This lady president is a survivor

In the third quarter of 2006, the succession planning committee of the board of directors of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. nominated then executive vice president Charo Santos-Concio for the Advanced Management Program (AMP) of Harvard Business School.

“It was a dream come true for me to be sent to the same university where my husband (businessman Cesar R. Concio, Jr.) went for his MBA (Master of Business Administration). I had always wanted to go to Harvard, even for a short course, because I really value learning and I wanted to improve myself. But the opportunity never came—until last year,” Santos-Concio says.

She felt a little anxiety, wondering if a Mangyan from Oriental Mindoro like her would survive executive education with a batch of 165 multinational senior executives.

ABS-CBN chairman Eugenio Lopez III assured her that each student would have his or her own area of competence, and that nobody would know everything.

“He (Lopez) was very encouraging. I had to overcome my fears and so on the very first day of school, I raised my hand to answer the teacher’s very first question in my very first class. When I heard my voice, I knew then that I would make it.”

Harvard’s two-month AMP is designed for senior executives who are proven business leaders. It brings together members of the executive committee, heads of business units and functional areas, as well as leaders of government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Graduates are expected to provide ongoing support and insight as part of the AMP’s elite network.

Santos-Concio’s classmates were heads of enterprises as diverse as banking, health care, petrochemicals, government ministries, and non-government organizations. With her 20 years of experience in media production, she held her own, completed the program, and became the first female president of ABS-CBN effective March 1 of this year.

An award-winning actress before engaging in film and TV production work, Santos-Concio has always embraced hard work and excellence. “I don’t like mediocrity. Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well—even if it’s just washing the dishes,” she quips.

This work ethic was instrumental in her rise from the ranks since 1987 when ABS-CBN’s late chairman emeritus Eugenio Lopez, Jr. recruited her to become production consultant. Crediting the late Rolando V. Cruz with teaching her everything about TV operations, Santos-Concio found a sense of fulfillment in TV work and decided to make a career out of something she was good at and enjoyed immensely.

In addition to finding additional sources of revenue from ABS-CBN’s multiple content platforms, she says training people is among her priorities as company president. “I want to have a deep bench and I want to have training programs in place for our people. This is preparing for the future. We want the best creative writers, the best news reporters, and we can have plenty of them only if we train them the right way,” she says.

Santos-Concio has long had the reputation of being a people person. She has been able to balance the job of motivating and inspiring people, with the demand of disciplining them when they do wrong. She also believes that taking risks and absorbing failure are part of the learning process.

Calling herself a survivor, Santos-Concio is always ready to meet challenges that come her way. With ABS-CBN rolling out digital terrestrial television to improve signal reception in Megamanila by midyear, as well as building on its stable international business, the new president intends to continue the company’s tradition of providing the best entertainment and news programs for Filipino audiences worldwide.