Iron Man
After 35 years of building solid partnerships with household brands like Nabisco, Quaker Oats, Hershey’s, and Kellog’s, Alaska Milk Corporation is now one of the Philippines’ biggest companies—and it takes a leader with strength, discipline, and determination to keep it that way. Bill Velasco talks to Alaska’s C.E.O. and Ironman triathlete Fred Uytengsu about inheriting tremendous responsibility, taking on the most unforgiving test of endurance known to man, and running a multi-million dollar corporation like a championship-winning basketball team.
“If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.”
- Sheldon Kopp
Fred Uytengsu could easily have been the Tony Stark of Philippine corporate life, hiding his weakness of heart behind alcohol, a suit of armor, and a mask, needing artificial help to get to where he wanted to go. That’s probably why Iron Man is a comic book, and Fred Uytengsu is a flesh and blood paradox. He doesn’t need any of those trappings, doesn’t need an exoskeleton to protect him from the outside world. He is his own person, free of his own privileged upbringing, aware of his responsibility. And his steel is inside.
A boardroom portrait of Wilfred Uytengsu Sr. and Jr. in 2004.
Any conversation with Wilfred Steven Uytengsu is a study in thoughtful precision, depth of understanding, passion, and firm belief in values that cannot be compromised. Fred is always very clear and very measured in his speech pattern: crisp, clipped sentences that leave no room for misinterpretation, containing parallel structures and itemized shortlists that reveal a mind that is quick to organize itself.
Fred’s father, Wilfred Sr., who founded Alaska in 1972 when the products were being produced by Holland Milk Products, used to bring Wilfred the Younger to his office and General Milling factory on Saturdays.
“I suppose, as the eldest son, I was expected to learn the business by osmosis,” Fred smiles. “But, as a ten-year-old boy, I really had no idea how to even start. I didn’t have the sense of duty, responsibility, or desire then.”
At that age, in fact, Fred’s passion was aquatics. Often, he was one of only two or three swimmers who would dominate youth age-group competitions. If it wasn’t Fred, it was Mark Joseph or Nico Montinola. If it wasn’t one, it was the other, and it became quite redundant. In the mid-70s, Alaska had started its sports advertising campaign with the immortal “Wala pa ring tatalo sa Alaska” TV spots featuring Michael the Alaska boy (no, it wasn’t Fred) and PBA import Cisco Oliver, and extended more than a decade later when Asia’s sprint queen Lydia de Vega graced a similar ad. Fred would have been a perfect fit, being a hardcore athlete himself.
So, at the cusp of adolescence (some would even say manhood), he was expected to learn his father’s craft. Did he accept his father’s offer to study abroad and become the “non-traditional” Chinese businessman?
“Actually, I begged my parents to send me abroad so I could compete abroad,” Fred recalls with a chuckle. “That was the main reason.”
So, at 14, Fred packed up after 10th Grade at the International School and left for Menlo School in California, followed by studies at U.S.C. where he became—what else?—captain of the swimming team. But he would still represent the Philippines in the Manila SEA Games in 1981. The Philippines placed third behind Indonesia and Thailand at the ancient Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, as Bong Coo won four gold medals and set six Games records. Then, it was on to Crocker National Bank, where Fred had his first taste of corporate life in the U.S.
In the mid-70s, Alaska had started its sports advertising campaign with the immortal “Wala pa ring tatalo sa Alaska” TV spots featuring Michael the Alaska boy (no, it wasn’t Fred) and PBA import Cisco Oliver.
Soon, though, it was time for the two Wilfreds to be reunited, with the younger wondering what it would be like to be enmeshed with the company that had changed so much since 1972 and an environment that had changed at an accelerated rate in the 1980s (more so in the intervening 11 years he had been away).
“My father invited me, he didn’t force me to come back,” Fred recalls. “So I talked to my wife Kerri [Dunn, his college sweetheart], and we made the decision to come back.”
But, unlike today’s young privileged class, Fred’s trip didn’t enhance his social life. He had been away from age 14 to 25, at the time when most young people were building lifelong friendships, planning their futures with classmates and schoolmates.
“The hardest thing about my experience was: no barkada. You have to remember, I came from IS. I didn’t come from Ateneo, La Salle, or even Xavier. I didn’t have a barkada. There was no Internet then, so you couldn’t keep in touch with anybody.”
“The company I worked for was a Fortune 500 corporation. It was a very different culture. I came back with the discipline and systems I had learned. There was a lot less formality here then. The pace was slower. Filipino time was a big adjustment.”
That vacuum became more pronounced when Fred joined General Milling. At this time, it was a common experience for graduates to experience culture shock from massive age gaps in corporations that had been reopened after Martial Law. For the “non-traditional Chinese businessman,” working in a foreign financial institution had already exposed him to American business practices. The Philippines was a totally different animal.
“You know no one, and everybody you work with is generally ten years, twenty years, even thirty years older. ” Fred remembers. “The company I worked for was a Fortune 500 corporation. It was a very different culture. I came back with the discipline and systems I had learned. There was a lot less formality here then. The pace was slower. Filipino time was a big adjustment.”
Soon, Fred was making an impact, helping streamline systems, while not hampering the entrepreneurial spirit his father started the company with, and determining who had control over the various systems in the corporate structure. To the outside world, he was the more public face of General Milling Corporation, particularly when it involved their basketball team, then known as the Alaska Milkmen. Alaska entered the PBA in 1986, and it quickly became obvious that they were not your typical basketball team.
“We were building an organization, and giving our managers more and more,” Fred declares. “Like our basketball team, we didn’t treat it as a hobby, but as a business unit. It’s something we went through recently with our players and coaching staff. We asked them to dig deeper, look inward. We asked them—what is it you want, do you just want to pick up a paycheck, or do you want to do more? And they responded.”
“In the 1990s the focus was on our basketball team, and we used this to infiltrate the corporate work behavior. It had its own marketing, sales, finance, production, singularly focused. We believe in keeping our management team intact.” Head coach Tim Cone is the PBA’s longest-serving coach by far, and team manager Joaqui Trillo has been with the company even longer.
I came back with the discipline and systems I had learned. There was a lot less formality here then. The pace was slower. Filipino time was a big adjustment.