Mely Nicolas: Citizen of the world

She walks into Fernando’s, the dining room of the exclusive Rockwell Club, wearing a bright orange ensemble, but it is her signature sunny smile that lights up the room. I could have sworn TLC Beatrice (China) CEO Imelda "Mely" Nicolas is not a day over 40. "Good genes," she laughs, and casually shrugs off the compliment because, I surmise, this golden girl has heard it a million times before.

Over a delicious lunch of sea bass, Mely prefers to talk about the "grand adventure" that led her to mainland China, resulting in the establishment of 112 Beatrice grocery stores in five key cities. "Beatrice" or "Be-zhun" in Chinese means " very smooth," and indeed, thanks to her foresight and steadfastness, TLC Beatrice has very smoothly become a major enterprise in China. It is today the fastest growing chain of food retail stores in this country of nearly 1.4 billion people.

But that is getting ahead of Mely’s success story.

In 1994, heeding an urgent plea for assistance from newly-widowed sister Loida Nicolas Lewis, Mely took off for New York to begin a new chapter in her life. Loida had taken on the chairmanship of TLC Beatrice International Holdings, a New York-based multinational of 64 companies in 31 countries, which her husband Reginald "Reggie" Lewis built into a huge business empire in Europe. Loida had identified the people who would help her continue her husband’s legacy. Younger sister Mely was at the top of her list.

"How were we – Loida, an immigration lawyer and I, chairperson of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women – going to take it on?" she recalls. But take it on they did. Bringing home the company papers one chilly night in New York, the siblings did their homework, strategizing on how to save and turn around the floundering food conglomerate. She laughingly remembers, "We didn’t even have a calculator on hand, so we used a Mickey Mouse calculator owned by one of the kids to compute earnings, interests, assets, return on investment. It did not have enough zeroes!" It helped that both women had good heads on their shoulders. Mely herself was a consistent achiever, having graduated magna cum laude from St. Theresa’s College in Manila with an AB degree in Humanities and with units towards a masteral degree in Art History from Columbia University.

In the next four years, Mely witnessed and actively participated in the efforts to keep the big conglomerate afloat. Mely served as Loida’s vice president for development and training, developing new businesses and strategies for TLC Beatrice Holdings, and handling training and human resource development programs for the company. More than the corporate title, she was Loida’s aide de camp, her sparring partner, her faithful ally and loyal supporter.

TLC Beatrice’s core businesses then were in Western Europe with offices in Paris (France), Dublin (Ireland), Barcelona (Spain), Ninove (Belgium), Maarheeze (Netherlands), Canary Islands (Spain), St. Alban (south of France), Milan (Italy). The plush Holdings’ headquarters in New York had a prestigious address: 9 West 57th St., a few steps away from Fifth Avenue and overlooking Central Park.

Traveling all over Europe was her preoccupation then. "Those were exciting and heady days," she reminisces. "We were often in Paris. Loida had a beautiful apartment near Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe where I lived once for three months straight, trying and failing dismally, to learn French by ‘immersion’. We also had a home and a corporate office in New York."

"Beatrice," which also means "bringer of happiness" in Spanish, was a source of fulfillment for Mely. Not only did she constantly crisscross the Atlantic, making frequent flying seem like child’s play, she also hobnobbed and team worked with top executives and her peers at company headquarters and in the process, leaving her indelible mark as a formidable woman and a Filipina.

Was it easy to survive in the corporate jungle of Europe and America? She readily says yes, because both Nicolas sisters have an over abundance of self-confidence which they attribute to their upbringing. There was some kind of discrimination, she reveals, but the bias was more from her being a woman rather than being a Filipino. The gender prejudice continues to be alive and well, she adds.

It also helped that parents who had come from humble beginnings raised the siblings. Their dad was a farmer, then a butcher, then a furniture maker and eventually the co-owner of NICFUR, a famous line of furniture in the ‘50s. "Our parents taught us not to identify people according to their looks, race, color, social status or mental ability," Mely emphasizes. "We were told to look at a person’s inner worth and not at the trappings or his packaging. They unwittingly prepared us to be citizens of the world."

Curious about a friend’s stories concerning the newly opened "doors" in China, Mely flew in 1997 to have a look. The result was love at first sight, and a recommendation to the TLC Beatrice board that it establish supermarkets there. Efforts were then made to get to know more of China. Their first TLC Beatrice supermarket in China was a disaster because it was patterned exactly after their French setup. "We learned that China is really unique. It has its own personality. You definitely cannot transpose a successful formula from somewhere, use it in China, and expect it to succeed there too," she reveals.

Unexpectedly there was an offer in 1998 to buy two-thirds of the TLC Beatrice International supermarket business in France. Discerning that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, Loida decided to cash in.

However, Mely and Loida were not through with TLC Beatrice especially with its operations in China. Listening to a still, soft voice, they, together with adviser and friend Dan Oñate, proposed a management buy-out of TLC Beatrice (China) which then had only 20 grocery stores in three cities. For a few million dollars, it became theirs in 1999.

Today, TLC Beatrice (China) is in five key cities, namely: Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xiamen and Suzhou. The 112 Beatrice grocery stores are called "C (Convenience) Store Plus" and have a "superette" format. Each one ranges in size from 90 to 200 square meters. As she and her partners have learned, Chinese housewives like to shop daily, and want their grocery stores near their homes. This is the reason TLC Beatrice stores, which carry dry and wet goods, have mushroomed all over China’s strategic cities.

When prodded on what advice to give her fellow women entrepreneurs, Mely turns serious. "Be less parochial. Strive for excellence and think global no matter how small one’s business is. Stop looking at China as a threat, because it is not," she begs. "And let’s leap frog, for heaven’s sake."

The nationalistic streak in Mely comes to the fore when asked about the Filipino overseas worker. "Filipinos are the best," she begins. "We are adaptable, friendly, fluent and have fantastic people skills. It is no wonder we make good managers, good nurses, good anything abroad. Truly, we are so blessed because of our uniqueness." To prove her case in point, Mely’s managers in China are Filipino-Chinese.

Mely Nicolas, the citizen of the world, has come home "to plow back" resources, as she aptly describes it. TLC Beatrice (China) has an office here. She is president of Lewis College, a school in Sorsogon, which the Nicolas siblings founded as a way of repaying the province that nurtured them. She is also president of Land Square Properties, a real estate property company that owns and manages a mall and a hotel in Sorsogon

As if a mini empire in China were not enough, the indefatigable women’s advocate, Mely, has picked up from where she left off in 1996-1997 when she was co-chair of the Women’s Leader’s Network in APEC and founding member of the Confederation for the Women’s Business Councils in APEC. She continues to be the Philippine representative to the APEC Business Advisory Council, an appointment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Recently, she has been elected vice president for external affairs of the Women’s Business Council, a group of dynamic women executives who are aiming to be the premier advocate of Filipino women’s concerns in business.

Today there are big plans, she confesses, to establish a TLC Beatrice (Philippines) that will put up a high-end plant in Mindanao with state-of-the-art equipment for food processing. Why Mindanao? "It is a region with great promise which we want to help," Mely says. It is natural for this true-blooded Filipina to always think of her county when an opportunity for investment emerges. Loida perfectly sums it up thus: "You can take Mely out of the Philippines. But you can not take the Philippines out of Mely."

Over apple strudel and brewed coffee, it dawns on me how apropos the name "Beatrice" is to Mely. "Very smooth" is how one would describe her transition from public servant working in various capacities under the leadership of our country’s foremost icons (Sen. Ninoy Aquino in 1970, President Cory Aquino in 1986, President Fidel Ramos in 1993), to a hotshot executive for TLC Beatrice International in 1995, and today, as managing partner of a formidable chain of grocery stores in the world’s most populous nation.

Imelda "Mely" Nicolas indeed has brought meaning to the name "Beatrice" because she continues to very smoothly adapt from citizen of the world to Filipina, from women’s rights advocate to feisty businesswoman, and from convent-bred girl to tough survivor in a highly competitive enterprise.

Thank God for this rarity of a woman in business!

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Marily Ysip Orosa is a writer, graphic designer, book publisher and businesswoman. She is president of Studio 5 Designs, one of the leading graphic design agencies in the country; and of Studio 5 Publishing, a publishing house that specializes in high-end coffee table books. Her books have consistently been awarded the prestigious National Book Awards and Anvil Awards of Excellence.

She is a graduate of Maryknoll College from where she attained a Bachelor of Arts degree, major in Communication Arts. Her involvement in many major women’s organizations such as the Women’s Business Council, for which she serves as trustee, Zonta International, Philippine Association of Women for Business, Women for Women Foundation, has given her a front seat into the lives of successful women achievers, many of whom will be featured in "Woman of Substance."

She is married to businessman Joe S. Orosa who shares her love of books, Filipino art and culture, and her passion for great design. She has five children (Jerome, Justin, BG, Chino and Rica) by the late Jet H. Hernandez.