Born Sy Chi Sieng on October 15, 1924, Sy lived in Xiamen in China's Fujian province where many Filipino-Chinese trace

their
roots. At 11 years old, Sy left his family and followed his father to the Philippines. (READ: FAST FACTS: SM Investments
Corporation)

Sy worked in his father's sari-sari store in Quiapo until after World War II, when his father returned to China. Sy eventually went
to school and obtained an associate degree in commercial studies at the Far Eastern University.

In the 1950s, Sy ventured into the business of selling surplus boots. He eventually opened ShoeMart in 1958 along Carriedo in
Manila.

Since then, Sy enjoyed a steady climb to the top. He has been one of the country’s richest Filipinos since 2005.

In 2018, Forbes ranked him richest Filipino and 52nd richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $20 billion as of
2018.

Sy was also known as a family man. His marriage to Felicidad Tan produced 6 children: Teresita, Elizabeth, Henry Jr, Hans,
Herbert, and Harley.

His businesses were not without controversy, as SM Supermalls had been accused of engaging in contractualization, which its
executives denied. The Department of Labor and Employment reported that SM Supermalls had regularized 11,660 workers as
of December 2018.

1.) Henry Sy, Sr. was born on Christmas Day – December 25, 1924. He will be turning 88 this coming December.

2.) He is Chinese by blood but Filipino by nationality. Henry was born in Xiamen, China and migrated in the Philippines when he
was still young. He is now a resident of Manila, Philippines.

3.) Henry Sy’s original birth name is Shi Zhì Cheng but changed his legal name into Henry Sy after being granted a Filipino
citizenship.

4.) He enrolled as a grade one student at the age of 12 in an Anglo-Chinese School in Quiapo. He studied in Chiang Kai Shek
College and earned his Associate of Arts degree in Commercial Studies at Far Eastern University in 1950.

5.) Henry Sy Sr. is the Chairman and CEO of SM Investments Corporation, SM Prime Holdings and SM Development Corporation
and Highland Prime Holdings.

6.) He is also the chairman emeritus of Banco De Oro, honorary chairman of China Banking Corporation and is known as the
founder of SM Group.

7.) This Chinese-Filipino business tycoon has net worth of US$ 5.4 Billion as of 2011.

8.) His SM Prime Holdings is the largest retailer and shopping mall operator in the Philippines and is recognized as the country’s
"Retail King".

9.) At the age of 22 while still studying, he set up his shoe store with a few pair of shoes in Quiapo, Manila in 1946.

10.) Henry Sy Sr. opened the very first Shoemart store along Carriedo St. in Avenida Rizal in downtown Manila.
11.) This shoe store which was later called SM became Asia's biggest shopping mall operator with more than 30 malls
throughout the archipelago. SM simply means “Shoe Mart”.

12.) Three SM Malls are among the top 10 largest malls in the world – SM City North EDSA, SM Mega Mall in Mandaluyong and
SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City

13.) The SM Group has also established 3 supermalls in China, namely SM North Xiamen, SM South Xiamen and SM Chuan while
an SM supermall was also opened in Guam.

14.) In 1976, he acquired Banco De Oro Unibank Inc. (BDO) which is originally known as Acme Savings Bank.
15.) Henry Sy, Sr., was named “Management Man of the Year” by the Makati Business Club and was conferred an Honorary
Doctorate in Business Management by De La Salle University-Manila in January 1999.

16.) His SM Investments Corporation has been consistently cited as one of the Philippines best-managed companies.

17.) His wife, Felicidad, is also a Chinese immigrant and they had 6 children – Teresita, Hans, Henry Jr., Elizabeth, Herbert and
Harley.

18.) Teresita manages BDO, the department stores and retail stores while Hans is in charge of the shopping centers and
president of SM Prime Holdings and vice chairman of China Bank.

19.) Henry Jr. takes care of the real estate ventures of the company while Elizabeth is involved with tourism ventures like the
Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay City.

20.) Herbert manages the SM Supermarkets and Harley is the president of SM Investments Corporation, the flagship holding
company.

21.) Henry SY Sr. sincerely followed Confucian values and he brought up his children knowing the value of hard work and
perseverance.

22.) Her daughter Teresita Sy-Coson and his grandchildren Hailey Sy-Coson, Darcie Sy and Josiah Sy are being groomed as his
successors.

23.) The four characteristics this admirable man possesses for others to emulate – hard work, determination, perseverance and
will power.

Who is ____________?

What are his breakthroughs in life?

How did he attain such breakthroughs?

Believe it or not, Henry Sy’s story was a ‘rags to riches’ kind of tale. Born in Xiamen, China in November 1924, Henry Sy was not
born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Wanting to escape poverty, Henry followed his father to the Philippines only to
experience a miserable youth in a foreign country. Sy struggled hard living in a foreign country as an immigrant and had to learn
the local language. Determined to become successful, he worked hard day and night to provide for his needs.
Sy started out with a small sari-sari store business that helped them in their day-to-day life. Sy and his father lived in a small
space until the fruits of their labor made them successful in the following years. However, when the Philippine economy
collapsed in World War II, their store burned down that forced his father to go back to China. Henry Sy stayed in the Philippines
and built his own shoe business in Marikina.
Sy did not have an overnight success. He enrolled himself to school and was able to graduate college with a degree in
commerce from Far Eastern University. Sy also changed legal names, sold rejected and overrun shoes, plus many other setbacks
that he had to face early in life. He did not give up and pushed through maybe because he knew that something big, which is
what he has now, is about to come.
After a series of failures in his business, Henry Sy stood back up and persevered to attain his goal. He established a small shoe
store in Quiapo, Manila in 1958 named “Shoe Mart” that eventually marked the establishment of SM Prime Holdings. Now with
three of the most valuable companies in the Philippines: SM Investments Corp. and SM Prime Holdings Inc., valued at over Php
1 trillion each, and BDO Unibank, valued at around Php 635 million, he has become the richest man in the country for 11
consecutive years since 2005 and ranked 52nd in Forbes World Billionaires List of 2018.
1. Jack Ma only owns 6% of the company he founded.
However, he sold nearly $1 billion in stock last Friday, his current stake in the company is still worth $18 billion and he owns
46% of the company’s electronic-payment affiliate Alipay, which was valued by Forbes at $20 billion. (IBR)

2. He flunked his university admission exam. Twice.

It’s not like he was applying for the Chinese equivalent of Harvard, either. In an interview with Inc. in 2008, Jack Ma admitted
his university, Hangzhou Teachers’ University, was considered the worst university in the city. However, Mr. Ma’s leadership
skills didn’t take long to surface. He was elected the student chairman of his university and later on became the chairman of the
city’s Student’s Federation.

3. He applied for a job at KFC, and was rejected.

Once he quit his teaching job he started looking for other opportunities. When KFC rejected him, he started a small-time
translation and interpreting company. (Inc.)

4. His true love is show biz… and dogs.

Although he has come a long way since being the son of underground ping tan artists, he hasn’t lost the flamboyant love for
showmanship he inherited from them.

Apart from Apollo, his Alsation dog, Ma loves nothing more than singing and dancing on stage, especially if he gets to wear
outlandish outfits and heavy makeup. His version of Lion King is a must-see. Having said that, his rendition of “Can you feel the
love tonight?” dressed in a leather jacket with a humongous spiked Mohican is not bad either.

5. Forrest Gump is his lifelong hero

Every time he gets stressed out, he watches the movie again. What does Ma get from Forest Gump? “No matter whatever
changed, you are you.” That’s deep. (CNBC)

6. His parents were performers in an illegal form of Chinese entertainment.

Jack Ma’s parents were practitioners of the “ping tan,” a Chinese tradition of musical storytelling that was banned during Mao’s
Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.

7. His avatar is “Feng Qinyang”

Jack Ma also goes by his nickname Feng Quinyang, a legendary swordsman who is known for his aggressive, unpredictable and
reclusive character. The nickname fits his business practices but not his public life. Jack Ma is no recluse. (The Hindu)

8. Jack Ma learned English as a teenager by giving free tours to visitors on the West Lake in Eastern China.
He would ride 40 minutes every morning to a hotel in the nearby city of Hangzhou. His exposure to foreign visitors gave him a
more globalized view that conflicted with what he learnt from his teachers and textbooks. (BBC)

9. He started out his career as an English teacher.

In the past, the Chinese government would assign jobs to university graduates, who had little say in the matter. Mr. Ma was the
only one of 500 students assigned to be a university teacher even though he trained to be high a school English teacher. It was
an honor, but Jack Ma couldn’t wait to finish his five-year stint and start his own business. I can’t see why. He was making 120
renminbi, or $15 a month. (Financial Post)

10. Jack Ma didn’t see his first computer until he was 31.
In 1995, he went on a trip to Seattle on interpreting business, saw his first computer and started surfing the World Wide Web. It
would be a trip that would change his life forever. (Inc.)

Ma may not have been an early adopter of computers and the internet but he sure became a true believer. He immediately saw
the potential and started to look for ways to create a viable online business in mainland China.

11. He was kidnapped on his first trip to the United States.

Part of the reason he accepted the interpreting gig in the States was to help a friend collect a debt from an American
businessman. When Ma asked for the cash back, the businessman wouldn’t play ball. Instead, he locked Ma in his house, got his
handgun out, and tried to strong-arm him into cutting a deal.

What happened later, seems more like a Hollywood movie than the bio of a executive chairman. The businessman forced Ma to
go with him to Las Vegas, where Ma gambled his last few dollars on the slot machines and made $600. He then ran away from
his captor and used his gambling winnings to buy a plane ticket back to Seattle.

12. His first start-up was a complete flop.

Excited about the potential of starting an internet business in China, Ma returned home and started his first real business, China
Yellow Pages. He used his life savings and a loan from a relative to cobble together $2,000 he needed to get the business
started.

On the launch date of China Yellow Pages, Ma invited his friends to his house to see his website. After three and a half hours,
only half his page had loaded. Don’t you miss the days of dial-up internet?

13. Jack Ma started Alibaba with a group of his English students.

In 1999 a group of Ma’s students, who had become his friends, met at his apartment and put together the founding goals of
what would become Alibaba. At first, he didn’t have that much trust in his friends. He told them they would only ever reach
mid-management positions, never vice-president roles. Those roles would have to be taken by outside help.

Later, Ma called that decision his biggest regret. Years later his friends were still around filling those vice-president roles while
the outside help had long gone.

14. He gave up a big chunk of his company to his 18 “co-founders.”

If there’s something Ma knows how to do right, it is motivating his workforce. Even though he was the only real founder, Ma
named the 18 friends who were with him in the early days co-founders and shared a big chunk of the shares in Alibaba with
them when he incorporated the business.

15. He is barely computer literate.

Ok. He can switch a computer on and send email, but not much more. In an interview with Charlie Rose he explained how he
was trained as an English high school teacher and knows nothing about technology. “The only thing I can use my computer for
is to send, receive email and browse.”

16. His wife thinks he’s ugly but she fell for his other skills.
Jack Ma met his Zhang Ying while still at college and they married soon after graduation. When Ma quit teaching, Zhang stayed
on as a teacher while he tried his luck with China Yellow Pages. Zhang is quoted as saying “Ma Yun is not a handsome man, but I
fell for him because he can do a lot of things handsome men cannot do” (Want China Times).

17. He hired his wife as “political commissar” of Alibaba.

Yes, Chinese companies actually have political commissar. In the early days her role as political commissar mainly consisted in
cooking and doing odd errands, but she eventually became the General Manager of Alibaba in China. Once she was at the
pinnacle of her career, he made the gutsy move of asking her to step down and go back to caring for their kids and cooking his
meals. (Want China Times)

If there is anything that stands out from Jack Ma’s story is how unexpected his rise to unimaginable riches was. Sure, Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet also have inspiring stories of entrepreneurs who were willing to put everything on the
line to build huge corporations from scratch. Yet, from early on, they all showed signs of natural ability in their fields.

18. His real name is Ma Yun.

19. Jack Ma is worth $25 Billion.
Even though Alibaba doesn’t actually sell anything, it takes a cut of 80% of all the goods sold online in China, a country with
over 600 million internet users.

The record-breaking IPO of Alibaba pushed Jack Ma’s personal fortune above the previous richest man in China, Wang Jianlin,
who is worth a measly $24.2 billion.
20. His initial plan was to hand over the company to professionals after four years.
Although Jack Ma is now well known for his bold statements and dressing like a rock star, he wasn’t always that confident
technology tycoon. When he first started Alibaba, back in 1999, he was a shy amateur with a dream who felt he could only stay
in his company for four years before handing it over to a pro.

Ma was brought up in a communist society. He barely made it into university, didn’t see a computer until he was 31 years old
and still can’t write a line of code, even it his life depended on it. Yet he is the founder of an online technology company that
dwarfs some of the most successful corporations in the world. Go figure.

The Alibaba co-founder is one of Chinas richest men Jack Mas net worth is around $36b He stepped down as Alibaba CEO in
2013 but remains Chairman Alibaba is Chinas largest e-commerce platform Born in 1964, Ma began his career as an English
teacher
Alibaba is China's — and by some measures, the world's — biggest online commerce company. Its three main sites — Taobao,
Tmall and Alibaba.com — have hundreds of millions of users, and host millions of merchants and businesses. Alibaba handles
more business than any other e-commerce company.

Jack Ma was literally in the future before a billion other Chinese were. He also had an insatiable hunger to improve his lot in life
and one top of that was a master communicator and salesman. Give the right person a head start into the future and he will
deliver great change. And he was an English Teacher.

English was Jack Ma's key to the future. It was his "open sesame". Magic words that opened up the doors to greater treasures.

Please be noted that he founded his company in stone age of Chinese internet. Although he does not understand tech. He
understood the fundamental problems of what Chinese people need/want. To him tech is just a way of solving the problems.
Another point people usually forget is even at the very beginning of Alibaba, he knew that the key to succeeding in this new
industry is reaching out for support from the powers, which is his expertise. He was also good at gathering skillful people
around him. All these aspects combined with diligence, perseverance and a little luck, make Alibaba the biggest e-com company
in the world. As far as success goes, he is still on his way.