An i for academy, an eye for trade

VANESSA Tanco of iAcademy

Vanessa L. Tanco can easily be mistaken for a student in the academy she has run so well for the past six years.

But her youthful look belies the stark passion, tenacity and intellect that the 35-year-old Tanco has shown in heading iAcademy—a multimedia arts school located at the heart of the Makati central business district.

After all, the soft-spoken and unassuming Tanco, who is also the daughter of one of the country’s wealthiest businessman, Eusebio H. Tanco, has successfully turned around iAcademy, doubling the number of enrollees to about 200 the year she took over the marketing department of the school.

It was difficult back then, Tanco tells the Inquirer.

In running the marketing division of the school back in 2007, she would start her day as early as 5 a.m., sometimes including weekends.

The CEO in the arms of her family.

“We would make the rounds with my team, go to different schools, and give talks to high school students. It was pretty difficult then to convince the schools to give us time. So we did that for a whole year,” Tanco recalls.

“At that time, we would go to three or four schools a day. It was a hit or miss for us. We just kept going around, hoping to convince the students to enroll with us. My team, which consisted of me and two others, were able to make the rounds in about 200 schools that year.”

On top of that, iAcademy would often host “open houses” to tour potential students at their school on Ayala Ave. in Makati City. Her hard work paid off as a year of grueling work earned her 100 more students (doubling the enrollees to 200), a P100,000 profit, and a new title as COO of iAcademy.

In 2011, she became president and CEO of the company.

“I was very hands-on. I would be at the iAcademy Mondays to Saturdays. We tried to get a lot of good people on board our team. We also had to change the mindset and the culture of the existing team. I guess if they see that everyone’s working hard, they’ll do the same,” Tanco says.

VANESSA with members of the iAcademy team during the Agora Marketing Competition

“Since 2007, the school picked up immediately. It’s been picking up, in terms of enrollees, every single year. Never was there a year that the number of enrollees had dipped. We’re growing consistently.”

At present, iAcademy is brimming with over 800 students enrolled in their IT, Business and Arts programs. The school has also received notable accreditations.

Bridging the gap

iAcademy was established in 2002 under the guidance of Eusebio H. Tanco, Washington Sycip and experts in the fields of business and education.

Its first course offerings were BSBA e-Management, BSCS Software Engineering, BSCS Network Engineering and BSIT Digital Arts, all of which were designed to develop students’ technical and creative skills.

New courses have been offered since, including BS Entrepreneurship, BSBA Marketing and Advertising, BSBA Operations Management (2006), BS Fashion Design and Technology, and AB in Multimedia Arts and Design.

It was reported to be the first school in the country to offer two cutting-edge courses: BS Animation and BS Game Development and Programming, in 2007 and 2011, respectively.

“We want to bridge the gap between the academe and the industry,” Tanco says of their course offerings. “We believe our courses allow our graduates to get better jobs or become better qualified for jobs they want.”

In 2009, Wacom, a leading manufacturer of digital interface solutions, interactive pen displays and tablets, became iAcademy’s training partner.

In 2010, it was appointed the first IBM Software Center of Excellence in the Asean Region and the first Lotus Academic Institute.

Courses on language and continuing education have recently been introduced, while new ones are expected to be launched soon.

Law courses at iAcademy may also be offered soon. To house iAcademy’s planned expansion, the group of Eusebio Tanco acquired last year the Mondragon House on Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati. Most of the floors will be occupied by iAcademy, while about two to three floors will be occupied by another family-owned company.

Still, Tanco continues to dream big, with nothing but grander visions for iAcademy—to become one of the most prestigious and best schools in Asia for IT, design and computing.

Natural passion

Tanco’s unwavering passion to further improve iAcademy can perhaps, be traced to her family, who also manages a string of successful businesses in areas as diverse as education, insurance, port operations, financial services and human resource management.

“As early as we were in grade school, we were made to do little things in the offices, mostly filing. But I feel like we messed things up then more than we helped. That continued in high school,” Tanco says of her years growing up.

“But ours is a normal household. My [father] was not strict at all. We would talk about business at the dinner table all the time, so it felt natural for me and my brother … to go into business. It was more of a given that we would run our own businesses, as it felt natural growing up in a family of business people,” she explains.

Tanco graduated from Ateneo de Manila University in 2002 and started working at the different departments of STI Holdings, such as corporate planning and public affairs.

She then headed off to study at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for her master’s degree.

When Tanco came back to the Philippines, she worked for the family-owned Universal Workers, which was a nursing placement center and nursing review center.

A year after, Tanco started to practice for the Southeast Asian Games, which was then being held in the Philippines, to represent the country in badminton.

“I joined the team in 2005 and I took a leave from work. I played badminton for a whole year, until the end of the SEA games. After that, I started my badminton school and we’ve had quite a few students then. We also partnered with various schools. That was in 2006 to 2007,” Tanco says.

“It was fun for a while. But then, by 2007, my dad told me to stop playing around. So that’s how I started at iAcademy.”

Apart from her position at iAcademy, Tanco also holds positions at the Philippine Women’s University, STI, Philcare, Philplans, West Negros University and Makati Med Nursing College.

For now, Tanco says, she is focusing her effort on the expansion of iAcademy in Makati City.

While there have been offers to set up iAcademy in Cebu and Cagayan de Oro, Tanco says she still has some reservations, admitting that it may be harder for her to replicate the success of the academy in Makati.

“It will also be very expensive to replicate iAcademy outside the main campus. The strength of iAcademy lies in the professors we get here and abroad. Our creative director is even from Britain,” she explained.

“For now, we will do what we can to further strengthen or increase the standards of education in the country through iAcademy. What we want to do is enhance the creativity of our students, and turn their ideas into realities,” Tanco says.