Living the legacy, ‘Above all integrity’

We, at the Loyola group of companies, are dedicated to deliver leisure, financial and memorial services in the most personal, caring and satisfactory manner. Being in service naturally means that we are here to help our planholders and our own people. For 40 years, we have not failed to address the needs of our planholders, most especially the ones who are in most need. At Loyola, there is a corporate-wide genuine desire to be of service to others.

The promise

Forty years ago, my father, the late Sen. Gil J. Puyat Sr., established Loyola Plans Consolidated Inc., with the vision of helping the Filipinos to prepare for the inevitable. In the course of his political career, many have sought financial assistance to help them get through the death of a loved one. It is because of his desire to dignify death and ease the financial burden that he wanted Filipinos to save for the future. Our product is, in reality, some form of forced savings. I personally saw those things happen in the past and I fully understand why we are in this business.

The beginning

I grew up in a business-oriented family and I married into another similarly inclined. For about 10 years after my marriage, I was a busy wife and a mother of five children. However, my first business experience after my BA degree from the University of the Philippines in real estate development (noteworthy of which was Virra Mall in Greenhills) was very instrumental in developing my management and leadership capabilities. It opened my mind, gave me the ability to deal with people within the different levels of the organization and has taught me to value each and every input given by my team members.

At the helm

Our Company, operates on the core values established by my father, and that is “Above All Integrity.” For 40 years now, it has guided us and pointed us to the right direction. Loyola Plans’ 40 years of unbroken service delivery could be traced back to the promise of my father to our very first clients. It is precisely because of that promise that we made a brave but difficult and most painful decision to stop selling open-ended plans. It took our company a lot of fiscal discipline and financial management to recover lost ground. Thankfully, by the time the crisis in the pre-need industry happened, we had been able to regain market share to build a substantial trust fund, and as we sold plans, we never lost sight of the time when we would deliver the contracted obligations.

I cannot see myself as having the singular task of decision making in our company. I like to listen to my executives and managers and provide them a lot of leeway to accomplish things and think in a way that brings out their innate talents and acquired expertise. I appreciate the variety of skills and abilities that we have discovered through this. On the other hand, giving them this chance also exposes traits and attitudes, which may need further improvement.

I believe that our employees and the members of our sales force are composed of talented individuals operating under a common goal of providing a unique Filipino product that answers the consumer’s basic needs and one that also offers an opportunity to improve his/her life. As such, we provide our people with the resources needed to make them succeed: interviews, training, full back-line support and a very marketable product. Our management team is made up of capable individuals who work as one towards the achievement of the company’s goals in general and towards the realization of each planholder’s trust and expectation with regard to the plans they bought.

I believe that all our efforts have served Loyola Plans Consolidated Inc. well. We are among the market leaders with well-known products. Over the years, we, at the Loyola, have improved our operations and have continued to innovate out products to best suit the needs of our clients/planholders.

Success is having attained the level of excellence in your chosen field. Nevertheless, to be truly successful, one must also be happy with one’s self, the family, the workplace and the community. We, at Loyola, firmly believe that caring for the people, maintaining the trust they bestowed on us, and delivering our promises to them, is the very epitome of our motto “Above All Integrity.”

In Loyola, we follow the rules. And in the future, we look forward to clearer regulations and guidelines that will help the industry thrive and grow as well as enable us to continue serving our mass-based planholders.