Businessman learns to work with a heart

His parents had inspired and exposed him to the world of entrepreneurship.

“Growing up with businessmen parents, it is important to learn how to become an entrepreneur and run the business and it is most important to learn how to nurture and encourage entrepreneurship,” said Devin Go, vice president of the family-owned Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corp., which was previously known as Sulpicio Lines.

Devin Go, 38, said that his parents Dominador and Helen Go, who had been into the shipping industry, are excellent businesspeople and have willing hearts to help other people.

Go, aside from being a vice president of a shipping firm, is also active in his advocacy to help promising entrepreneurs to succeed – through the USC College Alumni Association, which is actively engaged in initiatives that promote entrepreneurship like the Kapamilya Negosyo Na program.

Aside from that, Go is also vice president of the Board of the Sunshine Center, which is a school and a sheltered workshop center for special children located in Capitol Site and currently the president of the Cebu Dynamic Youth which aims to inculcate the Chinese cultural heritage to young Filipino Chinese in Cebu.

“As of now, I consider these three my main organizations although I have other initiatives which I also actively join,” Go said.

Go said he had helped at least 100 start up businesses in the KNN program since 2006, when he was then the USC College Alumni Association’s president.

“Now we have created the KNN Credit Cooperative and had it registered in January this year which I am the chairman. We created this for the winners of the KNN so that there will be continuous availability of funds for their expansions in the future,” he said.

He said plans to create the KNN foundation within the year is also in the pipeline.

“I am very active in KNN and devote a lot of time for it because I see it as a very effective tool to solve unemployment. Imagine how many jobs you can create if you encourage more businesses. For me micro entrepreneurship is the solution and a way for social transformation,” he said.

For the special children school, Go joined in since 10 years ago and said that it’s a very honorable cause to give hope to these children especially those who belong to the marginalized society.

“We offer tuition subsidy for these kids so that they will be given a chance to still learn in school despite being a special child,” he said.

Go said he would want to support causes like in the field of arts and the creative industry of Cebu.

“I hope I can still find time to also support the Cebuano art because I see them as something worth promoting to the world,” he said.

Go said he was involved in these advocacies because of his parents who had inspired him to become a good businessman with a heart.

As a child, Go said he has always seen himself becoming like his parents thus he always looks up to them as his models and inspirations.

Go attended elementary to high school at the Sacred Heart School for Boys and then went on to take up Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at the University of San Carlos which he finished in 1994.

While studying though since elementary, Go and his siblings were very well active in the operations of their parents business.

“Every summer vacation we would help out in the business. My parents had has experience all the operations from the bottom up. I experienced going on field with the collectors and meeting our clients so that we can have a feel of what it is really out there,” he said.

Go said that his parents believed it’s the best way to educate them and teach them about the business which they will then take over once they grow up.

After finishing college, Go had to leave for the United States to take up his Masters in Business Management.

“I finished MBA with concentration in strategic management at the US International University in 1996. After that I went to China for a year to take up language school.”

In 1997, Go then joined his parents and siblings in the managing the business and has since become the vice president of the family corporation Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corp.

“I joined and was assigned first at the freight department then eventually doing the accounting and finance functions. We basically just help each other out in running the business.”

According to Go, over the years, he learned that there will always be ups and downs in business.

What will matter really is how to face every crisis and problems that your company is facing, he said.

“We all know about what happened before and I should say up until now we are still trying to get back up. Hopefully we can make it just like we do every time we have trials. That’s how our skills as businessmen will be tested,” he said.