The Weekend by Maude Labs: Where Founders Step Out of the Daily Hustle to Reclaim Their Authority
In the modern corporate ecosystem, success comes with a neat paper trail: valuation rounds, client rosters, bloated headcounts, and revenue milestones. But for many founders and executives, the real existential puzzle begins after the initial win. The current landscape demands far more than quiet brilliance behind closed doors; it requires mastering the art of positioning—claiming space in room-defining conversations, commanding institutional trust, and ensuring market perception actually matches the substance of what’s been built. Founders must also communicate their value, build trust, and ensure that their public image reflects the businesses they have built.
Enter The Weekend by Maude Labs, an exclusive four-day retreat held from October 2 to 5, 2026, at the serene Anya Resort Tagaytay. Centered around the theme Sacred Authority, the gathering assembled an intentionally curated mix of entrepreneurs, investors, and creative leaders. Building on the groundwork laid during its flagship Boracay edition at Shangri-La Boracay, the experience offered a blend: equal parts executive coaching, sharp brand positioning, somatic movement, and candid, late-night peer alignment.
Far from your average corporate conference—where keynotes are endured, and networking feels like transactional speed-dating—The Weekend was designed as a deliberate pause. By pulling accomplished leaders out of their daily fire-fighting environments, the retreat created a safe container to confront hard truths: examining limiting beliefs, refining how they articulate their wins, and plotting how to step into their next era of influence without burning out.
The curriculum seamlessly oscillated between two essential dimensions: the quiet inner work of nervous system regulation, self-awareness, and personal narrative, and the razor-sharp external work of pitching investors, commanding media presence, and refining commercial messaging.
That dual approach captures the core ethos of Maude Labs, a global personal branding and advisory firm known for signature programs like The Maude Method. Their thesis is refreshingly direct: inner alignment isn’t just self-care—it’s strategic, and outward visibility is the natural byproduct of knowing who you are.
Leadership often comes with an unspoken expectation to have the answers, project confidence, and keep moving forward. But what happens when accomplished women are given the space to pause, examine the stories they tell themselves, and reconsider how they show up in the rooms they lead?
Maude Labs was founded on a simple observation: building a great product or leading a successful team doesn’t automatically translate to market recognition. Plenty of brilliant founders sit on ground-breaking companies yet struggle when it comes to framing their narrative for institutional capital, key partners, or the public.
To bridge that disconnect, Maude Labs combines deep strategic advisory—brand audits, scale-and-exit planning, public relations, and raise preparation—with experiential masterclasses. The Weekend acts as the live, high-touch extension of this work, giving leaders a chance to workshop their presence and strategy in real time.
Tin Santos, CEO and co-founder of Maude Labs, brings over 13 years of brand strategy experience, having shaped narratives across 50+ blue-chip brands including Apple, Samsung, L’Oréal, Maybelline, and Lazada. Armed with a background in Business Economics, she views branding not as aesthetic fluff, but as a direct driver of commercial performance.
At Maude Labs, Santos runs the Raise Readiness Program, tightening early-stage founders’ financial models, pitch decks, and operational foundations so they can survive rigorous investor due diligence.
Her core rule is simple: visibility without real operational substance is short-lived. A compelling founder narrative must sit on top of a business that is fully built to scale.
Santos articulated this philosophy in a July 2026 company announcement:
“Distribution is the new moat. The most talented founders don’t always get the opportunities they deserve — the ones who are seen do.”
It’s a blunt truth that cuts through modern corporate romanticism: execution matters, but if no one knows you exist, you’re leaving growth on the table.
Throughout the retreat, Santos grounded the introspective work in real-world commercial strategy, pushing attendees to translate personal clarity into high-impact positioning. She connected founders’ personal narratives with commercial readiness which emphasizes that visibility must be backed by a business equipped to scale.
Co-founder Erika Aquino brings the sharp, no-nonsense lens of an active angel investor and strategic adviser, with investments across the US, Germany, Australia, Singapore, and the Philippines.
She guides portfolio companies through scaling complexities, investor relations, governance, and long-term exit strategy.
Her perspective acts as a perfect counterweight to brand positioning: while strategy shapes the story, the investor’s eye tests whether that story holds water when real capital is on the line.
In her co-led Claim It session alongside Dr. Katrina Gisbert-Tay, Aquino pressured-tested how attendees communicate under scrutiny, teaching them to claim their authority in front of power players and gatekeepers.
It was a masterclass designed specifically for seasoned leaders who have built serious equity but still want to sharpen their edge in room-defining conversations.
Rounding out the leadership team is VP of Business Development Monica Dizon, whose background spans luxury retail, strategic partnerships, and brand growth.
Dizon focuses on ensuring a brand’s narrative translates directly into commercial opportunities, high-value partnerships, and market reach.
At the retreat, Dizon worked directly with participants to audit how their brand narrative land with target partners, ensuring their messaging stays elevated yet accessible.
Together, the trio represents Maude Labs’ holistic formula: combining brand architecture, venture capital rigor, and business development.
Their complementary backgrounds inform Maude Labs’ approach: a strong professional identity must be supported by substance, strategy, and the ability to communicate value to the people who matter.
The program relied on a multi-disciplinary team of experts tasked with stripping away fluff and addressing executive performance from the inside out.
Serving as lead facilitator, Dr. Katrina Gisbert-Tay is a medical doctor, psychology graduate, ICF-credentialed executive coach, and Managing Director of The Authenticity Institute. Her client roster includes senior leaders from Google, Unilever, AXA, and PETRONAS.
Bridging medicine, neuroscience, somatic embodiment, and executive coaching, Dr. Kat’s sessions focus on regulating the nervous system to prevent burnout, unseating ancestral narratives, and breaking self-limiting patterns that trigger self-sabotage in top performers.
Her methodology goes well beyond traditional executive coaching tactics, tackling how stress manifests physically and psychologically when leaders carry immense stakes.
In her flagship workshop, Spot It, Own It, Build It, attendees created their core Authority Statement—an unfiltered, precise statement of what they’ve built, what they bring, and where they are going.
The process was deliberately confronting: leaders delivered their statements live, received immediate feedback, and reworked their delivery until every trace of apology or qualification was removed.
It forced participants to ditch corporate politeness and embrace precise, unapologetic clarity about their track record.
Dr. Kat also facilitated The Split Screen integration session and ran one-on-one coaching and tension-release sessions throughout the four days.
Her sessions grounded the retreat: proving that before you can lead or position a brand, you have to achieve genuine internal alignment.
Movement sessions were spearheaded by yoga teacher Kitkat Cuenca, whose expertise spans Vinyasa, Yin, myofascial alignment, and restorative practices.
Her sessions were integrated into each morning schedule, starting with a serene sunset session on the arrival evening.
Far from an optional wellness add-on, movement served as somatic work—helping high-strung leaders discharge stored physical tension and reset their nervous system.
It reinforced the retreat’s broader theme: leadership presence starts in the body.
While Dr. Kat unseated internal blocks, Santos and Aquino channeled that new clarity straight into practical strategy.
In Aquino’s Claim It, attendees were challenged to strip away buzzwords and present their value clearly enough to withstand investor scrutiny.
The Maude Labs team then reviewed attendees’ positioning, identifying gaps between how they see themselves and how the market receives them.
The key takeaway? Confidence is internal, but positioning is a strategic discipline—and high-performing leaders need both.
The retreat structure connected inner alignment with external commercial leverage.
The guest list brought together leaders across tech, luxury, beauty, heavy industry, media, and venture capital.
Though their sectors differed, everyone shared the same challenge: managing growth while maintaining authentic leadership.
Rachel Bravo, CEO of New Lounge, has scaled her beauty brand from a studio in Las Piñas to a flagship location in Beverly Hills, California.
Her story highlights the operational and reputational demands of global brand expansion.
She was joined by brand strategist Bia Jacildo, who oversees community engagement and customer experience.
Together, they brought key insights on building lasting customer loyalty in competitive consumer sectors.
Former Apple executive Joy Wan is the founder and CEO of BestSign, an AI-powered e-signature and contract platform serving enterprise clients across Asia.
Her work sits at the intersection of enterprise software, artificial intelligence, and operational leadership.
For B2B tech founders, positioning requires making complex technical platforms clear and compelling to corporate buyers and investors.
Wan added a sharp enterprise software perspective to the retreat’s consumer and media discussions.
Gayle Guansing is the founder and creative director of GoldandStones, a fine-jewelry brand celebrated for bespoke pieces that blend Filipino heritage with technical artistry.
Trained at the Gemological Institute of America, Guansing represented Philippine design at Milan Jewelry Week in 2023.
Her brand shows how creative businesses build value around craftsmanship and authentic storytelling.
For high-end luxury products, brand positioning is directly tied to the narrative behind each design.
Yanna Cowper is a digital content creator, model, and media talent working across fashion and lifestyle verticals.
Her background offered insight into personal branding in creator-led industries, where authenticity directly drives public trust.
Her inclusion underlined the retreat’s broader focus on how leaders present themselves across digital media and traditional platforms.
Geolette Esguerra is Editor-in-Chief of Metro Style and Metro Magazine, as well as an architect and environmental planner.
Her editorial career sits at the intersection of media, design, fashion, and cultural commentary.
As a media leader, Esguerra brought valuable insight into how stories are shaped, edited, and received by broader audiences.
Janel Mater is the founder behind Matlex, an infrastructure, construction, and manufacturing firm.
Her presence anchored the group in industrial execution, where reputation is built on reliability, project delivery, and operational scale.
Her perspective broadened discussions beyond tech and consumer brands into heavy industry.
Patricia de Leon serves as Chief of Staff to Erika Aquino, supporting founder relations and operations while advocating for female founders.
Katya Lichauco is APAC Chief of Staff to a global angel investor, managing regional ecosystem initiatives.
Both roles operate at key decision-making intersections in start-up ecosystems, supporting executive execution and strategic growth.
The diverse mix created rich conversations that broke down traditional industry silos.
Their professional paths differ, but their participation created an opportunity to explore leadership from multiple perspectives. Founders and entrepreneurs could consider how they articulate the value of their businesses, while professionals working across media, technology, and creative industries could reflect on how they communicate their expertise and ambitions.
The four-day schedule at Anya Resort Tagaytay balanced structured masterclasses, movement, personal coaching, and open time.
On Friday, October 2, participants gathered at The Alpha Suites in Makati before heading to Tagaytay. The retreat opened with a sunset movement session led by Cuenca.
At the opening dinner, Tin Santos delivered opening remarks, while Dr. Kat guided guests through setting their intentions by writing letters sealed in envelopes to be opened on the final day. Attendees skipped standard networking intros in favor of organic introductions, sharing genuine intentions about their business and personal goals.This set an open, candid tone for the rest of the retreat which also established the retreat’s central premise, before making changes to how one leads or presents oneself, it is necessary to examine the circumstances, assumptions, and personal patterns influencing that behavior.
Saturday started with morning yoga, followed by Dr. Kat’s Spot It, Own It, Build It workshop.
Attendees drafted, presented, and refined their Authority Statements using the structure “I am [3 words],” emphasizing certainty about themselves and their capabilities while removing overly modest or hedge language.
The workshop turned abstract self-worth into a concrete, confident pitch.
In the afternoon, Erika and Dr. Kat led Claim It, focusing on energy, confidence, authority, and owning the room when pitching. Meanwhile, pitch decks and financial models were explored separately through 1:1 sessions and potential future engagements.
The day wrapped with 1-on-1 coaching sessions and a group dinner.
The sequence moved smoothly from internal mindset work to investor pitch practice.
This day connected internal clarity with external communication, identifying one’s value was only the beginning, the next step was learning to express it in a way others could understand.
Sunday began with movement, followed by The Split Screen workshop led by Dr. Kat and Aquino.
The exercise explored discrepancies between internal self-perception and how audiences interpret brand messaging.
After lunch, Santos, Dizon, and the Maude Labs team ran brand and positioning assessments for each attendee.
Participants reviewed their brand messaging, identifying clear opportunities to elevate market presence.
Optional somatic tension-release sessions and coaching ran into the afternoon.
The evening concluded with a closing dinner and remarks from Santos.
Day three connected individual founder mindset with brand strategy and market positioning.
The session moved beyond abstract goal-setting. It invited participants to consider how their beliefs about themselves might influence the way they speak, act, and occupy professional spaces.
Monday, October 5, featured a final movement session, breakfast, and a closing integration wrap-up with Dr. Kat and Santos before check-out.
The session focused on turning insights into actionable habits back in the boardroom.
Attendees left with clear materials—from refined pitch decks to updated messaging—for immediate deployment.
The real test lies in applying these refined narratives to upcoming investor rounds and business moves.
What began as an expression of uncertainty or aspiration became an opportunity to recognize the distance between one’s starting point and the perspective developed over the weekend.
Under the theme Sacred Authority, authority was redefined not as corporate power, but as quiet self-assurance rooted in real accomplishments.
It means owning what you’ve built and communicating it clearly without qualification or false modesty.
The facilitators approached this from distinct angles: Dr. Kat through psychology and nervous system alignment, Aquino via investor pitch strategy, and Santos and Dizon through brand positioning.
The combined framework linked inner awareness directly to outward commercial messaging.
Whether pitching venture capitalists, launching fine jewelry collections, or leading media outlets, the goal remains the same: making your value unmistakable.
By keeping attendee numbers small, Maude Labs prioritized direct engagement and personal coaching over typical conference formats.
Bringing together founders across tech, heavy industry, media, and venture capital sparked fresh perspectives.
Shared meals, yoga, and open evenings allowed natural connections to form without pitch pressure.
Reflecting on their earlier Boracay retreat at Shangri-La Boracay, Santos highlighted why these spaces matter for high performers:
“We wanted to build a retreat that we ourselves would like to experience. Burnout, limiting beliefs are all something we go through no matter what stage we are in life.”
That focus on tackling burnout while refining positioning remains central to the retreat’s vision.
The Tagaytay edition built on this foundation, adding sharper investor-facing frameworks.
The Weekend sits at the intersection of brand strategy, executive coaching, and premium retreats. It recognizes that leaders need dedicated space to refine their vision, pressure-test messaging, and recharge.
For Maude Labs, the retreat expands their advisory services into an immersive environment where founders actively practice claiming their market presence.
Its core proposal is clear: giving established leaders the tools and clarity to match their public positioning with their real track record.
Through four days of workshops, coaching, and reflection, attendees tackled a fundamental question: how to lead with clarity and communicate value with authority.