When both family and career matter to a man

What does it take to juggle two worlds  say a great family life and a flourishing career  and win them both in the end? Where does one strike the balance to make sure one will enjoy both the bedroom and the boardroom, so to speak?

Dedication is key to a win-win situation. The real measure of success, says Carlito Realuyo, president and general manager of Sanofi-Aventis, a pharmaceutical company, is in one’s ability to achieve a beautiful family and a thriving professional life.

“The real president or manager of a company is one who can keep a happy, tightly-knit family and at the same time lead his second family, which is the company, to great heights,” Realuyo says.

Realuyo has no problem wearing two hats as a family man and as a career-oriented person. He admits to working hard and playing hard. But what makes Realuyo an admirable man is his stand that his weekend is non-negotiable for it belongs to his family. 

“My rule has been weekdays are for work, weekends are for the family. I tell my wife: ‘You won’t see me Monday to Friday, I’ll focus my time at work. But Saturday and Sunday, I am one hundred percent yours.’ Once I step out of the office, work stops and my attention is focused only to my wife and four kids,” he says.

“I do not take my laptop at home. I always make it a point to leave it in the office. Same with work, work stays in the office and only during weekdays,” he adds.

Realuyo knows also how to put premium to his work because he rose from the ranks. He entered Sanofi Philippines in 1985 as a professional service representative and was promoted as district manager in 1994. He became product manager the following year. Because he is a conscientious and dedicated worker, he was given the marketing manager position in 1999. In 2001, he was promoted as the business unit director in primary healthcare division. In 2005, he became the senior business unit director for both primary healthcare division and cardio-metabolic division. In August 2007, he was given the top position at Sanofi-Aventis Philippines.

His work at Sanofi is the first job Realuyo ever held after finishing Business Management in Ateneo de Manila University in 1985. While working, he was able to finish his Executive Masters in Business Administration at the Asian Institute of Management in 2001. He has remained loyal to his company for good reasons.

“I started in 1985 as a PSR, and I always prided myself as a home-grown talent. As for why I stayed this long, I believe in the vision of the company. Through the years, Sanofi-Aventis has produced innovative and breakthrough medicines that have saved the lives of millions of people here in the Philippines and around the world. And we continue to make discoveries, trying to find solutions to the unmet needs in field of healthcare. I am very proud of my company’s achievements, knowing that I have contributed in that success, in my own little way,” he says.

As a home-grown talent, Realuyo considers it one of his career achievements when the Philippines became the benchmark for Sanofi-Aventis group worldwide when it comes to over-the-counter (OTC) marketing. He was the product manager of Lactacyd at the time he initiated, led and developed the product line and size extensions.

What also excite Realuyo about his job are the countless advocacy projects his company does. It must be because of the Jesuits’ influence in him when he was still a student but Realuyo proves that he is a man for others with the advocacies he involved his company in.

“One of our advocacies is educating teenagers about responsible sexuality. The program is dubbed ‘Adolescent Health Issues and Perspectives’ or AHIP, a joint project with the Philippine Obstetrical and Gynecological Society (POGS). Here, doctors from POGS conduct lectures on responsible sexuality and feminine hygiene to students ranging from Grade 5 to fourth year high school. This project started in 2004 and we’re already able to reach around 90,000 students. In 2009, we partnered with the Department of Education to bring the lectures in selected schools,” he says.

Realuyo says his company is also closely working with the government to improve the patients’ access to basal insulin Lantus through the program “Innovation for Life.” The program supports the DOH Insulin Access Program, which aims to make diabetes treatment more accessible to low-income Filipino patients.

Realuyo and his company are also active in “My Child Matters,” an initiative to help low- and middle-income countries in providing better treatment for childhood cancer. This is being done in partnership with the Philippine Children’s Medical Center.

Kindness rules in Realuyo’s world because it was kindness that he was exposed to when he was growing up. “My mother taught me to believe in myself, to have self-confidence. My father taught me the value of hard work and to love the family first,” he says, adding that he grew up in an average middle-class family.

If Realuyo were not with Sanofi now, he could have been a priest. “I come from a family of priests and was educated by priests. I have an uncle who is a Jesuit and two cousins who are priests. I guess part of these influence was also the calling to serve our people.”

Because he believes that no amount of success can compensate for the failure at home, it becomes an effortless act of love on Realuyo’s part to make sure he spends quality time with his loved ones. Weekends, he repeats, are spent with his family. He goes to the wet market early morning of weekends. He and his family also have Sunday Mass and lunch. 

“I tell my wife, ‘I am yours 101 percent of the time during weekends’,” he ends with a smile.

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or my.new.beginnings@gmail.com. You may want to follow me on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)