‘I wish I was like them when I was 25 years old. These people have their whole world in front of them,” said BPI President and CEO Cezar P. Consing.Consing, now 56 years old, was referring to the young social entrepreneurs who joined the first-ever BPI Sinag on Tuesday. “I envy them,” he said.
The BPI Sinag, a business-plan competition, aims to empower young Filipino entrepreneurs who have their own socio-civic missions.
“I’m not an entrepreneur. I may be a lousy entrepreneur. When I was 25 [years old], the Philippines was in a middle of financial restructuring in 1984 and 1985.
“The country went into restructuring in 1983. We were double C or triple C back then, and no one would lend to us. Our economy was looking inward, no one can get foreign exchange,” he said.
Consing was already a banker when he was 25 years old. He joined BPI as a full-time employee in 1980 and worked in the Corporate Planning and Corporate Banking departments. He worked for the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) in Manila from 1980 to 1985, where his last position was assistant vice president in the Corporate Banking Division.
“My aspirations when I was their age were a lot lower. Their aspirations are much higher than mine. I couldn’t have that aspiration when I was 25 years old. It’s a very difficult market back then,” he told the BusinessMirror.
Asked how his life was during that time, he replied: “Much simpler than theirs.”
“Now, can you imagine what they can do? Compared to where we were when I was their age, it’s literally night and day,” he said.
He said that during those times, in the 1980s, interest rates were in the 30 percent to 40 percent levels.
“Can you imagine the 30-percent to 40-percent interest rates? The peso devalued by 100 percent. There was no credit. At that time, the Philippines was selling maybe 30,000 cars a year. Today it’s 10 times that number,” he shared.
“In some ways, I envy these people because they have their whole lives ahead of them. Things look better now than during our time in the mid-1980s,” he said.
“Look at where we are now. We’re at investment grade, our interest rates are low, our growth rates are good. In Asean, we’re doing better than most. It’s a fairly different context,” he explained.
Consing actually excelled in what he did. He had a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics (Accelerated Program), magna cum laude, from De La Salle University, Manila, in 1979.
In his college days, he served on the student council and wrote for the university newspaper.
He was a member of the university debating team and was a sprinter on the varsity track and field team. When he graduated, he bagged the gold medal for excellence in Economics. He received his Master of Arts in Applied Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1980.
Consing was a lecturer at De La Salle University’s MBA program from 1981 to 1983, and has been a guest lecturer at the Asian Institute of Management’s MBA program.
His life is totally committed to the banking sector and he shares the commitment of BPI to empower people to help find solutions to the nation’s biggest sustainable challenges, such as poverty, food security and climate change.
“The way we do business should produce positive effects, and not simply taking a corporate socialresponsibility approach,” he said.
“This requires a mind-set that needs to be ingrained in the way we function, so that more people will benefit from the business—shareholders, clients and employees,” he added.
Consing became president and CEO of BPI on April 18, 2013. He served as a member of BPI’s board between February 1995 and January 2000, and from August 2004 to January 2007. He rejoined the board in April 2010.
Consing held various positions in more than 30 years of his banking career. Currently, he serves as chairman of the bank’s Credit Committee, and is a member of the bank’s Executive, Trust, Retirement and Pension, and Risk Management committees.
He also serves as chairman of BPI Direct Savings Bank, BPI Europe Plc., BPI Globe Banko, BPI Century Tokyo and Lease Finance Corp., and BPI Computer Systems Corp.
He serves as vice chairman of BPI Capital Corp. and BPI Foundation. At BPI Foundation, their goal is to uphold financial wellness and economic empowerment through various initiatives, such as education, entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability.
Consing also serves as board director of BPI Family Savings Bank, BPI/Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (MS) Insurance Corp. and BPI-Philam Life Assurance Corp.
BPI acts as a distribution channel for life-insurance products. In 2014 the distribution agreement with Philamlife was extended for another 20 years or until November 27, 2039. BPI/MS is one of the most dominant nonlife-insurance companies in the country.
“Our insurance joint ventures continue to grow. We have strong insurance businesses for both life and nonlife. It’s also a sign that the Philippine population is becoming better. People can afford to buy insurance,” he said.
Consing is a senior managing director of Ayala Corp. and a member of the Board of Partners of The Rohalyn Group, an international asset-management firm.
He is also a member of the board of directors of the National Reinsurance Corp. of the Philippines and LGU Guarantee Corp.
Since June 2010, he has served as an independent board director of Jollibee Foods Corp.
He is a board director of Filgifts.com, Sqreem Technologies Private Ltd. and Endeavor Philippines.
Consing has over 19 years in his career with JPMorgan in Hong Kong and Singapore. In 1985 he moved to JPMorgan & Co., then the second largest shareholder of BPI, where he focused on loan origination and syndication, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions.
He was responsible for all of JPMorgan’s banking business in the Philippines, then in Southeast Asia, and, ultimately, the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan. From 1994 to 2004, he was president of JPMorgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd.
Prior to rejoining BPI in 2013, Consing was a partner at TRG, headed its Hong Kong office and was responsible for TRG’s private equity businesses in Asia, which include Arch Capital Management Co., a real-estate investment firm; and Capital Advisors Partners Asia, an infrastructure investment firm. Between 2007 and 2012, TRG owned a 40-percent stake in Premiere Development Bank, where Consing served as chairman of its Executive Committee.
Consing also joined a Malaysian bank that is one of the largest universal banking institutions in Southeast Asia. Between 2004 and 2013, he served as an independent director of CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. and CIMB Group Sdn. Bhd.
Consing is also a member of the board of advisors of De La Salle University. Between 2003 and 2009, he was a member of the board of directors of the Asian Youth Orchestra. Currently, he is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a global think tank “formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe [European Union countries], and North America [United States and Canada] to foster closer cooperation among these core industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system.”