Katherine Padilla
14 Courses • 42 StudentsBiography
Katherine "Coach Kathy" Padilla is the Co-Founder of SOVA — School of Virtual Assistance — and Owner of Pipie.co, with more than 10 years of hands-on experience in the virtual assistance industry.
Kathy has built and run her own outsourcing agency, hired and trained dozens of Filipino VAs, and personally worked with international clients across the US, Australia, and the UK. That real-world, still-in-the-trenches experience is what makes her classroom different — every story she shares comes from a live client engagement, not a slide deck written years ago.
At SOVA, she leads the AI-Powered Virtual Assistant Bootcamp, the General VA Bootcamp, and several onsite training programs in Cebu, Iligan, CDO, Butuan, and Bukidnon. She teaches in Bisaya, Tagalog, and English — whichever language a student actually needs to understand the material — and specializes in helping complete beginners break into the industry with confidence.
Her focus areas include:
- Building sustainable, high-income VA careers for Filipinos
- AI tools and workflows for modern virtual assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Notion, automation)
- Client acquisition, personal branding, and long-term retention
- Coaching first-time freelancers from "no experience" to hired
Coach Kathy's students consistently describe her teaching style as patient, practical, and "not overwhelming at all." Many of her graduates are now working full-time as VAs for international clients — several through SOVA's train-to-hire partnership with MalachiSoft and the SOVATalents hiring directory.
When she isn't teaching, Kathy runs Pipie.co and is a proud mom and wife based in the Philippines.
Courses
