Rick Santos

Chairman, CB Richard Ellis Philippines

When property consulting giant CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) tapped Rick M. Santos to put up its Philippines office in 1995, he was sure from the start he would have a great time back at his birthplace because he knew he could make a difference.

“Being born here is a great source of pride and it’s an honor to give back to the country,” says Santos, the current chairman of CBRE Philippines. “I also think that being back is great because I have a strong passion for the country and I have a skin for the game 100 percent.”

As CBRE Philippines’ top honcho, Santos is responsible for all Philippine operations. He coordinates the activities of the Manila office with those of its site offices, including cross border investment transactions, corporate real-estate services, asset services, property management, sales and leasing, project marketing, research and consultancy, and financial advisory.

Before putting up CBRE Philippines, Santos was working in Hong Kong in a joint venture with another company. At that time, he says he was already planning to go back to the Philippines. Santos says he was determined to see the country grow and expand especially in the property sector.

It was mission accomplished for Santos and his team and now the Philippine property sector is humming.

UK posting

Santos had his first international posting in the United Kingdom when he worked for the corporate real-estate services and consultancy division of a leading firm of property consultants. He worked closely with the Reichman family of Canada, the family behind Olympia and York, which built Canary Wharf, the largest and most ambitious development in Europe at that time.

Afterward, he joined Kobe Steel’s real-estate group in Japan to work on its large Wakinohama Iwaya project.

He also has extensive knowledge and experience in the American property market with Brittingham Properties and the State of California. Prior to Manila, Santos was based in CB Richard Ellis’s Asian headquarters in Hong Kong

Santos and his team proved that Asia would recover from the onslaught of the 1997 financial crisis. “Many people thought Asian would not come back after the financial crisis struck,” says Santos.

“I put my money where my mouth was, and took a chance after the buyout, now we have three office and 400 people,” he adds.

A firm believer in the potentials of the Philippines, Santos sees numerous opportunities, particularly in the areas of business-process outsourcing, residential, resort, industrial and tourism sectors.

“I think opportunities abound here in the Philippines. Right now the eyes of the world are back in Asia. You see amazing changes since the crisis was over,” Santos points out.

Better insight

Being born in the Philippines, according to Santos, also gave him a positive advantage because it allows him to have a better insight on the market scene.

Asked if it was a calculated risk on CBRE’s part to enter the Philippines, Santos counters that passion was the driving force behind CBRE Philippines.

“If you have passion about something, it’s not a risk but an interest, so you just go. It’s like getting married. You don’t think but you jump, and hope it works out,” Santos muses.

According to Santos, building the brand is important to ensure the company’s sustainability. However, he stresses that brand building is a just one facet of the business. He points out that the people behind the company create and develop the brand. As such, Santos believes that first the organization must build a good team.

After getting the best people in forming the team, developing teamwork among the members comes next. Then, one must ensure that the company takes care of its people.

Santos knows his stuff because he has practiced this strategy.

“A lot of my people here are with me for 15 years. And you give them the belief they can be the best, I think we have found a point here,” says Santos.

Now on its 12th year in the country, CBRE Philippines has developed a reputation for dependability, credibility and reliability. Looking back, Santos says it wasn’t built overnight and they didn’t cut corners to get to their current lofty position.

“We took a longer way. It was slow and long but it was pretty steady in putting up the office,” says Santos.

Other passions

Real estate is ingrained in the Santos family’s DNA. His maternal grandfather and father also dabbled in real estate. Santos says the family views real estate as interesting because a piece of property, like the soil, is a tangible matter.

He recalls his maternal grandfather also prioritized education and encouraged them to study. He also got an inspiration from his father, who was a Fulbright scholar and is now based in California together with his mother.

His father met his mother in Zamboanga when she worked there as a Peace Corps volunteer.  

“Before going back, I always enjoyed the scene in Nebraska, where my mother came from and my maternal grandparents were farmers. Real estate is always in the family because they find it exciting,” says Santos.

Education is a premium for Santos, a bachelor of arts in economics and political science graduate with honors from University of California, Berkeley. He also has a master’s degree in economics, major in real-estate finance from the London of School of Economics. He also has postmaster’s degree in international relations and management from Oxford University.

As a student in Europe, Santos had the opportunity to broaden his horizons. Together with his family, Santos also had the chance to see Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom. He recalls seeing the priceless art collections in the British Museum and the Victoria Albert Museum in the UK.

Inspired by the author Ernest Hemingway, Santos says he also had a memorable time touring Spain “I had the chance to run with the bulls in Pamplona,” Santos fondly recalls.

“I am a Hemingway fan and ‘The Sun also Rises’ is a favorite. That was a lot of fun,” adds Santos, who also served as president of American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines for three years.

Sports

Santos describes his exposure in Asian, American and European cultures as overwhelming but because of this, he says understands other cultures and enjoys meeting people.

Santos also credits sports as an important factor in his total development.

During his high school and college days, Santos played American football, European rugby, baseball and basketball. He says playing sports is just like doing business.

“Sports and business, especially in real estate, are similar. The two emphasize teamwork, focus, communication, camaraderie, hard work and setting goals and objectives,” says Santos, an avid follower of the New England Patriots, which just missed out on a perfect season with a loss to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl last Sunday.  

On a lighter note, Santos reveals he actually considered playing in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) just like other Filipino-Americans. “When I came back to the Philippines, I considered playing in the PBA. But I was not good enough for the pro league so I got a job in real estate,” chuckles Santos.

Now that he is back in his birthplace, Santos reiterated the CBRE Philippines job is amazing because it gives him the opportunity to interact with investors and show them the good side of the Philippines.

“The Philippines has a lot to offer and I try to extrapolate the best of for the country. However, sometimes the Philippines is not as successful as other countries in marketing,” he says. 

Homecourt advantage

When property consulting giant CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) tapped Rick M. Santos to put up its Philippines office in 1995, he was sure from the start he would have a great time back at his birthplace because he knew he could make a difference.

Faithful but creative

CHIEF Justice Reynato Puno has managed to keep politics out of the Judiciary’s business despite making bold actions and strong pronouncements on various issues like the rampaging extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the country, the need to protect the integrity of the election process and the measly budget allotted to the Judiciary.

Task, Not Time: Profile of a Gen Y Job

Jobs have long been structured primarily around units of time—a 40-hour workweek, an eight-hour day. The time you spend—or are supposed to spend—determines whether you are working full or part time, with implications for compensation and other benefits.

How to Set Expectations with Young Talent

When I received my first project assignment as a new hire at Gemini Consulting (now Capgemini), I was quite unhappy. My peers were assigned to the high-profile financial services and telecommunications industries, whereas I was “stuck” with a client in publishing.

How Asian ad agencies are reinventing themselves

Before the Asian financial meltdown in 1997, when marketers were generous and clients made ostentatious display of advertising wealth, we heard so much about phrases like “paradigm shift,” “consumer insight,” “gut-feel,” “brand persona” and many others.

Winning: In business and politics, leadership is key

Q: What characteristics would you say are the most important when choosing a company CEO or the leader of a country? Simplicio D. Victoria, Los Angeles

Rising China forcing powers to review capitalist models

BANGKOK—Governments and various think tanks may be making the world a more dangerous place by framing the “threat” of a rising China as an issue of ideology.

The book of slaughter–and forgetting

CERTAINLY, there will be a reckoning. But it will not be soon, no thanks to intrepid members of so-called Western journalism who, in the days his life hang in the balance, bravely sifted through the minutiae of the despot Suharto’s medical  condition even as they avoided the anatomy of how and why he remained in  power for so long.

Rise and Fall

The following is a time line of former Indonesian President Suharto ‘s rise to power to his death.

Creating and sustaining a winning culture

What holds an organization together and motivates the people within it to do the right thing rather than the easy thing? The answer is culture—the values, mindsets and behaviors that constitute an environment conducive to success.

The value of a broader product portfolio

With rapid technological change posing ever more intense competitive challenges, companies are often advised to scrutinize their portfolios and eliminate unprofitable products. Every product, the reasoning goes, must stand on its own bottom line.

Early retirement

WHEN news spread about the impending retirement of Chinatrust Philippines president Joey A. Bermudez, he was besieged by text messages and calls from the media.

Winning: Poll employees effectively

Q: My company runs an annual employee survey in the name of “continuous improvement,” but nothing ever really changes. Now, my boss has asked me to come up with a better way.

Dreams a-crashing to the ground

A WEEK into the New Year, Tourism Secretary Ace Durano was up in the clouds, presiding at a news conference to confirm what the sector had known: the country had breached its target, finally, of 3 million tourist arrivals for 2007, and all indications showed to even better performance in 2008.

Making performance reviews less stressful–for everyone

Few people relish having their professional performances judged by others. Yet the dread can cut both ways; many managers view the process as a task fraught with the possibility of miscommunication.

Beware of old technologies’ last gasps

When superior technologies emerge, old ones usually don’t simply fade away. To the contrary, their performance often leaps suddenly, thereby extending their lives and slowing the adoption of the new technologies.

Partner in building

Idle cranes in abandoned construction projects had become a potent symbol for the devastation caused by the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.

Winning: Don’t fear foreign investment

Q: What is your opinion about sovereign wealth funds taking ownership of US companies? The stakes being sold are substantial, like the government of Singapore’s 10-percent holding of UBS, and the management impact could be, too, like Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal pushing Chuck Prince out of his job at Citigroup. ---Dipak Thakur, Decatur, Illinois

Copy This

GO ahead, copy this article. But passing this as an original and earning from it, well, that’s not only plagiarism but, as lawyer Alex Ferdinand S. Fider points out, it’s actually stealing.

Download Uproar

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital-music sharing.

International man of peace

THERE isn’t a day when headlines aren’t filled with stories of conflict. Whether it’s in the most famous—or infamous—conflict site in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands are estimated to have died since 2003, or in Darfur or even a new democracy like East Timor, some bloodshed is bound to make the headlines.

Manage like an entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is a largely misunderstood—and thus underused—idea in business, says Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman. “It isn’t a set of character traits, and it’s not an economic function,” he says. Rather, it’s a way of managing that can add enormous value to organizations no matter their size, industry or age.

THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT

Good advice often comes in the form of deeds, not words. The best advice I ever got came not by listening, but by observing one of my colleagues—by watching his behavior, coming to understand his philosophy and then adapting it to my own style.