JAZA receives Harvard alumni award

Ayala Corp. chairman and CEO Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala was conferred the Harvard Business School’s highest honor, the Alumni Achievement Award, by HBS dean Jay Light in a special ceremony before some 900 MBA students, faculty and staff last Thursday.

Zobel de Ayala was cited for “his innovative, entrepreneurial style of management (that) has benefited both Ayala and an island nation that faces significant social and economic challenges.”

The award, given to “outstanding graduates whose lives and careers epitomize the School’s mission to ‘educate leaders who make a difference in the world’,” was also given to Donna Dubinsky, who helped introduce the first successful personal digital assistant (PDA) and who is now developing a computer memory system modeled after the human brain; A. Malachi Mixon of Invacare, the world’s leading manufacturer of home healthcare products; Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP Group, one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing organizations; and Hansjorg Wyss of Synthes, a global medical device company whose surgical instruments and implants have revolutionized trauma treatment and whose personal foundation works to preserve the world’s mountains and landscapes.

The Alumni Achievement Awards has been an annual HBS tradition since 1968. “These awards recognize an extraordinary group of graduates who embody the highest standards of accomplishment and integrity,” Dean Light said in his introductory remarks at the ceremony in Boston last Thursday. “The recipients have all contributed immeasurably to their profession, their industry, and their community. They personify what this School stands for. They inspire all those who aspire to have an impact on both business and society.”

Zobel de Ayala received his MBA from HBS in 1987, after obtaining an economics degree (cum laude) from Harvard in 1981. He joined the family-owned Ayala Corp. in 1981 on what he intended to be a short-term position. That stint, however, led to a series of line positions in various companies within the group, and in 1995, at the age of 37, he took the helm of the company as president. He assumed the chairmanship of the 174-year-old company last year when his father retired.

Together with his brother Fernando, who is president and COO, Zobel de Ayala is credited with aggressively pursuing the company’s investments in telecommunications, water distribution, financial services, real estate development, and business process outsourcing, as well as a host of innovative social development programs, particularly in education.

Previous recipients of HBS’ Alumni Achievement Award include former US Secretary of Defense and former World Bank president Robert McNamara; Johnson & Johnson chairman James Burke; Ratan Tata, chairman of India’s Tata group; Daniel Vasella, chairman and CEO of Novartis; Minoru Makihara, former chairman of Mitsubishi Corp.; and Phillip Yeo, chairman of Singapore’s Agency of Science, Technology and research.

Zobel de Ayala is the first Filipino to receive the award. – Doreen G. Yu