Keeping Ayala in the family: How the Zobels pass the torch

Detailed summary

Can a summer in the unfamiliar Australian Outback prepare someone to lead a business empire? JAZA certainly seems to think so.

PILLARS. Ayala Corporation chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (center) and his son, ACMobility president and CEO Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala (right), speak with Bath Spa University chancellor Sharanjit Leyl at the ASEAN Inclusive Growth Summit on Wednesday, November 11.

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There was never any pressure on Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala to join the family business. So how did he end up leading one of the Philippines’ oldest and biggest business empires?

As it turns out, all it took was a little favor from his father, or more accurately, a series of little favors.

The elder Jaime Zobel de Ayala had financed his son’s education in the United States and encouraged him to find his own path in life. Along the way, Jaime Augusto, better known as JAZA, would also lend a hand whenever his father asked him to help out with this or that.

Then, one day, came a bigger request: Would he come home to the Philippines and work in the family business for just three years? After that, he was free to pursue whatever future he wanted.

“I enjoyed the challenges that the Philippines put on the table, working in an emerging market. I found it fantastic and very exciting, a chance to make a difference,” JAZA said. “The rest is history.”

Decades later, he is chairman of Ayala Corporation, a nearly 200-year-old conglomerate whose businesses span banking, property, telecommunications, and energy.

And now, it is his turn to prepare the next generation of Zobels, including his son Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala, better known as JAZ.

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