Philab’s Tom Navasero: Thinking beyond the bottom line

MANILA, Philippines – Unlike many successful father and son tandems in the business community, Hector Thomas “Tom” Navasero was never asked by his father to work for him and in their company.

“I got fired three times. He did not want me to work for him so I worked elsewhere—in the US, Japan, and Europe,” Navasero told The STAR in an interview.

Yet, in the end, it was him who would eventually stepped into his father’s shoes to guide and lead a more than five-decade old Filipino company to reach new heights.

“I worked outside the country for years. I did my own thing until he finally said come back, I’ll sell you the company. Then I did, I would have bought the company from him but before we close the deal, he died,” Navasero said.

Tom, as he is fondly called by his peers, is now in charge of Philab Industries Inc. and serves as its chairman and chief executive officer – a position which he took over in October 2013 after his father and the company’s founder Hector Navasero passed away.

Armed with his extensive experience as a senior executive leader for several companies in the fields of engineering and technology, the graduate of Cornell and Stanford Universities did not waste any time in continuing what his father started upon taking over Philab.

But Tom was not just contented in following tradition. Instead, he introduced reforms in an effort to make the company bigger and more ready for future challenges.

“I’m aggressive. When I took over, I restructured it and brought over a professional board. I remade it which focused more on education and healthcare,” Navasero said.

Despite the changes he initiated, Tom maintained what he believes is the very essence of the company which his father built – service to the Filipino people.

“He started that from day one. He said if we’re going to build a business it should be beyond the bottom line. It’s not about the profits. Profits are there to sustain your service. He was the early days of social enterprise. He gave back, he always did that. If you look at his profit line, it was so flat because he was giving back all the time,” Navasero said.

Apart from being a businessman, Tom’s father served as the long-time president of the Philippine Amateur Baseball Association.

“He was promoting baseball.  He funded baseball for 35 years of his life. That’s how he served. So because of that I learned that we should continue this service to our fellow Filipino as well as education to the youth. So we focus on alleviation of poverty and the key elements to that is education and healthcare. Improve that and this country will grow. And that’s what I learned from my father,” Navasero added.

Founded in 1959, Philab pioneered the development of research and scientific laboratories in Asia with the University of the Philippines-Los Baños and the International Rice Research Institute as the company’s first clients.

“And from there, we grew and now we have offices here in Manila, Cebu and Davao. We have factories in Laguna for laboratory casework and equipment. We have offices in San Francisco and Singapore as well,” Navasero said.

After 56 years of operations, the company has gained extensive experience in the fields of diagnostics, medical care, manufacturing, and design and is now the country’s top provider of laboratory facilities, furniture, and equipment.

With Tom at the helm, Philab has already branched out to diagnostics and genomics in medicine application.

Through the Genomic Institute in Asia, Philab became the first in the country to successfully sequence the genetic make-up of rice, and is extending its operations to medical application.

Philab now uses genomics to screen predisposed hereditary diseases and prides itself in being the first to offer full genome sequencing servicing in the country.

“We hope to become the largest business process outsourcing in Asia for genomics,” Navasero said.

In line with his “beyond the bottom line” business approach, Navasero also believes strongly in encouraging Philab employees to live a healthy lifestyle.

Navasero leads by example when it comes to a healthy lifestyle as he has topped the 50 and above category of a triathlon event last year.

With the philosophy of “creating change” in mind, Navasero believes innovation is now within the country’s reach.

Navasero aims to help the country reach its goal of vaccine self-sufficiency, as well as build a state-of-the-art National Institute of Health in the future.

Moving forward, the company aims to continue enriching its range of products and services as well as enhancing the value of its brands through its in-house research and development efforts.

“We hope to build schools, more hospitals, equipment and research centers. We hope to build universities as well both on the vocational side and medical side,” Navasero said.