It was through the rosy economic period of 1996 that James “Jim” M. Donovan found himself in Manila for a World Bank project. At that time, the Philippines was being touted as the next emerging tiger of Asia for the more than encouraging economic figures the country was then churning out. Like most investment bankers, Donovan was eager to check out the prospects for the Philippines and as fate would have it, he met Carol Esguerra who also happened to be participating at the same World Bank project at that time. From the beginning, he said, they started looking at the capability of the Philippines to see where it was being applied.