Helen yuchengco dee biography for kids

The eldest of eight children in a Chinese-Filipino family, Helen Yuchengco Dee recalls business dominating daily life growing up, as her father focused on building a conglomerate.

She stayed loyally by his side into her middle age as her three brothers, presumed heirs, in turn took other paths.

But she professed shock when, after concluding a board meeting in , Ambassador Alfonso T. Yuchengco called her aside to ask that, at age 59, she take the reins of the Yuchengco Group of Companies.

“I was just doing my own thing, and he said, “Why don’t you take over?’ I just looked at him with my eyes wide open.

I did not really believe what he was saying,” she says. “In more ways than one, my father is old-fashioned Chinese, where a son would take over. He is also a person very much in control.”

He was ready to start relinquishing it, and in the dozen years since, departure from tradition has paid handsome dividends for Ambassador Yuchengco,