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EVERY
TIME you change your baby’s diapers, think of Maria
Fatima
Francisco, the first Filipino woman executive in Procter
& Gamble’s global operation: she’s proving the Filipina
can poke a stick at the corporate glass ceiling—in the
US
at that.
“I’m a
Filipino; I’m a woman, and I’m proud of being both,”
Francisco said during a vacation in
Manila
after a straight four-year stay in Cincinnati, Ohio, as
marketing director of the multinational firm’s Global
Baby Care division.
She
looks around the coffee shop not because she didn’t want
to be heard by other customers but to emphasize the
source of her pride.
“Look
around us; there’re a lot of changes that point to signs
of development, of growth in our country. These really
reflect that our people, our women, have what it takes
in a globalized world,” Francisco said, pointing to
glass and steel structures at the
Bonifacio
Global City.
She
considers her promotion after seven years of working
with the company that manufactures and produces products
under 26 brands and sells these to 80 countries “a
reflection of what the Filipino is capable of doing.”
As
marketing director, Francisco is responsible for selling
the Pampers brand to these countries. Other products
known in the country are under the brands Ariel,
Folgers, Gillette, Ivory, Joy, Oral-B, Tampax and Tide,
the company’s best-selling laundry detergent. Pampers is
one of 22 brands that post more than a billion dollars
in sales for the company.
Not one
of the boys
The move
to change things, she said, comes first in the mindset,
just like what she did after stepping out of the
University of the Philippines campus clutching a degree
in business administration.
“During
my UP days, I nurtured this dream of joining a company
with a global footprint because I really felt that the
Filipino woman has that ability of leading,” Francisco
said.
But it
wasn’t a smooth ride after her graduation more than a
decade ago.
When she
got her job at P&G, she was the only woman in a
100-member sales force.
“You
could say that when the top brass asked for a volunteer
to lead the team, all 99 stepped back and I was thrust
into that leadership position,” Francisco said with
candor.
Little
by little, she said she started to change the way P&G
did things in sales.
“We
walked to public markets like those in Caloocan City,
talked to the vendors and began selling to a broader
market,” she said.
“But I
tiptoed a lot in the company halls, especially because
I’m young and I’m not one of the boys,” Francisco added.
But she
said she also got the respect of her peers especially
because she sought their advice, particularly those who
were at P&G longer than her.
“I also
delivered results. In this industry, we’re only as good
as the results we bring,” Francisco added.
Bringing
the results brought her a promotion from district
marketing head to assistant brand manager.
Sex does
not matter
Erlinda
S. Echanis, dean of the UP College of Business
Administration and who Francisco said was her classmate,
agrees.
“I
believe that if a company rewards employees on the basis
of merit, gender does not matter,” Echanis said in an
e-mail.
“Performance evaluation will be based on the quality of
ideas and on the delivery of outputs required,” she
added.
Indeed,
the P&G top brass may have noticed Francisco’s output
when they decided to send her to
Japan
seven years ago to work wonders on the firm’s baby-care
operations there.
“Our
brand Pampers was posting unprofitability for a decade.
So I had to bring them back to the basics of marketing,”
Francisco said.
After 18
months, the firm’s Japan operations declared its first
profit and boosted its market position from a very far
No. 3 to a strong No. 2, according to Francisco.
According to Fortune magazine, this was the time when
P&G’s fiercest rival Kimberly Clark was hogging the
Japanese market with its disposable training pants.
Francisco said that they launched consumer-marketing
campaigns “to make [our products] relevant to Japanese
consumers.”
Gut feel
or intrinsic smart thinking, Francisco at that time was
already riding the mass-marketing trend at a global
scale that she said is gripping today’s market.
How she
got to her position today, Francisco credits to
preserving her Philippine heritage while adopting a
global culture.
This
“secret,” she said, is being shared among the 50
Filipinos working mostly at P&G’s research and
development and information technology departments in
Ohio. “We’re proud of being Filipino, we still speak
Tagalog,” Francisco said.
“My
advice to Filipino women gunning for higher executive
positions in such companies like ours is to take risks,
take leadership positions, or experience leading groups
and organizations,” she said.
By doing
so, she said, women would be confident in being
outspoken and “not being afraid to speak their mind.”
Opportunities
Echanis
cites several factors that prop up high level of
opportunities for women like Francisco.
“More
opportunities are now open to women to pursue higher
education. Perhaps, in part because they perform well in
high school and in entrance tests,” Echanis cited.
Without
citing statistics, Echanis said that in the country’s
schools today, “men and women are treated equally.”
“Women
learn to compete against others, regardless of gender.
In the school setting, there are no barriers or
restrictions to the exchange of ideas. Women are able to
observe that professors can either be men or women,”
Echanis said.
She
cited for a fact that “there could even be more women
professionals and/or administrators in higher education
institutions than in other sectors.”
So when
tucking your baby in a diaper, think of Francisco and
how she’s living the big dream for all Filipino women to
share in. |
