preventing you from rising, and you know, wanting to challenge that and being a barrier for me, but most certainly for the next generation. That's also really why I wrote this book for the next generation, to give them more opportunities and the exposure to be able to break that glass ceiling and hopefully have, you know, more than just one Filipina CEO like Lloyd Lewis that we can talk about. A real Filipino or Asian CEO, a woman CEO of a top Fortune 50 Fortune 100 company. So that would be amazing. That would be the most amazing story ever. Right? We're not seeing that representation, and there are barriers around that and perceptions around how people perceive Asians, particularly Asian women in America."

Manila Bulletin: What is your advice to Asian women facing the same challenges in the corporate world?

"It's a couple of things that I talk about, right? One is the idea of female rivalry, and we need to break that down. We need to think about creating communities where we lift at the time and help each other, and we need to challenge the notion of bringing men to the table because you can't do this. You can only break the glass ceiling with men's epoxy to believe in women's equality to the table for you. And I talk a lot about my mentors and my sponsors and my coaches have mostly been men, and we need them also to have this, you know, equality is not a one-sided conversation, so we need to have that open conversation. So, for the younger women, I want them to break out the notions of these stereotypes. They have these stereotypes vertically or on agents when they think we're either like this lotus flower or just dragon lady, and you're either super submissive or super assertive. And neither one of those is an accepted quality as an executive leader. I want people to break this down because those are very, very old stereotypes that don't serve us anymore. And that needs to be more representative of who we are, our diversity, and our voice. I challenge people to bond together and the very few women executives in leadership positions to continue to lift each other and lift as we climb. So that's my biggest advice because we will need help to get there. We need everyone to lift all boats and lift the tie together."

Manila Bulletin: Who are some of the leaders you look up to?

"I love Bill Gates, and I love jobs online for just the genius of how they've evolved as human beings and how they're constantly about giving back to the people in our community. That's great. So I think you should look at their company's culture and how they innovate around valuing people. Mark Zuckerberg is another one who challenged the norms of this breaking, breaking the corporate structures of three-piece suits and kind on campuses. Those are some of my peers. Absolutely. Strangely enough, so are my heroes, but also like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and they're like, why would I ever put them in the same room because they lived in a time where they innovated and they did, you know, saw the very business savvy and saw an opportunity. Still, it's more about what they did at the end of their lives. That was meaningful to me when they started to think about giving back the signs of great leaders who know how to give back, and I think about emerging companies like Salesforce, Apple, Google, and even Facebook. There's a social consciousness around how their companies were built, right? And a part of it is also the time when the companies were built, as opposed to when you looked at like the 100-year-old legacy composite companies. And some of them I have worked for where, you know, they did the timing of when they were built, but they're trying to catch up to the idea of diversity. But they're also built structurally to be very productized and product-centric; it's where they go as opposed to human, constant, and customer-centric."