Just like the iconic Barbie doll who recently celebrated her 60th birthday, Myrna Tang Yao, Richprime Global Inc. president and CEO as well as one of this year’s People of the Year awardees, is dressed for success. She, too, has been busy breaking barriers in the name of equality and women empowerment.
Photography Mau Aguasin
Unlike Barbara Millicent Roberts (that’s Barbie to you) though, Myrna Yao had a boyish beginning. Growing up in Bicol to parents who initially wanted to have a son, she was made to wear nothing else but blue. “I felt like a boy. I grew up feeling like a man until I was 13 and my body started changing to look more like a woman’s,” she laughs.
The chutzpah that she gained in her formative years worked to her advantage in the world of commerce. She learned the ropes of commodity trading by taking on her parents’ copra business, and was able to grow it until they made the list of the top 350 companies in the Philippines.All that time, she was a working student who took on jobs in the daytime and studied at night. “It was not because my parents couldn’t afford to send me to school but because I wanted to learn faster. In fact, I finished my college studies in three and half years and proceeded to take my MBA immediately after graduation. I got married at the age of 19, while I was on my second year in college. That did not stop me. I did my thesis and finished my MBA after I gave birth.”
Even now, with four daughters, nine grandchildren, and almost 2,000 employees, her yen for learning has not ceased. She is currently taking up her Doctorate in Philosophy. “I have always been like this,” she muses, and shares that she loves reading and learning new things. She taught herself ballet, for example, just by reading books.
These days, she also counts on her grandsons and her millennial friends to introduce her to the latest trends, just so she will always be in the know. “I don’t like old music. I listen to what other people are listening to now. I think being around fresh ideas and observing other people keeps me creative. It is one thing to be intelligent, but it is also important to be creative. With the Internet, information is readily available. What you do with the information, using it in creative ways, is what matters more,” she says. It is a mindset she inculcates in her grandchildren, especially during their regular breakfasts together.
Girl boss in a man’s world
Her first job was as a secretary to the late Tan Yu of Asiaworld. Then 18 years old, it was when she learned how to talk business with prominent male figures such as politicians and businessmen. This would later come in handy when she started her own tire distributorship with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. “By that time, my brother had already graduated from college, and as part of the Chinese custom, I had to relinquish the family business to him. I wanted to set up something on my own, and in the interim, I dabbled in microbusinesses, selling this and that until I decided to set up my own Goodyear distributorship in Quezon City.”
At first, the company would not grant her a distributor status, saying that she had to give up the one she held in Bicol. “I told them, that business is my father’s and my brother’s. I had nothing to do with it, this will be mine.”
Goodyear relented to the intrepid entrepreneur, and, in two years, she was able to become the country’s top distributor. Myrna laughs when she shares the secret to her success in an industry that is largely considered as a “man’s world.”
“First, I did my homework. I was used to trading commodities and I applied those skills in making charts—mind you, there were no computers back then, so I wrote everything down.” Her second secret was much more fun: “The guys started mentoring me. The techniques that they would not
share with the other male dealers, they shared openly with me. To the point that one of them would ask, ‘ano ang tinuro sa iyo ng iba (what did others teach you)?’
With her phenomenal growth, in which she started taking 10 percent of the production, the tire company sat up and took notice. “They were afraid that I would control the business, so they started holding my deliveries. I also felt that I had already reached my peak with the tire business,” she shares. This prompted her to look elsewhere for other business opportunities and that is when she found the Mattel factory, the makers of Barbie, which was based in the Philippines at the time.
Playing it by heart
“I felt that Barbie was perfect for me because I love children. So, we knocked on their door and asked if we can be a distributor.” Mattel replied that they were not ready at the time, but when they were ready two years later, she was one of those considered, among the bigger, more well-known names.
“When I met with them, I was confident that I knew what I was talking about, and they felt that I had the passion. So, I was able to get it, and I have been able to sustain it up to now, 37 years later,” she says.
Myrna has thoughts on how children play today. “There are gadgets which they use for entertainment, but there is nothing like playing with toys. With gadgets, they are only facing a screen and the games do not help stimulate the imagination because all they are doing is watch videos and follow instructions in a game. With toys, they can let their imagination run free. My four daughters used to hold fashion shows with their Barbies, for example,” says Myrna.
Social skills are also something children get from playing with others through their toys, she adds. “Yes, there is social media for communication, but at the end of the day, they are still facing a screen. A toy allows the child to play with their friends and even their parents. That is the value that I see in play.”
Barbie’s story resonates with her, because the doll has transcended the status of fashion icon to become a symbol of women empowerment. Myrna has drawn from her experience as micro-entrepeneur in her early days, and her status as a woman leader in a top corporation to help enable other women to reach their goals. She founded the Philippine Federation of Local Councils of Women, to help indigent women to, among others, professionalize micro- enterprise operations, help give the women entrepreneurs access to loans, and offer training to develop their entrepreneurial capacity.
Paying it forward
She likewise founded the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Philippines, which has helped more than 550 scholars. She does this with the assistance of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation in the United States, which aims to carry on the legacy of the American author who believed in bridging cultures through education and humanitarian aid. The indefatigable philanthropist is also active in charity work
with the Zonta of Greater Rizal, which she chartered, and is also helping transform women’s lives through her Filipino-Chinese Federation of Business and Professional Women with monthly inspiring talks that help these busy ladies catch up with the latest trends in technology, health, and even current events so they can relate to their children better. She has also been named ambassador of the Friends of Israel, which seeks to bring Jewish people back to the Promised Land, and on the local front, she has helped put up the Mama Piat Spiritual Center in Bulacan.
As a mother, she has raised four strong women, her daughters Liza, Jenny, Maye and Joan. Now that she has seven grandsons out of nine grandchildren, she is mildly befuddled but also completely besotted. “I was not used to raising boys!” she grins. Forward-looking as she is, she is also watchful of the world that her grandsons will grow into. “We have been empowering females for quite some time, and now I see that my grandsons’ classmates are growing up outspoken and ready to be heard, it is the boys who are quiet now,” she smiles.
“This is why I am also telling the parents, that we should also prepare our sons for the future. They have to be equal. We cannot keep on pushing for something and not think of the other side.” As an aside, she adds that Hotwheels, her toy car brand is also doing very well in the market.
Loving life
Another Barbie facet of her life is that she loves to dress up, and dress differently. “I don’t like wearing just anything that other people wear. If it is something usual, I still try to dress it up with accessories,” Myrna smiles.
Barbie is as busy as ever, with her now myriad careers, and so is Myrna. “I have no plans of retiring. I love what I do, and I am never tired of it. Even though my schedule is full, and I take something like 16,000 steps a day, I have no plans of slowing down. I am happy because I make other people happy with what I do.”
