Seventeen years ago, Lyn Lozano Galicia moved from the Philippines to Barcelona. Since then, she has worked in massage therapy, built her own business, become involved in the city’s international and Filipino communities, and taken on the role of President of the Barcelona Women’s Network. Now, she is adding another chapter to that story: she is preparing to publish the Lucky Lyn-Lyn children’s book series, inspired by stories from her own childhood.
Barcelona Expat Life sat down with Lyn to talk about her life in Barcelona, the different paths her career has taken, and the ideas that have brought her to where she is today.
Lyn Lozano Galicia
Founder of BCN Ideal Services, President of the Barcelona Women's Network, and author of the Lucky Lyn-Lyn book series.
Filipinos in Barcelona: an interview with Lyn Lozano Galicia
Lyn Lozano Galicia: An Introduction
Seventeen years ago, Lyn Lozano Galicia arrived in Barcelona with a Spanish visa that had taken barely two weeks to process, a background in engineering and a feeling that she was meant to explore the world beyond the Philippines. What followed was not a single career but a series of reinventions: she moved from a corporate engineering role to massage therapy, then into entrepreneurship, and now, into writing. Each chapter began with a new idea and the determination to see where it might lead.
Today, Lyn is the founder of BCN Ideal Services, a boutique agency connecting international families with trusted household staff, many of them from the Filipino community in Barcelona. She is also President of the Barcelona Women’s Network, a social club for international and internationally-minded women in the city. In 2026, she adds another role to the list: children’s author.
A Childhood on Happy Island
What was it like growing up in the Philippines, and where does the entrepreneurial streak come from?
Lyn Lozano Galicia was born in the Bicol region of the Philippines but spent her early years in Manila, where her mother worked. ‘During my first years, until I was eight years old, I grew up in Manila’, she explains. ‘My childhood was lovely, had a lot of adventures. During the 1980s, Manila was very safe for kids to roam around.’
At eight, the family relocated to Catanduanes, an island nicknamed ‘Happy Island’, where Lyn spent much of her childhood. She remembers having a lot of freedom to explore, with plenty of space to play, use her imagination and get into her own adventures.
It was back in Manila, though, at the age of five, that Lyn’s entrepreneurial streak first began to show. Neighbourhood children were selling paper bags in the local market, and Lyn wanted to join them. Her mother said no. Lyn asked around anyway and borrowed five pesos in starting capital from friends. ‘I just dared to do it’, she recalls. ‘I used it as capital, and then I sold a lot of paper bags.’
‘I think I started being an entrepreneur when I was five years old’, she says, ‘and it has been my thing’.
That childhood experience would later become the inspiration for one of Lyn’s books.
A New Start in Barcelona
Would you say you were a big dreamer as a child?
‘Absolutely’, Lyn replies. ‘I always wanted to travel the world, to explore the world, that is the reason why I’m here in Barcelona right now.’
Before Barcelona, Lyn worked in the Philippines’ electrical engineering and communications sector, building a career in a field quite different from the work she would eventually take up in Spain. ‘Economically, the Philippines doesn’t give a higher salary, even if you have a good position, it’s just not enough’, she explains. The plan, initially, was Canada, where a number of friends had already relocated. But Canada’s visa process was slow, and a friend already living in Barcelona made a suggestion to try Spain instead.
The Spanish visa came through in just two weeks. Lyn arrived in Barcelona in 2009 and has not looked back since. ‘I have zero regrets’, she reflects. ‘I‘m very happy here.’
From Massage Therapist to Business Owner
How did massage therapy eventually lead to building a business?
By her own account, none of it was mapped out in advance. ‘I actually didn’t know that I was going to be a massage therapist’, Lyn admits. The decision, as with most of hers, arrived as an idea and was acted on almost immediately. ‘When I had an idea, the next day I searched for the schools. I searched for who can help me become professional.’ She trained in quiromasaje, a form of massage therapy, in Barcelona and began building a client base largely made up of international families, the same community that would later become central to her business.
Massage therapy also ran in Lyn’s family: an aunt back in the Philippines had built a client base of her own among high-end clients, though Lyn had no idea, growing up, that she would one day follow a similar path.
Alongside her massage practice, Lyn began studying entrepreneurship and leadership through a Filipino university programme open to Filipinos living abroad. ‘Everything you do, you need to be an expert first before you can give it to people’, she explains, describing her decision to study formally before launching a business of her own. During COVID-19, Lyn had the time to work on her business plan and put what she had been studying into practice.
Building BCN Ideal Services
Where did the idea for BCN Ideal Services come from?
The business, founded in 2020, grew out of Lyn’s work as a massage therapist. Clients she had built relationships with began asking if she knew reliable babysitters, housekeepers and other people who could help them. ‘They asked me, Lyn, do you know someone that can do this? Do you know someone that can do the housekeeping, can do babysitting?’ ‘I said, yes’, she recalls. ‘In the beginning, I was bringing them people, giving them people. But eventually I said, okay, I think this is a good business for me.’
What started with recommendations gradually became a formal business. ‘My company eventually grew from word of mouth’, she recalls. In the beginning, Lyn had just one employee and would sometimes step in herself when there were more bookings than they could handle. She continued working as a massage therapist while building up the childcare and cleaning side of the business.
Today, BCN Ideal Services employs around 20 people, many of them from the Filipino community in Barcelona. Lyn has deliberately chosen to keep BCN Ideal Services small and boutique, working with a select group of private clients, families and individuals. Much of the business still comes through the relationships Lyn built when she first started working with the international community. ‘I started from the expat community that already knew me as a person’, she says. ‘The trust was there.’
The Filipino Community in Barcelona
How central has the Filipino community in Barcelona been to building this life?
The Filipino community has played an important role in Lyn’s life in Barcelona. She describes the community as close-knit and supportive, and says she has seen it become more confident within the city’s wider international community. ‘We have this strong bond, like we help each other’, she says.
Lyn is also aware of some of the challenges Filipino professionals face in Spain. People may arrive with qualifications and experience as nurses, teachers or in other professions, but getting those qualifications recognised in Spain can make it difficult to work in the same field. For Lyn, being adaptable is an important part of navigating those challenges. ‘Filipinos are very flexible’, she notes.
The Filipino community has also become an important part of BCN Ideal Services. Many of the people working for the company are Filipino, and Lyn sees providing those jobs as part of how she can support the community that supported her. ‘If not with the Filipino community, I will not be able to build this, because they are my people’, she explains. ‘I’m helping, I’m supporting the expat community. At the same time, my Filipino community, I’m providing jobs for them.’
Lyn is now well known within the Filipino community in Barcelona and regularly gets involved in events, activities and sponsorships. ‘They look up to me as one of the successful Filipinos that has moved to Barcelona’, she says. ‘I’m very involved, they invite me for events, for activities, for sponsorships. I just love being part of them.’
Giving Back Through the Barcelona Women's Network
You've also become involved with the Barcelona Women's Network. How has that experience been for you?
Alongside her work with BCN Ideal Services, Lyn is also involved with the Barcelona Women’s Network (BWN), an international community for women living in and around Barcelona. Founded in 1998, the non-profit organisation brings together women from different nationalities through social and cultural events, professional connections and community initiatives. Lyn is currently the organisation’s President, having been involved with the network for several years.
‘Basically, being President of Barcelona Women’s Network, I’m just the face of the organisation’, Lyn says, while also emphasising the role of the wider board. BWN currently supports Casal dels Infants, a charity working with children, young people and families at risk of social exclusion in Catalonia. The network has been raising money for the organisation through events and other activities.
Lyn’s interest in supporting children goes back to her childhood in the Philippines, where she volunteered teaching children through a church ministry. ‘Growing up, I always wanted to help’, she recalls. ‘I think I love helping kids.’
That connection with children also extends to Lyn’s new publishing project, with part of the proceeds from the Lucky Lyn-Lyn series going towards a children’s home in Catanduanes.
Lucky Lyn-Lyn: The Book Series
How did the idea for the Lucky Lyn-Lyn books come about?
The idea of writing had been with Lyn for some time. A close friend, the late Paula Echeverri, had encouraged her to write, and Lyn later contributed to a chapter in Paula’s book, Emerge with Self-Love, alongside eleven other women. The book brings together personal stories from women who have experienced different challenges and life changes, including moving to a new country. ‘She always inspired me to write books’, Lyn says. ‘But I don’t want to share my biography yet, I’m still learning, I’m still growing, and I still have many things to do.’
Earlier this year, Lyn was telling a friend about the paper-bag story from her childhood when the friend suggested it could become a children’s book. ‘She said, You know what, I can see this in a children’s book. And then – boom – that was the confirmation I was waiting for.’ The next day, Lyn started contacting publishers.
That conversation became the starting point for Lucky Lyn-Lyn, a series of five children’s books.
‘I’d rather not give away the story itself just yet. What I can share is the heart of it. The main character is inspired by my own childhood, so a good part of her is genuinely me. And underneath everything that happens, it’s really about confidence, honesty, teamwork, and even something as simple as asking for help, which is a much bigger deal for a kid than adults tend to remember. Those are the themes I want to stay with a reader long after the page turns.‘
The books are being published in both English and Spanish, with illustrations by Dan Negrut and publication by Natalia of Alaya Books for Children. They are written for young children and families to read together, with the stories providing simple opportunities to talk about ideas such as kindness, courage, friendship and believing in yourself.
The series also has a connection to Lyn’s home island. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Alfonso Maria Fusco Children’s Home in Catanduanes, where Lyn grew up. The Home, run by the Sisters of St John the Baptist, provides residential care, education and support to vulnerable children.
A Message to Little Lozano Galicia
What would you say to your nine-year-old self?
‘Thank you for exploring. Thank you for being brave. Thank you for being the nine-year-old Lyn that never stopped dreaming’.
Lyn has chosen to dedicate one of the Lucky Lyn-Lyn books to that younger version of herself.
‘I’ve been dedicating my books to other people. Why not dedicate one of my books to myself, to the little Lyn-Lyn?’
And that is what makes the series particularly personal for Lyn. The stories come from her own childhood, but they are now being shared with children growing up somewhere else, in another language and another generation.
‘So many good lessons to learn, being brave, being kind to people, and just go for your dreams’, she says. ‘The point is to be inspired. Little things can have a big impact.’
‘I want the world to know about the books’, she adds. ‘That’s my dream right now.’
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