Carolina Angarita: Woman Who Stands Out for her Courage and Leadership

This admirable woman, general manager of Discovery Networks Colombia, is responsible for the advertising sales of several Andean countries, the programming of Central America and the Caribbean, and the operations of 42 television channels in the continent, a challenge that she takes on with a high sense of responsibility.

The phone rings and on the other end, a cheerful and simple woman answers. She greets The Woman Post with kind words and comments that “this pandemic has put us all to work like little ants”. Fortunately, she makes time to talk about herself. She is Carolina Angarita, general manager of Discovery Networks Colombia, without a doubt a reference for women in her country and in the world. For 5 consecutive years, she has been part of a select group of 100 business leaders included in the Merco Colombia ranking. What pride!

With humility she affirms that it is nice to be recognized on that list: “It is an honor to be there but I am sorry that there are not many women. It is absurd that in a country in which the female and male population is almost equal, we are in an imbalance of 90-10 in that list of the 100 leaders with the best reputation ”.

This portrait of reality in which the absence of gender equity is evident deserves a strong comment from you: “I think it is a cultural issue. When they tell you to think of a leader, a man usually comes to mind. " The world is macho, Carolina emphasizes, and even more so in Latin America. But machismo is not only practiced by men: “The incredible thing is that many women repeat machista patterns in their day-to-day lives when speaking when educating their sons and daughters. We have to continue fighting for equality, where there are opportunities for everyone, we all win ”.

Carolina is born in Bogotá and has successfully faced great challenges such as being at the helm of Google in Colombia and of RCN's digital business. She is a communicator and journalist and traveled the paths of a reporter's exercise in renowned media.

Free, brave, spiritual

From the Spanish language, she chooses adjectives that, in her opinion, describe her. She feels free because she creates her life day by day and brave because, although there are many things that scare her, she has the courage to take enormous leaps when she has considered that she must. At this point, she refers to high positions that she has left due to the desire to explore other possibilities. On any given day, I feel like vice president of RCN Televisión, she resigned to set up her own company, she was in the Ardila organization and decided to work at Google, thus, without much thought, faithful to the purpose of following her heart.

To justify decisions that might seem foolish in the eyes of the world, Carolina Angarita has a maxim that has marked her life: “I believe that comfort is the enemy of happiness. We came to the world to be happy and to do good. When we serve others we are happy. If we have already fulfilled our mission in one place, it is time to spread our wings and take another course to grow more, learn more and have the possibility of impacting the lives of others ”. She remains in a permanent state of challenge, when she feels very comfortable in one place, she simply pinches herself, looks at the horizon and makes the decision to leave "even though many think I'm crazy."

Carolina Angarita is a spiritual woman: "I have deep faith in God, I am sure that we all came to the world with a specific objective and we must align ourselves with it." Laughing points out that she is loving, she becomes very fond of people and is not afraid to express her affection. They prefer to see the light side of others and focus their attention on what they have and not on what they lack. It has the power to build from deficiencies. That's your strategy to fill gaps.

She has done a lot for her country

Born into a family whose members originate from various parts of Colombia, Carolina Angarita has every reason to love her country, and every time she has the opportunity she makes it visible with pride, in positive comments, and in words that exalt her characters and stories. She is an ambassador for the land where she saw the light when she came to the world, for which she has worked “with integrity, love, passion, and desire. Those of us who have leadership positions have the possibility to impact and influence social transformation. It is a huge responsibility".

This outstanding woman loves Colombia so much that she created, in 2014, the Wellbeing Connection Foundation to massively disseminate knowledge on physical and mental or emotional health and spiritual health to those who need it most: “If you give people tools to transform their lives, you can do it ”. On YouTube and on Facebook, anyone can access the content provided by the foundation. Next year, these messages – generated by professionals in medicine, psychology, and coaching – will become widespread through E-learning platforms ”. Those who can pay will finance those who have no financial means.

Also read: ILIANA CAPRILES: THE LATINA LEADING THE BATON OF A RENOWNED ORCHESTRA

Carolina Angarita has time to admire those unknown Colombians who plant in the Colombian fields, clean other people's houses, or sell products on the streets and that is why she wants to help them: “They are wonderful, they organize their home with what little they have, many are single mothers and they multiply every ticket they get. They are not publicly recognized but they make a country. We have a lot to learn from them ”.

Carolina, the boss

The general manager of Discovery Networks has many subordinates in her workplace. Is she an authoritarian, supportive, understanding, demanding boss?: “I have very professional people on my team from whom I learn. I know how to listen to them and I recognize when I'm wrong ”.

One of her weak or dark points, as she recalls, was impatience, but she has overcome it. To accompany her at work, she seeks integral human beings, with a good attitude. As a leader, along the way, she learned the relevance of finding professionals who surpass it "because if they fly, I fly with them."

Definitely, Carolina Angarita flies to many horizons and she has to do so because in her current position she is responsible for advertising sales in several Andean countries, programming for Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the operations of 42 television channels on the continent. Definitely this leader and empowered Colombian needs professionals who are up to her standards and support her in the challenges that each new dawn imposes on her.

Of course, in that professional racking, her encounter with money is obvious. For her, money is neither good nor bad, but “what you do with it can be good or bad”. She has found the amiable side of it because she uses it to help her fellow men: I honor and value money and I give it the best possible use for the good of my own and of others who need it ”.

What is that woman named Carolina Angarita like?

She is sweet, with an open and frank laugh, of fluent and sincere conversation. She feels privileged as a woman and advises her gender partners to stop looking outward to be able to ignore the limits imposed on them by home, children, partners, parents, bosses. “When we look within we find power and magic, that which makes us beautiful, special. From there you can build. Women must break with the routine, be brave because when we take one step of courage, God gives us a thousand steps of help. I have verified it ”.

She has been happy and is grateful with life. She prays frequently and speaks with God whom she conceives as "pure love" and feels him present in herself and in every human being. She regrets that she was not born with a talent for dancing or singing. She gets angry “once every 5 years” but feels that it is not worth getting angry because she loses energy and she becomes ill.

She is Colombian to the bone, her family comes from many parts of the country and that is why there is no shortage of dishes like the paisa tray or the ajiaco on her table. He loves lentils and eats arepa Antioqueña every day. She thinks that women should be responsible and not feel guilty because "responsibility empowers you and guilt sinks you."

She is the mother of 9-year-old Juliana, Juli, whom she describes as her “divine flea”. The advice she gives her has to do with "loving her country, never betraying herself, following her dreams, being true to her heart and pursuing her ideals." Juliana has been her teacher of life, she constantly reminds Carolina of "the power of simplicity, of easy laughter, of play, of the beauty of enjoying every moment."

At a time of crisis in her life, she remembered that life has its beautiful side and that is why she wrote the book "Magic does exist" where she addresses her hardest moments and shares how she overcame them. In the reflections that were necessary for her to write, she recalled that she had not cried for a long time and was reunited with the beauty of tears: “Today I cry when I see the majesty of the sky when I know stories of women or children that move me, I cry before the beauty but also in the face of pain ”.

To go out to meet this wonderful woman, the way on Instagram and Twitter is @caroabu and on Facebook, it is like Carolina Angarita-magic does exist.