ANDI MANZANO-REYES

Top Parenting Influencer

“Influence is anyone who inspires you, anyone who brings you up, or people you want to be,” says Andi Manzano-Reyes, host, radio DJ, wife and mom to one of the intenet’s most loved babies—now toddler— Olivia. In April, Manzano-Reyes won Influence Asia’s Top Parenting Influencer Award, which came as a pleasant surprise to the young mother. She and her family flew to Kuala Lumpur just with the hopes of learning from other online personalities and already felt being nominated was a “big deal.” To her, she’s just trying to live her life like everyone else, though that means half a million followers for her on Instagram and almost 300,000 followers for @oliviamreyes.

“Social media is a gift to us, to be able to have a platform to say what we want to say. So we should use it the right way,” Andi says. When it comes to parenting in particular, she sees how social media has made the access to information quicker thereby aiding the new generation of mothers and fathers. It has also allowed families to come together with ease, through video chatting, and created different work opportunities for women like herself, a working mother from home.

“I don’t really see myself as someone who is looked up to. But it’s such an honor to inspire people. Because I just try to live my life as wife, mom, and I go to work. I still sometimes can’t believe it.”—RCB