"One Hero at a Time"
By Cristina Blardony - Ateneo Guidon Staff, College Sophomore
Manila Times - 13 May 2007 Sunday
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/may/13/yehey/career/20070513car2.html
We usually associate heroes with people who have died for our country and a great cause. The first name that comes to mind is Jose Rizal; novelist, doctor, and Ateneo alumni. Living in the 21st century however makes it hard to relate to the late Dr. Rizal whose subversive works spelled out his own demise. In more modern times concerned with stocks, shares, and profits, how can a 19th century hero possibly compare? Enter Jinggay Gallardo, president of Pilot Consulting Group. Jinggay shares more than an Ateneo education with Rizal; she is a hero in her own right.
Graduating with a degree in Economics, and later on garnering an MBA in the same alma mater, Jinggay set up the Pilot Consulting Group, of which she is President, 11 years ago. With hard work and sheer determination, this company has grown steadily over the past decade, serving the country�s top corporations as their Marketing Consultants. However, our country�s current deteriorating state is one that cannot be ignored, despite the successes we surround ourselves with. Jinggay decided it was time to give back, and not just in terms of monetary funding, which she had been doing anyway. �Giving back has to be harder than just cutting a check�, she said.
So in 2004, while recovering from a major surgery that forced her to take some downtime that year, Jinggay decided to start giving back in another way. She harnessed her business network of creative, media and production professionals and dedicated her team to the first probono project of the Pilot Consulting Group, spearheading Project Embrace, a multimedia campaign to raise awareness concerning Autism among Filipino children. An undoubtedly successful project, following the launch, the Autism Society Philippines (ASP) and Philippine Association for Behavior Analysis (PABA), received an unprecedented amount of inquiries from parents and healthcare professionals from various parts of the country. ASP President, Dang Koe says, �The key is early recognition and intervention. But if the advertising can just make people more understanding of children who throw tantrums in churches and show more compassion for the parents who are trying their best to manage them, the campaign would have done its job.�
Two years later, a group of graduating students from the Ateneo Management Engineering Association approached her in hopes of gaining some insight into starting a new CSR magazine. Who better to benefit from Jinggay�s pro-bono work but fellow-Ateneans who share the same vision? Ten months after their first meeting, SLATE magazine was finally launched to the public recently at the Ateneo de Manila John Gokongwei School of Management. The first of its kind, SLATE is a student-run magazine featuring many local enterprises that implement corporate social responsibility as integral to their business strategies. In its maiden issue, SLATE explains their Philosophy of One: �to touch one life and in by so doing, improve society by even the smallest, most imperceptible fraction�that is our goal. If we are able to change just one person�s mind about how business is, can, or should be done, then all our efforts would not have been in vain. We work for that One.�
Joan Yao, editor-in-chief of SLATE magazine says of Jinggay �I think what we owe to Jinggay really, was that push to be more than a student publication. Not just to dream big, but actually to think and do big;�of course, the road to success for the SLATE team under Jinggay�s tutelage was not the smoothest. They had to face the sometimes brutal and harsh truth about the magazine when they thought what they had done was good enough. �Hers was an opinion we always sought out in our dealings with the outside world� especially the very delicate/unfamiliar ones�and she always helped.� Joan continues, as she beams proudly of her team�s effort to produce SLATE, which would not have been possible without Jing�gay�s indelible support.
In her welcome speech at the launch of SLATE, Joan expressed her hope that �CSR is more than just the latest in-thing in business.� Thankfully, with someone like Jinggay as their mentor, they will never have to fret over whether what they�re doing is just keeping up with the Joneses or is aesthetically pleasing. Rather, Jinggay has proven herself as an asset to any company, association, or group of teenagers trying to make a difference in the world. Her actions are not merely a way of ensuring that CSR is alive even within the Pilot Consulting Group. Rather, her actions speak of her greater vision, that is, to encourage business people to do whatever they can, no matter how small, to ensure a better future for the world.
Many of us are mislead by the concept that heroes have to be larger than life or need to leave an indelible mark on the cause they are fighting for. Some heroes however believe in just quietly making it work, and just being that ONE who can start the ball rolling, to infect others to do the same, and to make life better, one hero at a time. |
