Juggling multiple roles keeps Saudi-born Filipina Katherine Pauline Rodriguez on her toes as an advisor, educator and influencer.
Rodriguez has charmed many netizens with her first blog where she chronicles her struggles and journey as a returning OFW who wants to live a better part of her life in her home country. For many followers, Rodriguez is the personification of the homogenized aspirations of many OFWS who tried to find their way in a foreign land.
“The first blog I wrote was shared by an influencer in the finance field and immediately everyone really liked it because it was about my journey. It was about an OFW nurse who wanted to find financial freedom so she can finally go home,” she said, recalling how she lost her hard-earned money investing in the stock market.
Revealing her authentic self and her stark realities in the most visceral manner, many followers have grown to love the blog and the blogger. As a nameless blogger, she called herself Celeste and with followers continue cheering her on, she eventually referred to her blog as “Rooting for Celeste”.
“I think a worthy goal is to live a life you don’t have to lie about. Especially in the social media, (where) everything is a framing of things. I want to be who I really am and be proud of it. I wrote in my most truthful manner because I was expecting that there will not be a day when I would reveal who I was. I talked about losses and my depression, of small victories and even ask if there was even point for doing what I am doing,” she said.
Eventually she revealed herself in a video to put to rest a myriad of questions and assumptions on her person. That signaled the shift of her content to more professional topics relating to finance.
Seven years as a blogger, Rodriguez has omnipresence in most forms of social media. She is popular on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and her own website.
While her professional journey has its ups and turns, her personal life adds more color and depth to her continuing passage. Before her current advisory profession at HGR Digital Asset Group, Rodriguez co-founded ZFT—a trading education start-up, with her former beau as head of education and marketing where she also teaches trade psychology. She is the first trade psychology specialist in the Philippines.
Trade psychology, Rodriguez said, remains unheard of in the Philippines. It’s more like therapy for creators geared to improve their performance—more of bridging fear and greed, risk and gain. The discipline teaches investors how to make more rational decisions, while reining emotions from running amok.
Proof that trade psychology works was when the company was awarded the best trading group in Asia at the Vietnam Traders Fair Awards 2019, Rodriguez said, “with all other aspects taken into consideration.”
From being a military nurse in Saudi Arabia, Rodriguez jumped to the other side of the fence, answering the call of the finance world where it beckons her to pursue a career on finance as a licensed stockbroker at 2Trade Asia and educator at ZFT and eventually as lead instructor at YGG Philippines and Nas Academy’s collaboration course called Web 3 Metaversity while working as company ambassador.
As she built the foundation of ZFT for (not with) her boyfriend, she also built a digitized automated onboarding platform at YGG that briefed new members of the organization with an educational curriculum focused on Web 3 and personal development for the masses.
While people sometimes get lost in translation following the very eclectic life of Rodriguez on her blog accounts, her multiple roles continue to blend with added capacities which she finds exciting and challenging.
She left her previous role as marketing and education head at ZFT and instructor at YGG to nurse a rather hurtful break-up with her co-founder beau at ZFT. Rodriguez is now involved in crypto asset hedge fund and venture capital company HGR, while sustaining her influencer and content maker status.
“After the break-up, I realized that my job as a stockbroker and trade psychologist for forex investors was not bad at all, but with crypto upping the stakes and changing the entire finance landscape, I knew I needed to level up. So I decided to get a job as head of information at a web 3 company. And there was where I met my current boyfriend. So it’s not really a sad ending for me. I believe we are given the right opportunity at the right time,” she said.
The experience made her improve her craft and focus her energy to continue teaching trade psychology at HGR. As nce people discovered her as a warm spirit and an easy person to communicate with, her career as a finance advisor has spiraled to accommodate numerous requests for inspirational talks as a keynote speaker, and offers for hosting and co-hosting stints flooded.
At HGR, she continues to share her knowledge in finance and personally gives advice through her brand of trade psychology.
Rodriguez was a self-made woman—a start-up co-founder, a trading psychology specialist and a social media figure—before she actually jumped into another relationship with the managing partner at HGR, a Filipino-Chinese serial entrepreneur.
“It’s funny, though. He is from a prominent family with stakes in finance, insurance, retail. And despite him coming from a traditional Filipino-Chinese family, I am accepted as I am, Celeste from humble beginnings, by his entire family,” she said.
With every whirlwind in her job at HGR and her social media commitments, she still finds time for herself. A typical weekend for her is actually very simple—spending time with his boyfriend’s family, going to the gym and attending religious services in church.
Rodriguez disclosed she is an independent woman in her home country as her immediate family is always out of the country, with an elder brother working in Qatar and her widower father spending a great deal of time visiting her brother.
Her mom, the hero in her heart, passed not too long ago from leukemia. She remembered how her mother dissuaded her from becoming a journalist, a profession notorious for being best in public service but low in financial returns.
As a good daughter, she donned her white uniform and cap, but her first day on the job at the Makati Medical Center made her realize the career is not for her. While she loves being with people and nurturing them, the job profile asks for a lot—high stakes, high risks and many opportunities for emotional meltdown, which she is not prepared to deal with. This is something she overlooked while getting her nursing degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
Still, she persevered and found a stable career as a military nurse when she went back to Saudi Arabia but the thought of becoming another person with a life totally cut off from the medical profession kept nagging her.
This was the time when she immersed herself into finance books, hoping to learn the ropes of financing in the trading floor. As an investor, she lost big time, including money borrowed from her parents. Then depression set in and the blogger was born. Venting her frustrations in her blog as an anonymous OFW seeking financial emancipation so she can try to worm her way out and find her way back to the Philippines made for interesting series for a community of OFWs who can empathize with her predicament.
Right now, the blogger, vlogger, trade psychology specialist, educator, entrepreneur, inspirational speaker and social media influencer is seriously building a brand of her own, trying market her professional self, building on her Rooting for Celeste brand.
“I just want to make sure that I find my footing, that while I build brands for other companies, I want to build my own brand. Because there are many website marketers, but there is only one Celeste and I want to make sure that I keep my brand alive and afire,” she said.
She wants to continue to advocate for trading psychology, write a book and create a group called Better—a self-improvement club for people who want to become better.
At 31, Rodriguez contemplates a lot of things beyond professional goals like building a family of her own.
“The things I’m considering now is like do I start slowing down on my career so I can start a family. I have a platform by myself. It’s not huge, but a lot of women are looking up to me for being a woman in the finance field. I need to show them that you can do both, that you don’t have to sacrifice family for a career or your career for a family. I want to be able to grow as a woman and show other women, that they can have it all,” she said.
“When people see me for the first time, they ask if I am a model, since I’m actually a bit tall. And then I say, ‘no, I’m a role model’. And I really take a lot of pride in that. I don’t want women to be boxed in a certain stereotype. I want to represent women who are in finance, but also have a family life,” she said.
As an influencer, Rodriguez is in talks with Binance—an online exchange where users trade cryptocurrency to join the firm’s lineup of brand ambassadors.