WHEN I was an investment banker, except with my last employer — Evercore — I always felt like an outsider who was there serendipitously. As a Filipino at the regional offices of global firms, I was actually aware of how the Philippines was often an afterthought, and the last big country in Asia to get to after you dealt with covering the others. Especially in the 1990s, when the global investment banks first followed the full-service commercial banks like Citi, Bank of America and JP Morgan into Asia, and were regionally staffing for the first time, I always felt the Filipinos were the last to be hired and potentially (and 1997 proved it to be largely true) among the first to be fired, all other things being equal. Unless you were exceptional, broader in responsibility beyond the Philippines, cheap or a junior with promise, or the firm took a longer view (which only a few did), you were at higher risk than others. They would usually shut down or drastically reduce operations and coverage related to the Philippines ahead of others at bad times.
I bring this up for two reasons — being only a few years in the workforce in 1983 (I was working while at law school where I graduated in 1984), I was acutely aware how ephemeral assumptions could be. I was very frugal being fearful my employment would not last, and two — which is the main point to this column — kept and made friends outside of the industry when I became an investment banker at global firms so I would not be limited to an investment banking bubble in my thinking.
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