Tessie Sy Coson on her best mentor, worst crises, anti-stress secret

One of the country’s most respected business leaders today due to her wisdom, humility and successful leadership, SM Investment Corp. (SMIC) vice chairperson and BDO Unibank, Inc. chairperson Teresita “Tessie” Sy Coson recently had a rare fireside chat session with 206 young Filipino-Chinese entrepreneurs of Anvil Business Club on May 13 at Conrad Manila Hotel in the Mall of Asia area, Pasay City. SMIC is the Philippines’ biggest business conglomerate and BDO is the country’s largest bank.

Before the chat, Anvil invited me to first give a speech about “legacy, leadership and the future of business.” Although I’m honorary chairman of Anvil, the reason my name in the invitation had bigger font size and was placed ahead of the name of the humble Tessie Sy Coson was that it was the request from her office, according to Anvil officers led by chairman Bernard Go, president Christopher Yae, VP and project head Sheryll Yu and secretary-general Eugene Saw.

Here are some ideas and thoughts shared by Coson from the candid conversation:

1 On her secret to staying young: “Because I give the stress to other people (laughs). ”

2  “Our father Henry Sy taught us to be hardworking, to make the most of opportunities, to be the best in our chosen fields… We all felt pressure, he was a very demanding father. We all had to work hard and persevere.”

3  “The best mentor is pressure.”

4 On hard work: “Our parents taught us the importance of hard work. I’m okay to work even 10 hours a day now at my age.”

5 On humility: “Our parents taught us not to forget where we came from, we should never forget. We started out as lower middle-class. In our youth, we had to help ‘ko-tiam’ (Hokkien phrase meaning ‘to mind the store’). Our business started as a small company.”

6 On the Sy family’s reinvesting profits into growing the business, instead of luxuries: “We rolled our earnings into reinvestments, to make the business grow bigger.

7 “Innovation is very important. The world is very different now. The market is very demanding. Things change every six months. We all need to always be on our toes, be innovative, creative and use technologies.”

8 “At BDO, in assessing possible borrowers, we are always looking at the businesses and for good cash flows, also certain securities.”

9 “Artificial Intelligence or AI is the big buzz word nowadays, but we see it as a tool, not to replace humans at work. We need to study and assess AI. (If) it is too fast, developments in that field, some might make mistakes and it might be costly.”

10 On the country’s biggest bank BDO Unibank, Inc.: “It started as a mistake. I thought I just invested in some shares… It was a mistake that we had to make good. We struggled for two and a half years. My father just told me to persevere.”

11 On BDO focusing on the Philippines, instead of expanding to ASEAN and Asia: “We are focused in the Philippines and in serving the country’s needs. More than 50 percent of people here in the Philippines are still unbanked. As long as our economy continues to grow, the small deposits will grow, our service to them is investment in the future.”

12 On hiring good and the right people: “We need to be patient, to get people to join your team and (learn) how to be aligned with you. We usually look for people aligned with our vision. We need to learn how to handle people. It’s like Anvil Business Club, like an association, you need to make the people like to be together. One cannot be too liberal and too democratic.”

13 On the toughest crises her family has faced and how she handled those: “In every crisis, it is important to cope and learn. In handling SM Megamall, there were some problems there before… In the merger of the banks (BDO and Equitable Bank), I had to suffer literally physical headaches for two and a half years... Another big crisis was the past pandemic. Our father died in 2019. The global pandemic hit 2020 to 2022, I was then always worried if Dad’s most beloved retail business would fail during my management… We really went to work during that crisis. One month after, we got rid of a lot of inventories and did a lot of things. After the pandemic… it is a very different world now.”

14 On the Sy family attracting world-famous retail brands to do business here: “It took us six years to bring Watsons here in the Philippines. Uniqlo was faster, because the owner likes the Philippine market. It took us 10 years with Ikea, but that is just leasing only. Our people make it attractive for them (local and international brands).”

15 On Henry Sy asking her to handle the first SM Department Store: “I was 22 when my father asked me handle SM in Echague, Manila, that was 5,000 square meters. I thought then that I could handle it. I learned from my executives. Then I was asked to handle SM Makati, which was 22,000 square meters. Some people at that time even asked us to pay them (so they’d do business there), I had to learn and had to eat some humble pie in those early days.”

16 On working with good people, whether family members or professional executives: “In everything, you cannot do things alone.”

17 When a young Anvil entrepreneur asked about the concept of “work life balance,” she said: “I think there’s no work-life balance, if you really want to go far… I read that in Samsung, they’re asking people there now to work six days a week.”

18 On retaining good people: “Some people of the Gen Z generation, they tend to come and go easily. Sometimes it is in the branding of the company, if the firm is a forward-looking company. Not everything is about money and benefits, lots of people want exciting things to do.”

19 When a young entrepreneur candidly asked how to cope if government or politicians lack real support for struggling businesses in these uncertain times, or even sometimes add problems to the economic environment: “Do not depend on what government can do for you, but just work hard and think of what you and your businesses can do for the good of the country. I’d like to quote John F. Kennedy who once said: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’”

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