PRIMEX News

20th ANNIVERSARY HIGHLIGHTS
The phone call that started it all:
Reliving PRIMEX’s humble origins

Posted on 16 October 2009

The August 7th PRIMEX anniversary program at the Crowne Plaza Galleria Manila was an occasion not only for celebrating all that the firm has become today but also for reliving its humble beginnings 20 years ago.

A short video that preceded all presentations took the audience to a time when founder Ms. Elvira C. Ablaza shared the dream of putting up a consulting company with colleagues and trusted aides from her previous firm. In her anniversary message, Ms. Ablaza recalled how she made that historic phone call to Mr. Jose P. Leviste, Jr., who was then in the United States, to invite him to be Chairman of the consulting firm she thought of putting up.

In recalling the same phone call, Mr. Leviste, in his welcome message, said he was first reluctant to heed Ms. Ablaza’s proposal because of a number of reasons.

“I was too far away. I was no longer in government at that time,” said Leviste, who served as Secretary-General of the Office of the Prime Minister during the Marcos administration.

With Ms. Ablaza’s persistence, Mr. Leviste agreed to chair the Board of Directors, where he joined other would-be directors, including Atty. Walfredo J. Sumilang, now Corporate Treasurer.

“How could I forget the fun we all had trying to find the right words to use for the acronym PRIME, which I wanted to be part of our corporate name,” recalled Ms. Ablaza in her anniversary speech. “The first two letters were the easiest – Pacific Rim for “P” and “R,” to define the geographic area we wanted to serve. The letter “I” was not so difficult – we knew we wanted to be innovative, creative, and non-traditional in our approaches. So, the word “Innovation” for the letter “I” was a good match. The letter “M” was the easiest because we all knew we wanted to do management consulting. Where we got stuck was with the letter E – mainly because I did not want to use the word “Experts.” And so, when the word, “Exponents,” was suggested, I knew we had a name that would embody my personal aspirations and my vision to have a Consulting Firm that would be No. 1 in the field.”

Mr. Leviste pointed out how such dream of Ms. Ablaza’s has now come to fruition by citing news materials naming PRIMEX as top Philippine consulting firm in ADB in the last decade.

Grateful to many individuals that helped PRIMEX in its early years, Ms. Ablaza cited, in particular, Dr. Gordon Munro of the University of British Columbia “whose encouragement and support eased our birthing pains and made our early entry into the international arena possible.” With funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Dr. Munro asked PRIMEX to run the Secretariat of the then Western Pacific Fisheries Consultative Committee (WPFCC) under the leadership of Ms. Ablaza, who was nominated by then Philippine Agriculture Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez as WPFCC Director.

“Without people like Dr. Munro, who believed in us, and without friends and associates like you, who supported us, we would not have achieved our vision of “a truly world-class consulting firm,” added Ms. Ablaza.

The short video also showed PRIMEX’s first office - a small space at the rear section of Ms. Ablaza’s ancestral home in Sampaloc, Manila. Three years later, the firm acquired the two 360-sq m condominium units in the Ortigas Center area, which houses PRIMEX’s offices today.

Among the other guests who shared their experiences working with PRIMEX was Mr. Cesar Tuazon, President of the Institute of the Management Consultants of the Philippines (IMPHIL), who honored the firm as the oldest member of the organization and paid tribute to Ms. Ablaza being its first woman president.

Also sharing their respective tributes to PRIMEX were Dr. Lyndon Leesuy, Program Manager for Infectious Diseases of the Department of Health (DOH); Ms. Esmeralda Manalang, Assistant Regional Director of Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources- Region IV; Mr. Antonio Navarro, President of the Confederation of Filipino Consulting Organizations (COFILCO), where Ms. Ablaza was the first, and so far the only, female president; and 2009 Ramon Magsaysay awardee Atty. Antonio Oposa who cited PRIMEX as a model “for what a Filipino can do – competent, good, brilliant, natural, and world-class.” (Arvin Yana)

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