Virnalia I. Divina

Profile

Divina started off her career in retail and publishing at 19 years old when she was also juggling studies at the Faculty of Economics, University of Indonesia (FE-UI), an active role at AIESEC (a global business Students Association), and a few assignments mandated by the Alumnae Association of FE-UI. She graduated nonetheless on schedule and went to Japan for an Internship set up for her by AIESEC of Waseda University upon graduation. She was 22 years old.

In Japan, she learned the language and finished her internship after a 6-month period. Having fallen in love with the city of Tokyo and enjoyed the sweetness of independence and wealth of experience the City had to offer, she decided to find the next step. It was not an easy path to take, as she was faced with a tough job market, a language that she was yet to master perfectly, a grueling maze of immigration bureaucracy, and so on. It did not help that her father fell ill on the night after her visa extension application was accepted and stamped unto her passport making it impossible for her to leave the country. Her return flight ticket then was to expire 2 days later. While listening to the terrible news over the payphone in Shibuya, she cried as she mulled over what to do. A career path to fight for or a chance to see her father. In the end, she had to turn to her faith and prayed to Allah that everything would be fine in the end. "I need to create my future", she whispered to herself every 2-second in order to gather and maintain some inner strength.

After 2.5 months and about 120 application letters being rejected, a light shone through, an offer was extended by a British firm. She had landed her feet into the market. As part of immigration rules, she had to leave Japan for home, which she did gladly, and was finally reunited with her family, and most importantly with her father who had by then thankfully recovered. God had been very kind.

In September 1998, Divina returned to Japan victorious, as a permanent high-skilled Staff at Stephens Associates, with the job title of "Research Associate".

In October 1999 she decided to apply and accept a job at Hudson Global Resources as Head of Research, Japan. After 1 year, she was de facto Leader of the research function of the Compahy's other Offices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, and Korea. In August 2001 the Management position was confirmed.

In August of 2002 she was trusted with a sales role, covering the Real Estate practice within the Financial & Banking Group at Hudson Global Resources, Japan. Having proven profitable to the Firm, she was then confirmed as Head of Real Estate practice in October 2003.

In November 2004 she bowed farewell to Hudson Global Resources to seek possibility of setting up her own Company in the same area of business, with more diversity in its service offering.

Her dreams were realized on July 13th 2005, when "Divina Enterprise, Japan" was born.

Divina grew the Company from a 1-person Team to a 7-member Team generating average revenue of USD 250,000 per year. She then expanded the Company's service offerings to sales of on-line headhunting software which was developed in-house with the help from outside Engineers, and to providing global market research/ data intelligence.

Divina currently resides in Amsterdam, with ambition to expand her Company into the European markets, and to venture into other business fields such as fashion, real estate, trading, and so forth.

Divina turns 35 years old in August, 2010.