Acceptance speech on behalf of all Fellows for the ESMEL Fellowships Program at the FLP Awarding Ceremony held at the Manila Polo Club on August 29, 2025.
Esteemed guests, respectable and reputable country leaders, business icons and leaders, respectable academicians, fellow awardees, family, friends, staffs and guests. Good evening.
I would like to start and tell you a story. I woke up, beginning of the week with a Facebook message. It was from a reputable icon who has been a CEO of a big outsourcing company who helped it rise from FTE1, two hundreds and thousands of employees. She was very excited saying “Giselle, have you seen this? Retired Chief Justice Panganiban wrote an article in inquirer.” I looked at it, I had two letters of my name – Giselle Geronimo – in a half-page article, and it was all over Facebook, my parents had to buy a newspaper that day.
Reading the article, that this newfound knowledge doesn’t only give us certain boundaries to move forward but really a guide on how to thrive in our careers, in our advocacy for the nation. This inspired me to think through everything that’s happening today.
That incident helped me think that this is very enticing, not only for the prizes, the accolades, and the nice dinner, but I meant every word I wrote in my ESMEL paper. I envisioned this big dream motivated by the leaders who has invested in me, by our professors now who are helping us, my bosses who has invested in me. That there should be one Outsourcing company, whether it’s Dreamshore or other locally owned outsourcing company, managed and funded unlike the typical outsourcing company that’s foreign owned. Not for me to create wealth for myself, but to thrive internationally. So we can distribute the profits to primarily benefit our citizens in addressing poverty, hunger, illiteracy; improve our infrastructure throughout the country and fuel our economy through our main natural resource: our local talents, while utilizing and learning from the global stage.
As we move forward from now, I want to leave all of us a challenge – how do we pay it forward to people or institutions who cannot give us back anything in return? Let us replace crab mentality with building each other up, jealousy with jubilee, competition with collaboration, and together thrive nationally. Let us all shine and make each and every step better and more fun. Spread sunshine as we build business opportunities across!
On behalf of this year’s ESMEL Fellow awardees, Maraming salamat po for this platform and program to help uplift the education and inspire local talents like us. It is our privilege to be associated to the ESMEL-FLP Brand. Mabuhay ang Pilipinas. Solideo Gloria
