Fil-Am biz wiz thriving with ‘Amazon.com’ for caregivers’

• Went public on NYSE at $17 a share

• Care.com has nearly 12 million members in 16 countries

• Inspired by caring for founder’s first child

Care.com CEO Sheila Lirio Marcelo CARE.COM PHOTO

BOSTON, Massachusetts– Filipina businesswoman Sheila Lirio Marcelo is riding a wave of success with her Care.com, which connects parents with babysitters and nannies, the elderly with home healthcare providers and pet owners with walkers and sitters.

The Boston Globe described Marcelo’s Care.com as “an Amazon.com for caregivers.” Founded in 2006, it had 11,800,000 members in 16 countries at press time.

Care.com founder and CEO Marcelo, 43, has become a fixture of online ads, TV commercials, and morning television talk shows to plug her company, notes the Boston Globe.

Care.com went public in January on the New York Stock Exchange at $17 a share, the first venture-backed Massachusetts tech firm to debut on Wall Street in more than 18 months. In July, it announced that revenues and memberships are up.

Her experience taking care of her first child with husband Ron Marcelo became her inspiration for Care.com.

Marcelo has graduate degrees in law and business from Harvard University. She comes from a family that ran coconut production, a rice mill, a trucking company, chicken farms and other businesses in the Philippines. Her family emigrated to Houston, Texas when she was six, reports the Boston Globe.

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