‘Size doesn’t matter’

"Why do you want to go to that bombing city?"

This was the first thing Korean CEO Sung Joo Kim’s young daughter asked when Sung Joo told her she was going to Manila to attend a conference.

Sung Joo is president and CEO of Sung Joo International, one of South Korea’s most prominent and popular retail chains. She has been featured in Forbes, Asiaweek and Newsweek magazines. Asiaweek chose her last year as the seventh most influential woman in Asia.

When your bag company alone rakes in $45 million in retail sales, why, indeed, would you risk it?

But Sung Joo, a friend of former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor, didn’t think Manila was a "bombing city."

"And I’m glad I came," said Sung Joo at last week’s Bulong Pulungan at the Westin Philippine Plaza. "There is nothing to be frightened about this city."

Sung Joo, chairperson of South Korea’s Women Entrepreneurs’ Committee of small businesses, was invited by Mina Gabor to attend Business Opportunities 2003, a conference of small and medium-sized enterprises.

When it comes to making money, "size doesn’t matter," says Mina.

Mina says 99 percent of the country’s enterprises are small and medium-scale, and yet they produce only 20 percent of the country’s GDP. The other one percent–the conglomerates–produces the 80 percent. And yet 70 percent of the labor force is with the SMEs, so you can imagine just how much (or little) trickles down to them.

According to Mina, if your company’s assets are P1.5 million or less, you are considered a micro enterprise. If your total assets are at least P15 million, you are considered "small." If they’re at least P60 million, then you’re "medium."

Mina believes SMEs will lift the Philippine economy from the doldrums, because of the number of people–remember, 70 percent of the labor force–who will benefit from them. She cites the Italian experience, wherein most lucrative ventures are run by cooperatives.

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Sung Joo started "small" in Korea. Armed with degrees from Amherst College in Massachusetts and the London School of Economics, she returned to Seoul in 1988 and embarked on an import venture. Sung Joo was the sole importer of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Sonia Rykiel and Marks and Spencer. There was a time when she was world’s biggest importer of Gucci bags.

Today, she makes her own bags under the MCM label. Sung Joo is credited for having introduced Western and transparent style-retailing practices to Korea, replacing flea-market type stalls with subtly lit and spacious boutiques in upmarket Seoul.

She brought to the Bulong Pulungan a sample of an all-leather MCM bag, which sells for $300. She claims it has the same quality as a Prada bag, which would cost about $800.

Sung Joo is forming an alliance with Mina, since global alliances are the trend nowadays for SMEs.

While in Manila, Sung Joo asked if she could meet former President Cory Aquino, whom she said was the woman leader she admired most. Mrs. Aquino obliged with a 90-minute meeting.

When the past catches up with you

My two most closely guarded secrets are 1.) My age 2.) My weight.

But if I am to help my high school class at the Assumption Convent (Batch ’79) raise funds for our velada in 2004 and its beneficiaries, give up vanity I must.

The past is catching up with me, and in the most welcome of ways.

The voice from the past came one harried Friday night, when my staff and I were putting the Allure section to bed.

"Ma’am, it’s Andie Recto," Don, our editorial assistant told me. There was only one Andie Recto I knew and I had not heard from or of her in 23 years. And she was on the other line?

"Joanne Rae Mayor?" she said excitedly, and in a second, 23 years melted into a pool of memories, mostly good memories, of my high school years.

Andie, now surnamed Montenegro, was calling because our class, in preparation for our silver jubilee in 2004, was already meeting regularly. Our next meeting was to be in Marissa Orosa-Concepcion’s house and I promised to attend.

As we giggled over red wine, pasta and salad, our "checkered" past (actually, red and checkered, as our Assumption skirt and neckties were) caught up with us. Not a single member of our class of over 300 entered the convent. Sadly, three had passed away. One was about to become a grandma.

One of our batch mates, BPI cards president Marijo Marquez-Ocampo, wife of composer Louie Ocampo, had just given birth. Call me biased, but I think the 15 people who attended the meeting looked not a day over... hmmm, 35?

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Our first fund-raiser, a concert by the Overdrive Band, will be on Nov. 20 at the Turf Room of the Manila Polo Club in Forbes Park. Costs for the band and the equipment will be shouldered by Choy Cojuangco (the president of PEOPLE Asia magazine and the brother-in-law of batch ’79’s Lizette Banzon-Cojuangco).

Anton Periquet of the Overdrive Band and Bobby Araneta will provide DJ music in between the live band sets.

Overdrive will play ’70s and ’80s music. Oh, gee, the memories!

The main beneficiaries of the concert will be the Assumption mission schools and the Laura Vicuna Foundation, Inc., which was organized in 1990 by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and lay professionals to help street children. Sarina Fores brought along to the meeting the Class yearbook, Assumpta ’79, and printed in bold letters on one of the opening pages was our class motto: "In His will is our peace."

That was one reminder from the past that I was glad caught up with me.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])