Enrique Razon’s secret to success

He didn’t graduate from the university but on Sunday, school dropout turned ports and casino tycoon Enrique “EKR” Razon received his second honorary degree from no less than the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).

Such is the irony of life. In the case of EKR, the dropout story is real, unlike some romanticized rags-to-riches success story that some billionaires like to tell about themselves.

Says Forbes: “Razon left school when he was 17 years old to take a minimum-wage job at the family’s cargo-loading business and worked his way through the ranks.”

It is his second honorary degree, a Doctor in Management, after also being conferred his first honorary degree in 2019 by the De La Salle University which honored Razon with a Doctor of Science in Logistics.

Razon gave an inspiring, honest, pragmatic and at times funny speech during Sunday’s graduation. I managed to catch some parts in a video posted online by his daughter Katrina.

He shared some words of wisdom for the graduates and shared some parts of his journey to becoming one of the country’s biggest tycoons.

Fear and failures

He talked about fear, and said something about allowing himself – despite fear – to take risks that he needed to take.

Then comes a hard truth but told in a funny way as he delivered the line with his trademark brutally honest humor:

“I also importantly, learned that failures are inevitable and success is built on failure...provided your successes can pay for your failures.”

The crowd burst into laughter and applause.

He then shared a glimpse of how his journey as a businessman started – all with a dream then sustained by a belief in that dream.

“I also had the unshakable belief that I could build a business and that eventually, it would be successful,” EKR said.

Having fun

Sharing a piece of advice to the graduates, EKR said, one has to be passionate about his or her business or chosen field.

“If you are not passionate or not having fun at what you are doing, then you are in the wrong place,” he said.

‘Always prepare for a crisis’

But it’s not always fun, he said.

His most important advice is “to always be prepared for a crisis.”

“If there is one piece of advice I could give you, it is that always be prepared for a crisis and prepare for the inevitable crisis during the good times,” EKR said.

Nowadays, he continued, we seem to be moving from one crisis to another, a confluence of events going back to the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain disruptions “which created the inflationary environment we now find ourselves in.”

Inflation

EKR is very much on point. Inflation remains a problem even as it is showing signs of cooling off in the US.

Here in the Philippines, inflation will remain elevated but I do hope that Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Felipe Medalla successfully slays it, along with non-monetary policy interventions to address supply-side pressures, of course. This is another story altogether but inevitably affects businesses, including a conglomerate as big as the Razon Group.

If there is one man indeed who can talk about surviving a crisis that would be EKR. He wakes up everyday expecting one, he said.

I still vividly remember that as early as March 2020, he said he was already writing off that year because of the lockdown’s impact on his casino and hospitality business.

And yet, despite that, the pandemic didn’t stop him from taking big risks to grow his business. He acquired a controlling stake in the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project in offshore Palawan. This happened during the pandemic.

It’s not to say though that it’s all business for the Razon Group. During the pandemic, it built a P250-million mega vaccination facility capable of inoculating 15,000 individuals every day. As of end-December 2021, it had spent P1.5 billion in social investments, including the administration of over 300,000 doses of vaccines, which was rolled out in a very efficient manner.

The group served as the private sector proponent which brought Moderna vaccines to the country.

Reputation

As a businessman, EKR also talked about reputation.

“The most valuable asset you can have as a businessman is your reputation,” he said, noting that this refers to one’s reputation to all stakeholders – employees, suppliers, customers, the capital markets for bigger companies and society in general.

It takes years to build a reputation but it can easily be destroyed by one stupid mistake, he warned.

In all, he told graduates that whatever their chosen field or path is, they should strive to be the best they can be.

Keep on learning

He also said that we should all continue to educate ourselves by learning about different aspects of the world, especially history.

“You will notice that the mistakes of history, for some reason that escapes me, keep on getting repeated,” he said.

Thus, he said, it is important to keep on learning.

“The more you learn, the more you realize how little you actually know,” he said.

His secret to success?

Hearing about his journey, one can’t help but wonder – what’s EKR’s secret to success?

But in his speech, Razon said:

“There is no secret, and even if there were, I wouldn’t tell you,” he said. Again, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Perhaps, in real life that’s really EKR’s secret. He isn’t one to tell the world what he wants to do or how intends to do it. He just does it without fanfare, navigating the business environment as best as he could – one crisis after another.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.