Ane­cia Mar­itza Whar­wood is a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed woman orig­i­nal­ly from south Trinidad. She is now a res­i­dent of Mar­aval. Ane­cia took the con­ven­tion­al route of ob­tain­ing a BSc in Ge­ol­o­gy and Ge­og­ra­phy as a mi­nor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Mona Cam­pus. Even­tu­al­ly, she pur­sued a post­grad­u­ate diplo­ma in En­vi­ron­men­tal En­gi­neer­ing at the UWI St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

Ane­cia has al­ways loved be­ing cre­ative and ini­tial­ly con­sid­ered pur­su­ing graph­ic arts. How­ev­er, she was of­ten asked, “What are you go­ing to do with that?” Such ques­tions dis­suad­ed her from fol­low­ing through. To­day, Ane­cia is a for­mer Ge­ol­o­gist of the Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go, who de­cid­ed up­on its clo­sure, that she could turn some­thing she is pas­sion­ate about in­to a busi­ness. Since that re­al­i­sa­tion, she has com­plet­ed a pro­fes­sion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Event Man­age­ment at the Arthur Lok Jack GSB in 2017 and birthed XOXO by An­na, a merge of her love of cre­at­ing and ex­e­cut­ing unique­ly themed events with her love for trav­el. In­trigued by Ane­cia’s pas­sion and dri­ve to go against all odds, the WE Mag team learned a bit more about her ex­pe­ri­ence as an en­tre­pre­neur and what changed her life’s path. Here’s what Ane­cia shared with the WE Mag team in an in­ter­view:

What was the biggest chal­lenge you had to over­come and how did you deal with it?

Dur­ing the last three months at Petrotrin, while every­one was so down­trod­den and there was an at­mos­phere of gloom, I had to search deep with­in to vi­su­alise the path I want­ed to pur­sue as an en­tre­pre­neur and the iden­ti­ty that I want­ed for my brand. I sur­round­ed my­self with pos­i­tive en­er­gy, pos­i­tive peo­ple and ex­pe­ri­ences. Al­though to many, los­ing a job in the field that they stud­ied was heart­break­ing, to me it was a chance to do some­thing that I am pas­sion­ate about. I seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty that arose from what many per­ceived to be a chal­lenge.

I gen­er­al­ly do not think of things as a chal­lenge. I look at new and ad­verse sit­u­a­tions as a means of hav­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ty; maybe the uni­verse has oth­er plans big­ger than you could have imag­ined. I face these sit­u­a­tions head on, see­ing the pos­i­tive side of it.

What are you work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

I am cur­rent­ly work­ing on my tour of Mo­roc­co in March of 2020. Re­search­ing the cul­ture, brush­ing up on my French and ex­e­cut­ing this tour ex­act­ly as I en­vi­sion, keeps me ex­cit­ed.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

I do not just want to be a lo­cal brand. I would like to be an in­ter­na­tion­al brand for cre­ation of event and trav­el ex­pe­ri­ences.

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know.

I was ac­cept­ed to the BFA in Per­form­ing Arts with a con­cen­tra­tion in dance at UTT in 2012. I turned down the of­fer for what, at the time, was con­sid­ered to be a job of­fer any Ge­ol­o­gist would not refuse. As a dancer, though my favourite style is bal­let, I have done con­tem­po­rary mod­ern, In­di­an dance and even folk danc­ing, hav­ing per­formed at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion as a teen.

For what are you most grate­ful?

I am ex­treme­ly grate­ful for my sup­port sys­tem - es­pe­cial­ly my mom, who I can re­ly on for any­thing. As hu­mans we tend to be­lieve we can do it all, and some­times we need to step back and em­brace the sup­port of oth­ers. As an en­tre­pre­neur and a moth­er, I def­i­nite­ly need peo­ple I can re­ly on and turn to for help when I need them.

Do you have any ad­vice for oth­er women who may want to get in­to en­tre­pre­neur­ship, event man­age­ment, and trav­el cu­ra­tion.

Know ex­act­ly the prod­uct/ser­vice that you would like to pro­vide. Do not let any­one try to dis­suade you or make you think that it can­not be done. Sur­round your­self with peo­ple who do not doubt your vi­sion and who sup­port you. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, trust the process and trust that you are ex­act­ly where you need to be at ex­act­ly the cor­rect time and every­thing will fall in­to place.