“Yale-educated lawyer Henry Gozun made GMA Network the largest, most profitable, most trusted, most valuable, and highest-rated TV network, and the best in quality of news, information, entertainment, and in overall programming”
Here is the continuation of the list of people who defined excellence in my book in the past two years and nine months of the COVID pandemic and economic crisis:
Senate President Juan Miguel F. Zubiri
In over 19 years as a legislator, including nine years as a congressman, and 10 years a senator and now as Senate chief, he has brought to public service an extraordinary sense of mission and purpose, diligence and hard work, decency and affability that resulted in 650 reformist laws, boosted people’s confidence for bright future, and reaffirmed their faith in politicians and in their democracy.
Converge ICT Solutions, Inc. President and CEO Dennis Anthony H. Uy
He converted a provincial cable tv operation into the Philippines’ only pure-play high-speed fixed broadband and the country’s largest fiber infrastructure now reaching 14.3 million homes and small businesses, with 6.7 million fiber ports.
The business is worth P109.75 billion, making him a veritable dollar billionaire. Nine-month revenues are up 30 percent to P24.48 billion and profits leaped 17 percent to P6.1 billion.
RCBC and YGC Group Chair Helen Yuchengco Dee
Combining tough management and daring decision-making, she has made the YGC Group bolder, bigger, and better. RCBC is exceptionally profitable and competitive, with solid partners.
The group’s banking, insurance, construction, autos, energy, property, and death care businesses are all growth areas.
Atty. Felipe L. Gozon (born Felipe Enrique “Henry” Lapuz Gozon)
Yale-educated lawyer Henry made GMA Network the largest, most profitable, most trusted, most valuable, and highest-rated TV network, and the best in quality of news, information, entertainment, and in overall programming.
Margins are spectacular and GMA’s return on equity beats the profit ratios of banks.
LTG President and COO Michael G. Tan
In 10 years, he has overseen a crucial restructuring of LT Group, Inc., the business colossus of legendary taipan Lucio Tan, to make it better, bigger, prodigiously profitable, and marvelously dominant in key businesses, with market leadership in tobacco, liquor, distilled spirits, and including banking in terms of global reach and OFW remittances.
Revenues and profits have never been better. Consumers are back to enjoy the times.
RMR Capital Founder-CEO Dr. Reghis M. Romero
His foresight and vision led to the pioneering garbage-to-housing and port estate in Smokey Mountain, the development of the archipelago’s maritime infrastructure network, and singular projects such as port operations, housing and building construction, a sewerage system for central Manila, sanitary landfills, drainage networks, sewage filtration systems, solid waste and wastewater treatment plants, and related infrastructure and management services, all to “build better and more”.
Ferdinand K. Constantino, SVP, CFO & Treasurer, San Miguel Corp.
As SVP, treasurer and CFO of the Philippines’ largest diversified conglomerate for two decades, he has provided strong financial leadership, secured and optimized financial resources, promoted good governance, and developed and mentored finance leaders, thus helping make SMC one of the strongest companies in revenues, profitability, market power, and finances.
June Cheryl “Chaye” Cabal-Revilla
The EVP, CFO and Chief Sustainability Officer of the large and growing Metro Pacific Investments Corp. conglomerate is one of Asia’s top women in finance, having been cited CFO of the Year a number of times in the region. She is also the doyen of women empowerment and sustainability in business.
Architect and Urban Planner Felino Palafox Jr.
After 50 years of practice, Jun is the Gold Standard in the art and design of buildings, in urban planning, and in environmental planning.
World renowned, he has done 1,800 projects in over 40 countries in five continents, lectured before audiences in 20 countries, and designed projects covering 20 million square meters of building floor area and 51 billion square meters of land. All for God, country, and planet Earth.
Rodolfo G. Valencia
He has blended success in his property business and excellence in public governance. He authored and created what is now MIMAROPA, PAG-IBIG Fund, the Pabahay Fund, the Home Development Mutual Fund Law, and the Magna Carta for Homeowners, while building over 400 housing projects and saving Mindoro’s forests and scaling up the province’s resilience to disasters and natural calamities.
Lawyer Perry Pe
Management and investments cannot succeed without lawyers. The senior partner of Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc and De los Angeles, the ever smiling and affable Pe is the go-to counsel who helped engineer major investments in offshore oil and gas, rail transit, petroleum oil refining and marketing, the largest geothermal privatization, and the largest airline IPO.
DDB Law Founding Partner and CEO Benedicta Du-Baladad
Harvard-trained and one of Asia’s best lawyers, Dick has built a practice in law, accounting, and taxation—areas that men of lesser mien like to dominate.
Her BDB Law’s taxation and corporate services can match the best in the trade, backed as it is by her over 30 years in taxation, including 17 years with the BIR where she set up the Large Taxpayers Service, and her stint in the tax unit of a large auditing firm.
She is the 2023 president of the Management Association of the Philippines which has over 1,000 CEOs.
Atty. Francis Lim, Senior Partner, ACCRALAW
He is one of the Philippines’—and Asia’s—best lawyers, in litigation, M&A, banking, finance, and corporate practice.
He is a former president of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), Financial Executives of the Philippines (FINEX), the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), and the Shareholders Association of the Philippines.
