Tina Tinio

Tina Tinio (née Maria Cristina Cuenca Tinio, born January 11, 1974) is a Filipino socialite, former equestrienne, and cosmetics industry executive. She is a scion of two prominent Filipino families, and is related by blood or marriage to a significant portion of the Philippine upper class. She is a frequent host of parties and other social events, often in conjunction with her work as a cosmetics company executive, and is involved with a number of charity projects.

Family and education

Her father is Manuel "Boy" Tinio, a businessman, musician, and competitive amateur golfer. Her mother is Maria Angela "Mary Ann" Tinio, a former model, entrepreneur, and social hostess, who receives frequent mention in the society pages of Philippine newspapers and magazines. On her father's side, she is descended from General Manuel Tinio (1877-1924), a hero of the Philippine Revolution of 1896, who later became the first Filipino to hold the positions of Director of Lands and Director of the Bureau of Labor, and after whom a town in the Philippine province of Nueva Ecija is named. On her mother's side, her grandfather, Rodolfo "Rudy" Cuenca, an Asian business tycoon and former associate of the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, her uncle, Roberto "Bobby" Cuenca, a local bon vivant, and cousin, Elbert Cuenca, a photographer and artist, count among her better-known kin. She is the eldest in a brood of three girls, the second being New York-based Ananda Tinio, an award-winning filmmaker who was a producer at MTV Philippines, and the youngest Alessandra Tinio, a rock music singer and fashion model whose appearances include a spread in the Philippine edition of FHM magazine.

She was born in Makati City, a prosperous suburb in the Metropolitan Manila area, and split her formative years between the family residence in Forbes Park, her grandparents' beachfront estate in the northern Philippine province of La Union, her grandfather's Park Avenue penthouse in New York, and the 5-storey, 12-bedroom, Tudor-style Cuenca mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. She attended St. Scholastica's College in Manila until the fourth grade, counting among her fellow alumnae Corazon Aquino, the former Philippine president, Maria Ressa, former CNN International bureau chief and Gloria Diaz, the Philippines' first Miss Universe winner. She finished her elementary education at the Katherine Delmar Burke School in San Francisco, California, and subsequently went to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where she received her high school diploma in 1992. After a year spent studying Japanese at the Philippine Institute of Japanese Language and Culture, she was accepted at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, on a full academic scholarship, where she graduated with a degree in Art History and Aesthetics. While at Keio, she was a member of the university's equestrian team, and competed in several international meets.

Professional activities

While in Japan, Tinio taught English as a Second Language courses, and also appeared on educational television programs as a teaching assistant for conversational English. Upon graduating from college, she returned to Manila, where she began working in Public relations for Joey 92.3FM, a local radio station. Her interest in beauty products, coupled with her fluency in Japanese and passion for Japanese culture, led her to a position at L'Oréal Philippines, where she was placed in charge of the Shu Uemura label. Within two years she helped push it to the number one spot in its segment. Her accomplishments were rewarded with a promotion to the position of Business Unit Manager for both Shu Uemura and Kiehl's.

At L'Oréal, she has become known for organizing a variety of events to publicize the conglomerate's various brands. One example is the "Bejeweled" party, where, in a tie-up with Motorola, emerald-, ruby-, sapphire-, and diamond-encrusted Motorola cellular phones were given out as prizes to promote the launch of a Shu Uemura line. Another is the "Nami Moto" weekend, where select socialite guests are flown to the five-star Nami resort on the Philippine island of Boracay for a few days of pampering to promote Shu Uemura and other L'Oréal products, along with other corporate partners like Motorola, Nami, and local mobile provider Smart Communications. She has spoken at various industry meetings and conferences, such as the 19th Annual Philippine Advertising Congress in Cebu City, on topics like PR Marketing and Event management. Since February 2007, she has been based in Singapore, where she is a regional executive for The L'Oréal Group, holding the title of Marketing Operations Manager.

Personal Activities

As an active member of the social scene in the Philippines as well as other countries in the region, she often appears in media coverage of high society parties and other such events. Her other personal interests include vintage couture and fashion accessories, reading books on art, social commentary, and interpersonal relationships, riding horses, Japanese anime, and collecting samples of different cosmetics and other beauty products.

References

• Diaz, Ramona S (2003). Imelda - Power, Myth, Illusion. Unitel Pictures.