Up close and personal with Mr. Johnip Cua

Yesterday was very remarkable, I had a once in a lifetime experience at The Podium. Karen, Nats, Mia and I had the privilege to meet Mr. Johnip Cua, P&G’s first Filipino General Manager. He’s a great man and very inspirational. We arrived at Podium exactly 5 o’clock i think, he was already at Delifrance then. He offered to treat us anything we wanna eat and so we ordered frappe, he insisted to buy us pizza but i thought it’s all in our consciousness that we will be uncomfortable eating while talking with him. While waiting for the food and drinks to arrive, we chatted about how UP was during his time and compared the past and the present College of Engineering. He mentioned that he never got any programming class then because it was only an elective and it’s really a hassle then to deal with punchcards and find a computer to use and so i remembered sir Quiwa’s story about punchcards, funny. It was a very casual conversation, he’s not intimidating to talk to, maybe because we share something in common - the alma mater or he’s just really a nice man. 

Before he came to meet us he went to play golf, he said that he don’t wanna work anymore! -> this statement was Nat’s fave. Indeed, he earned the right to relax and enjoy his life. After he finished his food, we started our presentation. By the way, the reason why we met him was to present the specifics of Engineering Marketing Congress 2009, we invited him to be our speaker for the first seminar: Orientation and Basics of Marketing. I was assigned in the introduction part, i got nervous at first, but who wouldn’t be?! Nats in Event, Karen in Seminars and Mia in Competition. When we told him what we want him to tackle in his speech (basics of marketing, four Ps of marketing, marketing and engineering correlation), he said that it’s too basic. What he wanted to talk about was P&G’s local and global branding, it focuses more on the advertising, he will show several commercials, he will discuss which products hit the market and which products flunked and the story behind them. Well he’s right, it’s too basic for him and so we allowed his request to change the nature of his talk, it’s also in line with the theme “Local Engineers To Global Pioneers” anyway and who are we to reject.

After the presentation, we started to ask questions about the company. He told us about his leadership experience, the character a leader must possess, the Es of leadership, the values of P&G and what struck me the most was when he told us that the moment he stepped in his position and realized the mission of the company: As the company grows, the community around us grows with us (not certain if it’s the exact phrase), he said that he must adhere to and live with that. The hardest job for him was to fire employees which really is tough. He emphasized that the leader is the perpetuation of the corporation. Under his leadership, P&G went to broader horizons, created more jobs to Filipinos through outsourcing and helped the sari-sari store owners to survive and earn more by repackaging products into smaller ones to become more affordable. He’s a genius. He strengthened my desire to work in P&G. He told us that if you get accepted in P&G you must be very smart and this is my favorite among his quotable statements: “I haven’t met any UP student who did not excel.” He said that we should have very good leadership skills, we should be active in our organizations, we should have experience handling events and projects like this which I’m proud i have and should have very good grades which i doubt haha but i wont give up, i still have a year in UP! I even asked him if there are career opportunities for CS grads and he said there is at GBS! 

It was indeed an unforgettable two-hour experience, to be able to have met him, talked to him and heard of his experience was very empowering, we all consider it a once in a lifetime episode. The only regret we had was we didn’t take a picture with him! we’re all too fascinated with his stories and his presence to the extent of shouting OMG after we get past the exit of the mall and took off. If there’s a JC fans club, i’ll definitely want to apply! The College of Engineering got the privilege of having him in the Engineering Marketing Congress 2009’s Seminar 1 on August 11, 5:30 pm at the Eng’g Theater, be there.