JEAN Henri Lhuillier, president and chief executive officer of the microfinance giant Cebuana, has long been a staunch supporter of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
His years of helping the ordinary Filipino deal with financial challenges – from pawning to money transfers, microinsurance, and banking services – have motivated him to look for other avenues to help more Filipinos.
Thus, when the government called for a whole-of-nation approach to rejuvenate the country’s MSMEs, Lhuillier was only too happy to answer the call.
“It’s my personal mission to help uplift the lives of Filipinos, and as a businessman, I know that one way for people to improve their lives is by having their own business. That’s precisely the reason why, when President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. made an appeal to help MSMEs, I decided to pull out all the stops and establish the Cebuana Lhuillier Kanegosyo Center,” he said.
The Cebuana Lhuillier Kanegosyo Center (KNC) is the realization of Jean Henri Lhuillier’s brainchild: an innovative online one-stop shop that teaches budding entrepreneurs how to start their own businesses and MSMEs how to improve theirs.
He narrated, “It was my dad, Ambassador Philippe Jones Lhuillier, who initially threw out the idea, and I really liked it so much that I ensured it came to fruition.”
Currently, the Cebuana Lhuillier Kanegosyo Center has 250,000 members availing of its features across close to 3,500 of Cebuana Lhuillier’s branches nationwide, kiosks in 28 partner LGU locations, and its one-stop-shop website. KNC is also helping more than 900,000 micro- and small-scale online merchants through strategic partnerships it has created.
Lhuillier proudly declared, “KNC believes in the Filipino’s passion, creativity, resourcefulness, and entrepreneurial spirit. As we move to full blast gear, we expect to impact more aspiring and existing entrepreneurs, from hundreds to thousands, and soon, millions and millions of Filipinos to be served by the Cebuana Lhuillier Kanegosyo Center.”
