When I was starting my career in public accounting, I heard it said that to succeed in business a woman must “work like a horse, think like a man and look like a doll.” I then remembered a conversation I had with an American partner of an international accounting firm who visited our graduate school. I asked, “Can I work in your firm?” He replied, “We accept women, mostly as secretaries.”
After earning my MBA in a class of 150 — with two other women — I met him again, in New York. I told him I was a new member of the professional staff participating in the monthlong orientation course. As luck would have it, I topped the class of 49, where I was the only woman and the only foreigner. Thereafter, I became one of the boys, usually the only woman in the client service team.
Two years later, I returned home to work for the Philippine firm of this international organization. My first request was for an assignment in Negros; I had never traveled outside of Luzon before I left to study abroad. The client partner initially refused; he thought my parents would not allow me to go. “But sir, I lived abroad alone for years!” I said.
I got my wish! In succeeding years, other women started going on provincial assignments.
Six years later, I became the first woman partner of the Philippine firm and our international partnership. Many more women have since become partners.
I thought that was to be the peak of my professional career until, after eight years, our senior partner advised me that I was to succeed him. “Why me? I am female,” I told him. Even in my wildest dreams, I did not see myself doing his job. All I wanted was to serve our clients well and have more time with my family. But his answer was short and simple: “When there are difficult jobs to do, you’re always the first to come to mind.” That sealed my fate. All I could say was: “I’ll discuss this with my husband and get his permission.”
I served as chair and senior partner for 20 years, with two other women leading the firm later, albeit for shorter terms. The firm now must have about 50-percent women in its current staff and partnership.
Twenty-five years after Belen Enrile Gutierrez, the first Filipino woman CPA, served as president of the Philippine Institute of Accountants in 1953, I became the second woman president of the successor organization, the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Several others have since served as such.
In 1985, I was elected the first woman president of Finex, or the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, which was founded in 1968. In 1990 and thereafter, other women have served as its president.
In 1994, I became the first woman president of MAP, or the Management Association of the Philippines, since its founding in 1950. Another woman followed in 2006.
This year, Finex and MAP are headed by women, the sixth for the former and the third for the latter.
This should not be surprising anymore as the Philippines has had in the last 30 years women presidents, a vice president, and a chief justice, aside from heads of several national agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Commission on Audit, Social Security System, and Office of the Ombudsman. A number of our biggest corporations are now chaired by women entrepreneurs.
Carmen Guerrero Nakpil once wrote that in the Philippines, the best businessman is a woman. Yet, there are still many women who need to be saved from the clutches of poverty and abuse for lack of education and livelihood opportunities. For every successful woman, there are more who need empowerment to contribute strongly to their families and communities. That time has come!
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CPA Corazon S. de la Paz-Bernardo is independent director/trustee of several corporations. She is also honorary president of the Swiss-based International Social Security Association (founded in 1927 in Brussels), serving as its first woman and first non-European president in 2004-2010.