Edgar “Injap” Sia II, 39, was born in Iloilo City in 1977 and grew up in Roxas City, Capiz province. He is the eldest of three siblings. Despite Injap being a true-blue provincial guy and unfamiliar with the ins and out of the more complex business environment of the Philippine capital, he made sure he is able to learn and adapt fast. He had his elementary, high school and college education all in the province. But he strongly believed that his provincial background having the grassroots knowledge that he learned on the ground can become his advantage. At 26 years of age in 2003, he started from scratch the fast-food chain Mang Inasal and grew it from a humble branch in Iloilo City to 338 branches nationwide within the first seven years of operations. It was at this point in October 2010 that Jollibee Foods Corporation acquired 70% of Mang Inasal for p3 Billion Pesos ($68m USD), and in April 2016 he sold the remaining 30% of Mang Inasal to Jollibee for p2 Billion Pesos ($41m USD), enabling Injap to cash in a total of p5 Billion pesos ($109m USD) from the Mang Inasal venture that he started from one simple branch 12 years ago. As a result of his careful planning, clear visioning, thorough business design and passionate execution, Mang Inasal today continues to shine, Mang Inasal remains to be one of the largest and most recognized fast- food chain in the country with over 450 stores nationwide and generates over p12 Billion Pesos in system-wide sales revenue and also consistently showing double-digit same store sales growth year-on-year.
In 2012, two years after the successful first acquisition of Jollibee Foods Corp of Mang Inasal, Injap and his siblings together with Tony Tan Caktiong and his siblings, decided to embark on another partnership capitalizing on the growth potential of the property business sector in the Philippines. Thus, in 2012, DoubleDragon Properties Corp was born with a clear vision of accumulating a total of 1 Million square meters of leasable space by year 2020. Injap having been born in the province in a family operating grocery retail for over 40 years now, he has an innate understanding of the retail behavior and progression of economic activity in these provincial areas. It is this understanding and experience that has catapulted DoubleDragon’s community mall chain “CityMall” to be the apparent dominant leader in the Philippine community mall industry. DoubleDragon’s other major subsidiaries are DD Meridian Park Development Corp and Hotel of Asia Inc.
DoubleDragon embarks on real estate projects that will allow it to build up its recurring rental income as well as accumulate a string of various appreciating property hard assets in various prime areas across the country.
Today, DoubleDragon is one of the actively traded listed property companies in the Philippine Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of over p100 Billion pesos ($2 Billion USD).
For the past few years, Injap’s entrepreneurial skills has been recognized by many institutions including his alma mater, in 2012 the University of San Agustin Iloilo has conferred him a Doctorate Degree Honoris Causa Major in Management.
In 2016 this year he was also listed 17th in the Forbes Magazine 50 Richest Filipino with net worth of p58 Billion Pesos ($1.2 Billion USD) and at 39 years old is the youngest and the only one below age 40 on the list.
As a self-made new generation entrepreneur, Injap is a proof that despite given today’s highly competitive business environment where most traditional industries like fast-food or real estate are already dominated by the old giant players for many decades, one can still successfully breakthrough if one will strive very hard, dream big, and execute the set goal with intense passion. He is aggressive but remains sharp in his calculations. His deep grit, passion, determination, sincerity and resourcefulness enabled him to disrupt the industry that he chooses to compete in, and successfully lead and navigate his team towards its set goals. Injap also continues to further hone his business skills as he moves forward by having additional experiences and valuable learnings mainly from his dealings with many seasoned older business tycoons in the country, many of whom eventually became his business partners.
Over the years he has discovered that creating business ventures that creates a lasting positive impact to the lives of other people is his mission in life. Listing DoubleDragon in the stock market for him is one of the best things that happened in his business journey because it enabled him to further widen the positive effect that his efforts are able to reach.
Injap has also proven a point that inspires many budding provincial entrepreneurs, that a provincial new player can still greatly succeed in highly mature industries in a short span of time via the old-fashioned way of building a business from scratch brick by brick as he did in two different and highly competitive fast-food and real estate traditional industries that are already dominated by many established large big players for many decades.
With all his success, Injap continously give pride to his fellow Ilonggos and Capiznons. He also serves as an inspiration to all the probinsyano (provincial) entrepreneurs around the country.
He also showed a good example with his continued efforts in giving back to the society in various forms such as the donation of the 4-storey Iloilo City Community College Building, the Catholic Parish Church Building in Cagay, Roxas City, the rebuilding of the Public Plaza of Tanauan Leyte, and the Pavillion in Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm in Bulacan, among others. The businesses that he started just a few years ago from his plain imagination to complex real businesses is also another way that enables him to help the society as his entrepreneurship ventures now directly and indirectly employs over 30,000 decent jobs nationwide.
