Loida Nicolas-Lewis

Loida Nicolas Lewis (born 1942) is a Filipino-born American businesswoman, philanthropist, civic leader, motivational speaker, author, and lawyer.

Business interests

Lewis was the Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer of TLC Beatrice, LLC from 1994 until 1999. and is Chairman and CEO of TLC Beatrice (China), Limited, a Cayman company which operates retail convenience stores in five major cities in China and TLC Beatrice Foods (Philippines) which operates a fresh meat processing plant in the Bicol Region near Sorsogon City.

An attorney by profession, Lewis served as an informal adviser and confidant to her late husband, Reginald F. Lewis, TLC Beatrice’s first chairman and CEO. TLC Beatrice was the successor to the international operations of Beatrice Foods. She assumed the leadership of the TLC Beatrice International Holdings, Inc. in February 1994, a year after Mr. Lewis’ death, succeeding her half-brother in law Jean Fugett Jr. She held around 55% of the shares. She cut costs and sold non-core and under performing assets (such as the company jet and limousines), reduced debt and strengthened her management team. In October 1995, she succeeded in selling $175 million in corporate bonds. She was named the top US woman business executive in September 1995 by The National Foundation for Women Business Owners and Working Woman magazine.

In September, 1997, the company sold its French food distribution business. In 1998, the company sold its European beverage operations. In 1999 it sold the ice-cream operations in Spain and the Canary Islands and its potato chips and snack business in Ireland. In 2000, the last unit of the company, Bireley’s in Thailand was also sold. Proceeds were distributed to the shareholders who enjoyed a 35% return on their investment.

Legal work

Lewis earned a law degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law around 1960 and was admitted to the Philippine Bar in 1968. Lewis was the first Asian American to pass the American Bar (in 1974) without having been educated in the United States. She is eligible to practice law in the Philippines and New York.

She worked for the Law Students Civil Right Research Council in New York in 1969, Manhattan Legal Services from 1970-3, and as an attorney for the Immigration and Naturalization Services from 1979-90.

She is an immigration lawyer who has written several books on the subject. She worked for the US government after she successfully sued them for hiring discrimination.

Authorship

Lewis has written books on U.S. immigration law. Her book How to Get a Green Card (Nolo), reached the bestseller list in the non-fiction genre.

In 1972, Lewis established a monthly magazine for the Filipino-American community and served as the magazine’s publisher until it merged with another publication in 1980.

Socio-civic activities

Lewis is the former National Chairwoman of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (2002-2006), the largest advocacy group for Filipino Americans in the United States. She is the chair of US Pinoys for Good Governance. Lewis is also an active board member of the Philippine Development Foundation, a public charity that focuses on building an ecosystem of science and technology-based entrepreneurship and innovation for social and economic development in the Philippines.

Lewis frequently appears in charity and fund-raising events, making financial donations and moral support to poverty alleviation projects in the Philippines. She is also a motivational speaker and lecturer on wealth generation, entrepreneurship, career planning, and immigration laws.

In 1999, she founded a school in Sorsogon City, The Lewis College, that teaches Kindergarten through college students.

Early life and personal life

Born and raised in the Sorsogon City, Philippines, Lewis has four siblings. Her father, Francisco J. Nicholas, started one of the country’s largest furniture manufacturing firms, Nicfur. She is a Catholic.

She attended St. Agnes Academy (formerly Academia de Sta. Ines), the oldest Catholic school in Albay, Philippines. Lewis graduated cum laude from St. Theresa’s College, a private, Roman Catholic women's college in Manila, Philippines (that location has since closed). At the University of Philippines she was involved in the student council and the national union of students.

Nicholas-Lewis met her husband-to-be Reginald F. Lewis on a blind date in New York in 1968, when she was on a round the world trip and staying with her sister Imelda, then a student at Columbia University. They married on 16 August 1969 in Manila. Their first daughter Leslie was born in 1973. Reginald Lewis acquired Beatrice International in December 1987 in a $985 million leveraged buyout, creating the largest African American-owned company in the United States. The family moved to Paris in 1990. Lewis has spoken to audiences around the United States and the world to promote the biography of her late husband, Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?….How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion Dollar Business Empire.

A wide and frequent traveller, Lewis speaks English, French, Spanish, Tagalog and Bicolano. She currently resides in New York City with her two daughters.

References

[[Category:American magazine publishers (people)]