FIRMLY GROUNDED IN THE PAST, ESJAY AUTO GROUP SETS ITS SIGHT ON THE FUTURE
For the Esjay Auto Group, its recent successful Car Expo was both a celebration of 50 years of outstanding performance and a propitious beginning for a new chapter in its history.
Amando “Amang” S. San Juan, chair and chief executive officer (CEO), himself expressed the significance of the event in his speech: “Today marks a momentous occasion as we not only celebrate our past. We also usher in a new era in our Group’s history and, as the great Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, ‘Study the past if you would define the future’.”
San Juan (Esjay comes from the first letters of his family name) said the company had valued the lessons and relished past successes. While it was looking towards the future, its feet remained firmly planted on the ground.
That future, he said, was now for his children - Lyne, Arlyne, Leo, and Denis – to shape.
Now in charge of day to day operations in the different units of the Esjay Auto Group, the San Juan children appear to have imbibed fully the lessons accumulated during the company’s 50 years of existence. They are well aware and appreciative of
how their father transformed himself from a paid employee to a pioneering car dealer, persevering and forging ahead, despite challenges and obstacles.
In her own speech, daughter Lyne Ponferrada, a lawyer and president of Commonwealth (Avenue, Quezon City) operations, acknowledged the exceptional accomplishment of their father. San Juan’s passion to build something great despite his humble beginnings led to a multi-brand dealership with branches stretching from Metro Manila to the northern
province of Cagayan, she said.
“He had the guts to take that opportunity (when it arose),” Lyne added.
Leo, president of the Quezon Avenue (Quezon City) operations, is just as proud of his father’s legacy, turning a small dealership, Sunny Motor Sales, into one of the first Hyundai distributors in the country and one of the big car sellers in Quezon City.
The successful dealership helped fund the Commonwealth complex, the first auto dealership in an