Filipina-Canadian immigrant businesswoman Maria Nieves Santos-Greaves overcame the odds including a hearing loss and won the 2022 Surrey Women in Business Awards in British Columbia, Canada.
The president and operations director of Surrey Hearing Care Inc. was among the six honorees of this year’s annual business awards that recognize Surrey’s businesswomen and their contributions to the community.
Santos-Greaves won under the Entrepreneur category for her hearing clinic company, Surrey Hearing Care Inc., which provides comprehensive hearing care services, including thorough hearing evaluations, a complete line of digital hearing aids, assistive listening devices, and counseling.
The Filipino-Canadian entrepreneur who has had hearing loss since her twenties has made it her life’s mission to help the hard of hearing, especially the elderly.
When Santos-Greaves migrated to Canada from the Philippines, she worked in a dollar store, sold registered education savings plans, and worked at a call center. She also became an audiometric technician at Fraser Health before venturing out on her own to start her business.
“With over 25 years of experience and sheer determination, Maria built a clinic from the ground up. Initially only having one location with three staff, Surrey Hearing Care now has four locations with 15 diverse employees,” the Surrey Board of Trade, the organizer of the annual awards, noted of Santos-Greaves’ work.
Santos-Greaves also overcame depression and many obstacles before opening her first clinic in 2009, according to a report from Inquirer. She was earlier voted across Canada as one of the Top 25 Immigrants in 2015 for her outreach work and efforts to give back to her community.
The Surrey-based company’s mobile hearing clinic van provides free hearing tests to minorities, homeless shelters, and communities across the area.
Santos-Greaves is an alumna of the Pharmacy program at Centro Escolar University in the Philippines and recently received the Dean Epifania Excellence Award from the school. She pursued further training in Hearing Instrumentation at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, and from the International Hearing Society.
Santos-Greaves is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Multicultural Helping House Society, a non-profit organization that provides help to new immigrants in Canada.
The 13th Annual Surrey Women in Business Awards recognized the hard work of Surrey’s businesswomen and their contributions to the community and announced this year’s winners in May 2022.
Filipina immigrant business owners making waves in Canada include entrepreneur Ruby Lubigan, the owner of an award-winning grocery store that brings a taste of the Philippines to Prince Edward Island, and farmer Rezel Rossignol at Hearn Farm in Grand Falls.
SEND CHEERS in the comments below to Filipina-Canadian immigrant businesswoman Maria Nieves Santos-Greaves for winning the 2022 Surrey Women in Business Awards in British Columbia, Canada. You can WATCH her accept the award here:
Good News Pilipinas is a Lasallian Scholarum Awardee. TELL US your good news story tips by messaging GoodNewsPilipinas.com on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or e-mail editor@goodnewspilipinas.com and WATCH Good News Pilipinas TV YouTube & Good News Pilipinas TikTok for more Filipino Pride stories!
