Her business acumen and corporate leadership are beyond question. Tessie Sy-Coson, an heiress of the Sy empire, has proven her mettle in the family’s retail arm, SM Supermalls, and banking venture in Banco de Oro (BDO).

During the pandemic, however, she showed her softer side with her incentives to ease lives threatened by the pandemic. Now a vice chair of the SM Foundation, Sy-Coson brings succour to those in need, especially when Covid-19 raged throughout the nation. Even as the SM Group inoculated its personnel to stem the spread of the virus among them, Sy-Coson also donated around 150,000 doses of vaccine to government-sponsored vaccination initiatives all over the country.

But her participation in the fight against the virus went beyond the mere provision of vaccines for inoculation. Sy-Coson also sought to care for the welfare of frontline medical personnel. The SM Foundation donated more than Php1.5 billion in hospital equipment for those ill-equipped to deal with the surge in patients; protective gear for doctors, nurses and orderlies; and additional vaccines for public hospitals that were not on the priority list.