Meet Ryna Brito Garcia, The Woman In-Charge of Sunlight Air

(SPOT.ph) TV and movies would have you convinced a CEO is a suit-clad man in his late 40s holding court in the boardroom. But it's 2025 and in the real world, the growing number of women who've earned that title will surprise you—especially in these shores.

According to an article in CEO Magazine in 2023, the Philippines ranks 10th among countries with the highest proportion of women CEOs. Still, some industries are tough to crack. Case in point: aviation, where only one wholly Filipino airline has a female CEO.

Meet Ryna Brito-Garcia. At just 30 years old, Ryna heads her own airline, Sunlight Air, which she built from the ground up. 

Also read: More Women Are Traveling Solo; Here's Why It's Time to Book That Flight

Ryna Brito-Garcia is Sunlight Air's fearless leader

It's easy to look at Ryna Brito-Garcia and forget she's a CEO. With her youth, chinita beauty and a smile men and women will go crazy for, you could easily mistake her for a model or an influencer. And she does set the CEO role aside—at least on weekends when, just like the rest of us, she can be found at home doom scrolling on social media, hanging out with her dogs, binge-watching a series, or bopping to our favorite beats (hers happen to be G-Dragon and BTS).

But don’t be fooled by her “I’m just just a girl” vibe. If you ask us, she’s a badass, brilliant girlboss.

Armed with a Marketing and Entrepreneurship degree from an Australian university (the SP Jain School of Global Management, no less) and the go-getter attitude of someone who worked in a start-up environment for several years, Ryna started Sunlight Air in 2019. This calculated move addressed the lack of flights to Coron, Palawan, and supported their family's hospitality chain, Sunlight Hotel Coron, and the stunning, 18-hectare Sunlight Ecotourism Island Resort.

We would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge her privilege. Ryna comes from the Brito clan, a family with diverse business interests, ranging from hospitality to an array of retail department stores across the country. She could’ve taken the easy route and slid into a cushy role in the family business but she carved out her own lane, putting in the hours and the hard work to build Sunlight Air.

In the beginning, the Sunlight Air team was just her and two other employees, which meant she was involved in everything. As a type-A Capricorn, who keeps spreadsheets for every aspect of her life, Ryna was ready for this. She loved problem-solving, the challenge of developing processes and policies, and creating the groundwork for a business.

She dove headfirst into regulatory requirements, aviation code, airline operations, sales and marketing—she had to learn all that and fast. 

"Four or five years ago, I would feel like I wasn't doing enough for the company if I didn't work, or if I rested even on Saturdays, or if I let's say had a long lunch," Ryna recalls about the early days. "I keep thinking to myself, I should be pushing myself more."

That's not the only pressure the then 24-year-old faced. She was a young woman playing a man's game. Her first few years were riddled with insecurities and doubts about whether the people in the industry would take her seriously. The double-edged sword of being a young, attractive woman in a mostly male field hung over her—her presence turns heads and opens doors, but this also made earning respect an uphill battle. But she didn't let this bother her. She had tricks of her own. “I would usually age myself up by a year just to fit in," Ryna says joking.

Instead of buckling, she mined what she dubs are the strengths of being a woman: among them, her ability to collaborate. She built and maintained relationships that mattered. She surrounded herself with people with aviation experience and built a team of industry experts, whom she could turn to for big decisions and to complement her weaknesses. 

Today, her team of three has grown to a troop of over 200 employees. Gone are the days when she had to do it all. 

"Now that I have a team that is very experienced, my role is more on being able to set a clear direction for the company," she says.

These days, Ryna is more of an idea person, concentrating on the airline's long-term goals from a top-down perspective.

"I [now] delegate," Ryna says cheekily after admitting that her early leadership style was more akin to micromanaging. Nowadays, she lets her team handle most of the operations and execution, but when it comes to brainstorming, Ryna is still fully involved. In these sessions, seasoned aviation managers lay out ideas grounded in industry standards and regulations. Then Ryna steps in—taking these tried-and-tested strategies and giving them a fresh, innovative spin, all with a young woman’s touch.

"After six years of handling Sunlight Air, I have learned to foster everybody's strengths. Collaboration is encouraged. Ideas are welcome," she declares. 

In surrounding herself with a capable team, she no longer feels guilty about taking time for herself. "I get to live a very balanced life now," she quips.

After work and on weekends, she is able to spend time with her family, go to the beach and dive, discover new restaurants, hang out with friends, travel for fun—all the normal things she temporarily put on hold during Sunlight Air's early years. Heck, she's even got time to pursue her passion for fashion by working on her line of bespoke women's suits, Eve.Ry Femme.

But more importantly, Ryna has gained something more personal: confidence. "Six years into this business, being a young woman [in aviation] doesn't faze me at all anymore."

Ryna has since embraced her unique position in the industry, even saying that having a young woman CEO is one of Sunlight Air's strengths: "I don't think being a woman makes it harder for me. I think it puts the company in a unique place in the industry. Women are empathetic, allowing me to better understand the pain points of customers and the industry." Age and gender are no longer things that weigh Ryna down, allowing this young aviation boss to soar to higher heights.

Also read: Founding Mothers: Meet the Real Women Behind Food's Biggest Household

Photos by JL Javier.

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