Dec. 22, 2013 — Teresita Sy–Coson, the eldest child of billionaire Henry Sy, says a good night’s sleep is what preserves her energy during the day.

“I am able to sleep well. I can sleep in a simple bed.  I am able to sleep well because I have a lot of people who work for me,” she tells journalists during a dinner at the BDO Corporate Center in Makati City.

She has to be fully recharged during the day to oversee a business empire that includes the biggest bank and the largest shopping mall operator in the country.

The eldest of six children of tycoon Henry Sy, Sy-Coson, 62, says she delegates tasks to people around her because it is important “having somebody to carry all my stress.”

Henry Sy, the 89-year-old chairman-emeritus of SM Investments Corp., is the country’s richest man, with $12 billion in fortunes, according to Forbes magazine’s estimates. He transferred the responsibility of overseeing his businesses to his six children, with Sy-Coson in charge of BDO and SM Retail Inc.

The Asian edition of Forbes listed Sy-Coson, now vice chairman of SMIC, as one of Asia’s 50 most powerful businesswomen. A widow, Sy-Coson has three children—a son and two daughters.

She finished her Management degree at Assumption College in Manila in 1970 and later obtained her Master’s degree in Business Administration from New York University.  She honed her skills while managing the family’s first department store and became the one in charge of SM’s retail operations as president and chairman of Shoemart Inc.

Sy-Coson took over as chairman of BDO in 2007, which eventually became the largest bank in the country with total assets of P1.3 trillion today.  She is also an advisor of SM Prime, which develops the group’s shopping malls.  The company now operates 48 shopping malls in the Philippines and China.

BDO became the most profitable company under the SM Group this year, with a net income of P18.2 billion in the first nine months alone.

“I just happened to be here accidentally.  I was not a banker,” says Sy-Coson, while linking the bank’s success to “all of the people who have worked with me in the past, whether positively or negatively.”

“I am very happy that we are able to put this together,” she says.

Sy-Coson says the difficulties in life prepare someone for challenges that come along the way.  “For every difficulty, there is always a reason.  There is always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  But I don’t mean it literally,” she says.

“It happened to be a pot of gold for this family, but in other areas, there is always a tomorrow.  Because there is always a tomorrow, I sleep well.  I do not stress intentionally and I do not stress other people unnecessarily,” she says.

Sy-Coson credits her father for preparing her for the most challenging task of managing the country’s largest conglomerate, in terms of public float.

On what prepared her for this task, she says: “the training of my father.”

“He is a very demanding father.  In hindsight, a demanding parent is important.  But of course, it is very hard for me to demand from my kids.  When we were growing up, he was demanding and that will make you produce results,” she says.

“Not that I have had a lot of results, but all of us have own results.  One thing he always tells us is that if you cannot get it, always aim for the best that you do. 

That is why he is working longer hours than other people do.  That’s the only way to achieve,” she says.

“It sounds like a cliche but it is like try and try until you succeed,” she says. “You really have to do a lot of work to get it.  I guess it is what we are doing.” RTD