Sheila Lirio Marcelo
Sheila Lirio Marcelo is a Filipino-American entrepreneur and the founder of Care.com, which Crunchbase ranked as the largest and fastest growing company in the field of providing services used by families to find care-givers.[1]
Background
Marcelo was born and raised in the Philippines and grew up in an entrepreneurial household where her family was involved in a number of businesses.[2]
She graduated from Mt. Holyoke College and received M.B.A. and J.D. degrees from Harvard University. While attending Harvard she also spent 30 hours a week on community activities, worked on several campus businesses and provided consulting services for the design of Harvard’s Spangler center.[3]
Prior to founding Care.com, she served as Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Upromise, an online service helping families save money for college, Vice President and General Manager of TheLadders.com, an online service helping people find jobs and entrepreneur-in-resident in the Boston office of Matrix Partners.[4]
When Marcelo was at UPromise she hired an executive coach because two mentors told her that she was too focused on black and white. She said this was a great learning opportunity because her mentors held a mirror up and said this is what you need to work on.[5]
Founder of Care.com
The idea for Care.com stemmed from Marcelo’s personal difficulties in finding caregivers. She and her husband both work and have two sons and two dogs. When her father underwent bypass surgery, she became aware that there was no online site that made it easy to address constantly changing care-giving needs and in particular how hard it was to find help on short notice.[6]
Care.com addresses the unique lifecycle care needs that each family goes through – helping families select child care, senior care, special needs care, tutoring, pet care, housekeeping and more. The site includes prescreened profiles, monitored messaging, access to background checks, recorded references and educational information on the interviewing process.[7]
Care.com has raised more than $61 million from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and others, had more than 1 million care providers register on its U.S. site and has about 6 million visits every month.[8]
Marcelo is one of the few female technology entrepreneurs to raise more than $35 million in venture capital funding.[9]
Care.com covers 99 percent of the zip codes in the US for child care and has 93% coverage of in-home caregivers for senior care. Care recently expanded to the United Kingdom prompting GigaOM to label it the “Amazon of Care.”[10]
Care.com incorporates work-life balance into the company’s culture by giving employees the flexibility to decide how to work the required hours given family constraints.[11]
Recognition
Marcelo has appeared on NBC’s “Today Show”, CBS’s “The Early Show” and “ABC News Now” and in media outlets such as The Boston Globe, Working Mother and Redbook to provide care planning advice.[12]
She was awarded a Marshall Memorial Fellowship and named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.[13]
She serves as a judge for the Harvard Business School Business Plan Competition and as an adviser to the school’s Rock Entrepreneurial Center.[14]
She received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010 award.[15]
She was named one of the top 40 entrepreneurs under 40 years of age by the Boston Business Journal.[16]
She was named one of the 10 most powerful women in Boston Tech by The Boston Globe.[17]
She was named by Fortune Magazine as one of the 10 most powerful women entrepreneurs in 2009.[18]
Marcelo serves as a Board Trustee of the Philippine Development Foundation, a non-profit organization that pursues economic development in The Philippines.[19]
Marcelo was named to The Aspen Institute’s 2012 Class of Henry Crown Fellows.[20]
References
- ^ “Care.com Profile,” CrunchBase.
- ^ “40 under 40: Sheila Lirio Marcelo,” Boston Business Journal, October 5, 2009.
- ^ “8 Harvard Business School Women who Founded Great Startups,” Top MBA Connect.
- ^ “40 under 40: Sheila Lirio Marcelo,” Boston Business Journal, October 5, 2009.
- ^ Adam Bryant, “O.K., Team, It’s Time to Switch Chairs,” New York Times, August 7, 2010.
- ^ Work It Mom interviews Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Work It Mom.
- ^ “Citybizlist Interviews Sheila Marcelo, CEO, Care.com,” CityBizList Boston, May 14, 2012.
- ^ “Citybizlist Interviews Sheila Marcelo, CEO, Care.com,” CityBizList Boston, May 14, 2012.
- ^ “The Moms who are Changing the World,” Babble.com.
- ^ Ryan Kim, “Care.com expands to UK as it becomes Amazon of care,” GigaOM, April 23, 2012.
- ^ Charisse Jones, “5 Questions for: Sheila Marcelo,” USA Today, December 5, 2010.
- ^ “Sheila Lirio Marcelo,” VentureBeatProfiles.
- ^ “Care.com and its Founder CEO Sheila Lirio Marcelo Raise $25 million in Venture Capital,” News on Women, October 12, 2011.
- ^ Laura Emerson, “To help your e-business stick, be nimble, be quick,” Las Vegas Business Press, August 22, 2011.
- ^ “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 award winners in New England announced,” Ernst & Young web site.
- ^ “40 under 40: Sheila Lirio Marcelo,” Boston Business Journal, October 5, 2009.
- ^ Scott Kirsner, “The 10 most powerful women in Boston tech (plus 5 up-and-comers),” Boston Globe, February 8, 2012.
- ^ “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs: Sheila Lirio Marcelo,” Fortune Magazine, December 18, 2009.
- ^ “Sheila Lirio Marcelo biography,” Womensphere Global Summit 2011.
- ^ “Aspen Institute Names Sheila Lirio Marcelo as 2012 Henry Crown Fellow,” Weston Patch, March 12, 2012.
