Social Business Enterprise
R2R President Reese Fernandez Chosen as Rolex Young Laureate!
Rags2Riches President Reese Fernandez was selected as one of the 5 inaugural Rolex Young Laureates! While this is most certainly an award for my fiance’ (!) , it’s also a glowing testament of the work that Rags2Riches is doing. In fact, as Reese is the first to always mention – this award truly belongs... »
Mainstreaming Micro
PinoyME Foundation – the Pinoy MicroEnterprise initiative founded by former President Corazon Aquino – just held a stakeholder’s conference on the theme ‘MAINSTREAMING MICRO’. The invitation from Dan Songco, President and CEO of PinoyME, read : “While microfinance and microenterprise development continues to evolve, the microentrepreneurship sector is faced with growing opportunities and pressing... »
Rags2Riches Eco-Ethical Style [video]
thank you to Rags2Riches Partners Cream Silk and Manny Angeles’ no.twentyproductions for making this video possible. »
R2R’s Spring/Summer Collection and Eco-Ethical Style Advocacy Launched
Rags2Riches wanted to start the year strong, and we did so with aesthETHICS – the launch of the RIIR Aranaz Spring/Summer Collection Launch. Held in Fort Bonifacio High Street – a strategic partner of Rags2Riches – the event was brilliantly conceptualized and executed by another R2R partner, ActivAsia (special mentions to their President Manny... »
The Back End is the Front End
In Rags2Riches, we have a term which reflects one of our core philosophies : “The Back End is the Front End”. You see, ‘The Back End’ is the aspect that customers normally don’t see; They only see the fancy advertising, the glitzy images, the seductive storefront, the alluring posters, the massive billboards. The customer’s... »
ASoG Forum on Best Practices in Social Enterpreneurship
Reese and I will be speaking in ASoG’s Forum on Best Practices in Social Entrepreneurship – respectively for Rags2Riches and Hapinoy As a staunch advocate of social entrepreneurship in the country, the Ateneo School of Government is yet again hosting Forum on Best Practices in Social Entrepreneurship on 17 April 2010, 9:00 a.m. to... »
Bagong Araw Hapinoy MTV [video]
Sharing with you Hapinoy’s Music Video, “Bagong Araw”. The serendipitous story here is that last year, Bam attended a concert wherein our Head of Field Operations RG Salazar was performing with his band, Project Fusion. One of the songs they sang was “Bagong Araw” – to international friends, that’s translated as “Brand New Day”.... »
Why Hapinoy is Like the iPhone
You’re probably wondering how in the world I came up with the following equation : Well, the truth of the matter is that lately, I’ve begun to become more comfortable explaining Hapinoy’s Business Model in this way. Most especially now that we’re in a stage wherein we can more tangibly share the next phase... »
Business Partners, not Beneficiaries
Last weekend, Reese Fernandez – President of Rags2Riches, Inc and my other/better half – conducted a transition workshop with the Rags2Riches Cooperative’s Board of Directors. The main content of the workshop was – and stay with me here – finance and managerial accounting. To appreciate the concept on why it’s a transition, one has... »












