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Chris, Nanette Po share lessons in business, social good, and marriage in "Banker After Dark" Episode 1

Ched Rick Gatchalian

ABS-CBN News

<div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sNqs6LIntTg?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span></div><div><br/></div><p>MANILA — Stephen CuUnjieng sat down with Century Pacific Group executive chairman Christopher Po and social entrepreneur Nanette Po on the pilot episode of his show &quot;Banker After Dark&quot;, a business program featuring casual conversations with local business giants about career, economics, and more.</p><p>CuUnjieng said he wanted the two — partners in business and life — to be his first guests since they both graduated with Latin honors and have both been interviewed by CNBC and Bloomberg.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>1. Chris learned to get to the bottom of things and take risks from the past companies he worked for</strong></div><p>Chris shared on the interview that after business school, he worked at management consultancy McKinsey &amp; Company, for the Gokongwei family, and for Guggenheim Partners —  an asset management firm.</p><p>&quot;So with a firm like McKinsey, what I learned was get to the bottom of things, boil an issue down to the essence. There&#x27;s a joke that everything you can boil down to three bullet points, right? &quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;[Also worked] in the corporate planning and business development group at JG Summit, the holding company of the Gokongwei family. So there I learned... in an entrepreneurial firm, once you get to 80%, you take 20% of the effort to get to 80% of the answer and with that you go, right?&quot; he continued. &quot;You don&#x27;t need to get 100% because by the time you get to 100%, the opportunity&#x27;s gone, right?&quot;</p><p>When Chris worked in investment management, he explained that he learned to take risk in order to attain a certain goal.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>2. Chris realized a team has to try new ideas and take decisive actions in order to balance his current company&#x27;s growth in the market</strong></div><p>Chris also shared a formula on how they get his current company to prosper. He attributed it to his trait of being a &quot;perfectionist&quot;.</p><p>&quot;To my point earlier about &#x27;no risk, no reward&#x27;. And I think as a company, if we come up with new ideas, new products, new services, and if our success rate is 90% or 100%, then we&#x27;re doing something wrong. We&#x27;re being too safe, right? So I find myself actually encouraging people to act more decisively, take more risk, and then if we have a battling, as long as the wins are more than the losses, then I think we&#x27;re good,&quot; he said.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>3. Nanette founded HOPE aspiring to show the community that investing in social good would be deemed great by the public.</strong></div><p>Nanette believed that when they established HOPE, the business community would see how the people will greatly receive social welfare-related causes. She told CuUnjieng that the investment she viewed was children&#x27;s education, since it&#x27;s the &quot;best return of investment for a country&quot;.</p><p>She also detailed the group&#x27;s advocacy on solving plastic pollution in the country.</p><p>&quot;We&#x27;re [Philippines] infamously the third-worst offender for ocean plastic pollution. And I think that being in a business where we have plastic packaging, it was interesting to see how we were going to tackle that challenge and not realizing that our own experience would be very much  I want to say instructive,&quot; she said.</p><p>&quot;But it would really give us a lot of insight into how other businesses, even Chris&#x27;s businesses, have plastic packaging in their supply chain, how they might deal with plastic responsibility... And now we&#x27;re so excited that the Philippines is really leading in a way that we didn&#x27;t expect in the plastic responsibility space,&quot; she added.</p><p>CuUnjieng also narrated his own experience and observation at the Century Pacific Food Inc. building where &quot;there is no single-use plastic&quot;.</p><p>&quot;And let me say, as someone who&#x27;s been honored to be an independent director of Century Pacific, they do take it very seriously, even in their building. There&#x27;s no single-use plastic. Like, you have to bring your own glass of water or reusable container, because they take the commitment seriously, even up to the small detail,&quot; the host emphasized.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>4. Chris sees Philippine agriculture lagging behind Asean peers</strong></div><p>Chris meanwhile expressed concern at the state of agricultural growth in the country.</p><p>&quot;If we look at our ASEAN neighbors, the growth in agriculture averages around 3 to 4%, whereas over the last 10, even 20 years, our growth in agri is about 1%,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;On food security, I would say that the biggest issue is rice. And Secretary Kiko (Tiu Laurel) is very well aware of that. Today, he just made a statement. Well, as you know, the rice tariffs have been brought down from 35% to 15%. And hopefully that will alleviate some of the pressures on rice prices in the next few months. So a lot of effort is being put in there,&quot; Chris further explained.</p><p>Nanette then discussed how HOPE helps the agriculture sector on its own ways through its coconut tree project.</p><p>&quot;There was a call by the administration to plant 100 million coconut trees, 10 million for which would come from the private sector, we kind of took it as a call to action. We are by the end of this year in December would have planted 2 million already coconut trees with smallholder farmers,&quot; she narrated.</p><p>She said the project helps smallholder farmers get livelihood and it also enhances the competitiveness of the coconut sector.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>5. The two also share some details how a biz couple stay so strong</strong></div><p>Chris and Nanette have been together for 30 years now, but the way they admire and refer to each other on every question makes them look just like a new sweet couple.</p><p>They both think of each other as important pieces of the fruitful relationship.</p><p>&quot;Chris, he&#x27;s the special sauce!&quot; Nanette expressed smiling.</p><p>&quot;What I have to say about that is part of it is luck or providence, however you want to call it. I don&#x27;t mind saying that I think I won the wife lottery,&quot; he emphasized while holding his wife&#x27;s hand.</p><p>The loving couple said the secret lies on choosing to be together in addressing issues and working through them throughout the years.</p><p>There&#x27;s more to watch from the episode proper so don&#x27;t hesitate to check it our right away!</p><div><em>For the rest of the upcoming interviews, catch &quot;Banker After Dark&quot; every Friday at 6 PM, before TV Patrol on the ANC cable channel, IwantTFC, and via the ANC 24/7 YouTube page. <br/></em></div><div><em>Viewers can also have more exclusive access to on-demand business news, lifestyle, and exclusive members-only perks on ANC Prestige via ANC&#x27;s YouTube channel.</em><span dir="ltr"></span><span data-teams="true"><span dir="ltr"></span></span></div>

<p>Stephen CuUnjieng sat down with Century Pacific Group executive chairman Christopher Po and social entrepreneur Nanette Po on the pilot episode of his show "Banker After Dark", a business program featuring casual conversations with local business giants about career, economics, and more.</p>

Stephen CuUnjieng sat down with Century Pacific Group executive chairman Christopher Po and social entrepreneur Nanette Po on the pilot episode of his show "Banker After Dark", a business program featuring casual conversations with local business giants about career, economics, and more.

Chris, Nanette Po share lessons in business, social good, and marriage in 'Banker After Dark'

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Chris, Nanette Po share lessons in business, social good, and marriage in 'Banker After Dark'

Ched Rick Gatchalian,

ABS-CBN News

Published Nov 09, 2024 04:57 PM PHT

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