By: Jon Melegrito

In 1995, the news stories in the mainstream media about Loida Nicolas Lewis were about a “Philippine-born widow carrying on her husband’s legacy,” and one who has “smashed the glass ceiling of American business, becoming the nation’s top female corporate chief in just over a year on the job.”

TLC Beatrice International, the company she headed, had sales the year before of $1.8 billion, mostly in Europe.

As reported by AP Corresponded David Briscoe, her success in taking over black entrepreneur Reginald F. Lewis’ food empire, after a year of mourning, “is the corporate version of former Philippine President Corazon Aquino’s rise to power a decade ago after her husband’s assassination.”

Indeed, Mrs. Lewis’ rise as a top U.S. businesswoman is indeed stuff that Filipina immigrant’s dream is made of.

Her wealth at the time also put her in a league with former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos. Mr. Lewis was estimated to be worth $400 million when he died of brain cancer in 1993.

But Loida Lewis’ style is anything but flamboyant. The first thing she did as head of TLC Beatrice was to sell the company jet and limousines and move her Manhattan office from Lewis’ top floor luxury suite to a smaller space lower down.

On September 20, 1995, she came to Washington to be honored as the nation’s top woman business owner by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners and Working Woman Magazine. She took the train. In a speech accepting the award, she credited her late husband, her 4,500 employees, and her extended family, both Filipino and black American, for her success. Reported sales were up 13 percent in the first half of the year over the same period the year before.

At the glittering ceremony in Washington’s Capital Hilton, Mrs. Lewis spoke about her Philippine Catholic roots, quoting the prophet Isaiah: “Because the Lord God helps me, I shall not be dismayed.”

Her main advice to minorities and women, she said, reflects the approach of her hard-driving husband, who was America’s richest black man: “Take control of your life, take responsibility for yourself and your family, pay your way,and you can do it.”

POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT.  Born in the Philippine province of Sorsogon 72 years ago, Mrs. Lewis is a naturalized citizen and a Philippine-trained immigration lawyer who won a protracted discrimination suit against the U.S. government and wrote three books about immigration law. Among them:  “How to Get a Green Card,” and “101 Legal Ways to Stay in the USA.”

She comes from a wealthy family in the Philippines and met her future husband, who had just graduated from Harvard Law School, in 1968, on a blind date while she was in New York on a world tour. They have two daughters.

Mrs. Lewis earned her B.A. in Political Science from St. Theresa’s College, and her Bachelor of Laws from the University of the Philippines. She served as a General Attorney for the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) in 1979-1990. She later launched a book, a published biography of her husband, “Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun.”

In the summer of 1997, she was back in Washington, D.C. again. This time to launch the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), with national leaders Alex Esclamado of Daly City, Calif., Rodel Rodis of San Francisco, Calif. and Gloria T. Caoile of Springfield, Virginia. Their goal was to build a unified national organization around the theme of “Filipino American Empowerment.”  The founding conference attracted more than 1,000 community leaders, high school and college youth, young professionals, civil rights activists and Filipino World War II veterans.

It was a historic gathering. On the first day of the confab, Mrs. Lewis spoke at a rally in front the White House where hundreds of delegates and Filipino veterans called for justice and equity rights for Filipino World War II veterans. Justice for veterans became her cause in the years that followed, coming to Washington frequently to testify before congressional hearings, join demonstrations and speak at student conferences. She challenged the youth to fight for their lolos and lolas and keep their proud legacy alive.

Mrs. Lewis was elected National Chair of NaFFAA in 2000, succeeding Alex Esclamado. She was instrumental in bringing then First Lady Hillary Clinton to speak at NaFFAA’s third empowerment conference in New York. During her term, she mobilized the Filipino American community to support dual citizenship and overseas voting in Philippine national elections, declaring that “we have a role to play in making sure that elected officials are accountable to the people.”

After serving for two years, Mrs. Lewis continued to be a voice for Filipino American empowerment. She is currently national chair of the US Pinoys for Good Governance (USPGG). Among the issues it has advocated is medical portability, which would allow Filipinos who choose to retire in the Philippines to use their US health care benefits. USPGG has also mobilized community protests against China for its “bullying” stance towards the Philippines.

 FORMULAS FOR SUCCESS.  When her husband died at the prime of his life (he was only 50), Mrs. Lewis was left with a daunting challenge. “I did not know how to run a company,” she told a reporter in an interview in 1997. “But my best teacher was my husband. In 24 years of marriage, I absorbed his business skills and learned what made him a success.”

Based on her experience, she came up with three formulas for success:

  • Setting a Goal: My husband was a goal setter. He taught me that failure was not an option. My first goal was to make the business profitable. And that’s what I did despite the fact that when I took over, it was 1993, during the worst recession in Europe. Half of our business was in soft drinks and ice cream and our earnings were plummeting.
  • Obedience to a Moral Order: My second formula is an inner code of conduct, integrity, and love of neighbor. Work hard and do the right thing. If it’s not fair to your neighbor, it’s not good business. Good values is good business. In professional and personal life, there’ll be occasions to take short cuts, there’ll be temptations of money, power, easy living and easy loving. Don’t do it. What you thought was easy soon becomes hard and you will ask yourself later, how did I get into this mess? TLC Beatrice is on top of our game because we have a reputation for integrity.
  • Determination. Or tenacity of purpose. Reginald had this very strong determination to succeed and no one could hinder him from achieving his goals.

These three formulas for success are easy to remember. Just think of the acronym G (goal), O (obedience), and D (determination) = GOD.

When I lost my husband, I was devastated. When he died, it was the darkest, longest night of my life. But I never lost faith. Faith in God is the most important quality we can give to our adopted country.

She adds: The best of Filipino culture is we’re very hardworking and very resourceful. But at the same time, and this one is a failing, we’re lacking in an inner moral code of conduct that is crucial to success. I mean, we bend the rules too much, commit actual illegal acts, cross the line. Sometimes in our abilidad, we do something contrary to law, maybe out of pakikisama (getting along) or looking out for relatives and friends. But a very good character trait is our faith in God. We are very spiritual.

  • Jon Melegrito is the Communications Director of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) and a free-lance journalist based in Washington, D.C.