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The Pursuit of a CEO’s Happiness If the story of Chris Gardner in the Academy Award-nominated drama film The Pursuit of Happiness has moved you with his unconditional portrayal of a father role to his son and awaken your quiescent potential of becoming the next icon in the corporate world through his quick-witted strategies, learn the story of a woman who fervently searches for her own happiness by lending hands to people who want to set their feet on the path Chris has climbed from salesman to a stockbroker. As president and chief executive officer of one of the largest solutions provider in the country, Maria Carolina V. Dominguez is the most reverberating name behind the operations of John Clements Consultants, Inc. A cum laude graduate of the University of the Philippines in Diliman with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a product of the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois with a Masters of Management Degree, Dominguez has got, from the start, what it takes to be the next business leader. She has exercised various groundbreaking marketing approaches to recruitment, such as business for a, career conferences, job fairs and cyber-messaging initiatives with the spotlight focused on client consciousness. She has started capitalizing on the repute of John Clements in the job market to project an identity of a of a marketing-driven and customer-focused firm promoting better client relationship through her involvement in various business groups and organizations, such as the American Chamber, European Chamber. Truly, she’s got the name and power in the commercial scene. Founded by Leocadio J. Dominguez, John Clements is a human resource consulting firm in the Philippines that addresses recruitment, outsourcing, and management concerns of its network of clients in Asia, the Middle East, and the USA. In its 33 years in the consulting industry, it has provided opportunities for better employment in the international arena from rank and file to managerial positions in various business industries. “In John Clements, we provide good understanding of what our clients want and that makes us special. We recognize their business, culture and long-term plans. We do not merely measure our success based on figures but on the number of people that we have helped in getting their own job,” shares Dominguez. Details-oriented, results-oriented, entrepreneurial. These are just some of the management styles Dominguez employs in dealing with her workforce. In her 12 years of service in Citibank, her name had resounded in the company, be it as management associate in the local area, senior manager at Global Trade Finance Group, vice-president for Italy Trade Finance or as vice-president for Global Trade Finance. Through these positions had she learned and acquired various managerial skills and approaches that she eventually molded to set up a style that she calls her own. Dominguez asserts, “I always insist on knowing the latest figures and demand for results. I ask my people, ‘How many people did you hire? How many contracts have you made? How many clients have you spoken with?’ The answers to these questions shall forecast profitability.” But just like other managers who can hardly afford to squeeze their weekdays just to relax and unwind, she faces this dilemma too. But she faces it armed with positivism. Sundays award Dominguez the opportunity to escape from piles of paperwork and sets of appointment through the pleasure of shopping and fulfillment of her divine obligation of going to church. “I also play golf whenever possible but I admit that, more often than not, I still play in the name of business especially when I play with my clients,” she says. For an enhanced holistic physical and mental health, she takes time to practice and teach the art of yoga at least four days a week. This has been her line of attack in releasing stress and pressures and in unleashing distressing thoughts and emotions brought by her demanding work—the craft she had learned to live and love. Dominguez discloses her formula to success: help people and impact them. She had tested and proven this principle in 2006, when John Clements took into service 75 percent of 4,000 college graduate applicants and trained them to speak better English. As a crusader of skill building in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, she recognizes language competency using the English tongue. “Apart from business expansion, John Clements eyes global training for its staff, network globalization, and making access to the masses,” Dominguez highlights. These plans go along her desire to promote the feasibility of the Philippines in the offshore business as the yearning that she continuously pursues with the belief that this can give her complete happiness in the profession. As Dominguez puts it, “The potential of the country needs to be highlighted. We should tell them that there are jobs the country wants to offer the. We should tell them that there is hope and opportunity in the local market. I believe this shall help them get not just another ordinary job but a better on that can help them become successful.” * * * Originally published on Sunday, May 27, 2007, in the Manila Times.
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