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Postscript A Good Night’s Sleep

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected operations and outcomes, but CARD MRI
is inching its way back to that 99% peak. It helped that Wash pushed them to
digitize, and clients can now pay their loans online. Sari-sari stores supplied by mini-
supermarkets are next on the list.

“We’ve mastered microfinance. We already know how to give loans to the poor and
bring them up to eradicate poverty,” says Aris. “We already know how to provide micro-
insurance. Now we need to strengthen marketing, to help them market their products.”

All this is part of Wash SyCip’s legacy, born out of his concern for the poor. “He gave
us the ideas and the means to reach the poor. He lent us his credibility, his stamp of
excellence. When he came to my retirement party, he was 96. I knew then that there
was no retirement from helping the poor.”

Developing Asia’s business leaders

At the other end of the educational spectrum, Wash also had a special place in his
heart for the Asian Institute of Management or AIM, which he had helped to establish
in 1968 to become the region’s leader in business education. Along with an educated
citizenry, genuine development for Wash required a strong economy and capable
business leaders, and AIM was one of the best ways to develop that managerial elite.

Dr. Jikyeong Kang came to Manila in 2015 to serve as dean and then president of AIM.
A native of South Korea, Jikyeong had moved back to Asia from a distinguished teaching
career in Europe and the UK to take the helm of AIM, which was operating in a much
more competitive and challenging environment than it faced a few decades earlier.

Her predecessor, Dr. Steven DeKrey, took her to meet Wash in the latter’s office,
and immediately he left her with an unforgettable impression. “He was impressive
in terms of what he remembered, what he chose to talk about, how he put a story
together, and the way he shared his viewpoints,” Jikyeong recalls. She was also amazed
by his prodigious memory, which could go back in sharp detail to his early boyhood
in Shanghai.

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