NEWS & EVENTS

It was in March 2007 when directors Jenny Folley and Michael Sayers visited Manila in the Philippines with their sales manager Jonas Marcelo to research the market in Manila to see if there was a need for serviced offices.

Jonas Marcelo had spent his Christmas holiday there and had been nagging the directors about doing something in the Philippines as he saw a need for this there.

He was right, what Jenny and Michael discovered was a booming market and an extreme shortage of office space. What they discovered were several international companies from overseas setting up in the Philippines to outsource their staffing requirements taking advantage of the common language and the lower prices you pay for highly skilled and unskilled services.

It was only meant to be a trip where research was to be conducted, but a chance meeting with an owner of a building led to the next step whereby a floor in an A grade building was offered to CEO at an offer too good to refuse. One thing led to another and soon Jonas Marcelo, CEO’s sales manager in Victoria was packing his bags in June 2007 to take up the challenge of setting up the offices for CEO in Manila.

What a challenge that was to be. Jonas has stories galore to tell, probably a book to write. The long story cut short, CEO took occupation of the 12th floor at Robinson Summit in Makati Manila on the 1st of August,. All that was on the 12th floor on the 1st August was a concrete floor and no ceiling. Six weeks later the floor was transformed into a stunning brand new floor with a beautiful tiled foyer, carpet imported from France, over 40 partitioned fully furnished offices of varying sizes to accommodate from the one person to over 20 persons with a stunning reception to meet and greet clients, board rooms and meeting rooms of varying sizes, a beautiful kitchen/pantry, networking area with hot desks and stunning rest rooms (very difficult to find in other buildings).

CEO is proud of Jonas’ achievements whom together with Jason Mckimm (project manager for CEO) who was also flown up by CEO to oversee the project, got the centre up and running within six weeks.

By the 1st of October the centre was buzzing with clients moving in. The first client to sign up was an Australian company. Again a chance meeting on a Qantas flight out of Manila when Michael Sayers one of the directors happened to be sitting next to director of a company who was about to sign up with a serviced office operator a large competitor. Once they learnt there was going to be an Australian company setting up serviced offices in Manila, the decision was immediate as to whom they would take serviced office accommodation with. Two weeks later they were in the offices occupying space to accommodate 20 of their personnel. Do they regret it? Definitely not.

The service at CEO Manila is impeccable. Have you ever met Jonas Marcelo CEO’s sales manager and the lovely Alesya the business centre manager? You wouldn’t want to be any where else but there with them. They certainly make sure that they take care of you taking care of the day to day details.

Alesya at the young age of 24 has also relocated from Melbourne to run the business centre for CEO is Manila. Alesya did her bachelor of business majoring in marketing at Bond University in Queensland, Australia. After graduating she took up a role with CEO in Melbourne. When the opportunity to move to Manila came, she took up the challenge and has not looked back since. She is known as the "Networking Queen" of Manila. Together both Jonas and Alesya run a magnificent centre for CEO.

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