Oscar Lopez

The Lopezes' are one of the richest family in the Philippines.

I was reading the book of Robert G. Allen, multiple streams of income, and he mentioned that he met the Oscar Lopez and his family in the US when he was still on his struggling years.

Robert is a self-made multimillionaire who made his fortune in real state. A best-seller author of Multiple Streams of Income, One Minute Millionaire, Cracking the Millionaire Code and The Challenge.

What moved me in the story is the generosity of the Mr. Oscar Lopez was so apparent when they bring they bring along with them Robert in their family tour.

Mr. Oscar Lopez was born on April 19, 1930. He is married to Ma. Consuelo Oscar and they got 8 children and 26 grandchildren. He is currently the chairman and chief executive officer concurrently of Benpres Holdings Corporation (Benpres) and First Philippine Holdings Corporation (First Holdings).

Benpres is the publicly-listed holding company of the Lopez family for major investments in broadcast, telecommunications and cable, power generation and distribution, and road and water infrastructure.

First Holdings is the specific associate holding company for power generation and distribution. He is also the head of Meralco, the biggest power distribution plant in the country and ABS-CBN which incidentally is the biggest televisin network in the country. ABS-CBN owns the Filipino TV Network that broadcasts to large number of Filipino workers abroad.

Mr. Oscar Lopez studied at the Harvard College and graduated cum laude (Bachelor of Arts) in 1951. He finished his Master’s degree in Public Administration at the Littauer School of Public Administration, also at Harvard, in 1955.

When Mr. Oscar M. Lopez took the helm of the Lopez Group of Companies in 1999, he decided to apply the same hands-on management style to corporate social responsibility as he did to the family's diverse portfolio of businesses, which included 143 firms employing more than 22,000 people.

Mr. Oscar Lopez brought in Tuck Global Consultancy, a branch of the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, to examine the Lopez Group's social responsibility activities in 2001. To help implement Tuck's recommendations, Oscar has recently announced the creation of the Lopez Group Foundation, Inc., a new framework for the coordination of his company's many and varied corporate philanthropy programs.

A staunch supporter of corporate social responsibility, Mr. Oscar Lopez is involved in a number of social concerns. He is chairman and president of the Eugenio Lopez Foundation , which houses a major Filipiniana museum and library. He is member of the international board of Conservation International, a global environmental group devoted to biodiversity conservation, and chairman of First Philippine Conservation, Inc. He is also chairman of the Opthalmological Foundation of the Philippines, an eye care outreach for indigents, and member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress.

In addition to priorities such as child welfare and education, the Mr. Oscar Lopez philanthropic agenda includes environmental protection and poverty alleviation. To conserve some of the world's richest-and most endangered-regions of biodiversity, Oscar Lopez in 1999 established First Philippine Conservation Inc (FPCI), which partners with Conservation International on projects such as protection of the country's largest remaining block of old-growth rainforest in the Sierra Madre range. Oscar's son Federico ("Piki") is president of FPCI. On the business side, Piki heads the Lopez Group's holding company for its power generation investments, First Generation Holdings Corp.

The Lopez portfolio also includes a range of community development initiatives. Under the leadership of Manolo Lopez, Oscar's younger brother, for example, the family's electric distribution company, Meralco, has undertaken an electrification program for depressed urban and rural areas in its franchise that has benefited nearly 500,000 households. The Lopez Group is also partnering with Philippine Business for Social Progress and a range of local stakeholders on an integrated development project for 4,440 families uprooted by a Manila Bay reclamation project in 1993.

Mr. Oscar Lopez was a recipient of MAP's Management Man of the Year Award for the Year 2000. He is one of the top 20 finalists for the Asia Business Leader Awards Year 2004 given by CNBC and TNT International.

Mr. Oscar Lopez is also the 1st Filipino Businessman to receive the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2005)

To view the top 40 richest Filipinos for 2008, click here.