Philippine Airline CEO Lucio Tan was once a janitor – he's cleaned up nicely as one of Southeast Asia’s biggest billionaires, but still uses an old Nokia phone
Life wasn’t easy for LT Group founder and PAL president Lucio Tan – the Chinese-Filipino mogul mopped floors to send himself to school and worked his way to the top
Unlike most of the 10 richest Filipinos on Forbes' 2020 World's Billionaires list, Chinese-Filipino billionaire Lucio Tan wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His humble beginnings trace back to when his family moved from Fujian, China, to Cebu, Philippines. Fondly called “El Kapitan” by those close to him, he rose through the ranks and became the founder and chairman of LT Group, a billion-dollar conglomerate of tobacco, spirits, banking and property development.
Here is more on the 86-year-old business mogul whose net worth is a whopping US$2.2 billion.
He worked as a janitor to send himself to school
As the eldest of eight siblings, Lucio Tan had a ton of responsibilities on his plate. So that he could afford to study chemical engineering at the Far Eastern University in Manila, college student Tan mopped floors at a cigarette factory. After learning the ropes of the business, he started his own tobacco company, Fortune Tobacco – which went on to be the largest cigarette manufacturer in the country.
He sends 1,000 students to China every year
As someone who had to keep his nose to grindstone to get his degree, Lucio Tan has become an advocate for education. He takes pride in sending a thousand students to China every year, where they study Chinese history, language and culture. The billionaire businessman proved it’s not always about money, lending a hand to build schoolhouses and founding the non-profit Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education (FUSE).
He wakes up at 4am every day to play golf