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Dee, constructing is future-proofing
Apr 17, 2025
Rikki Dee, CEO, Foodee Group
"You have to constantly develop, innovate and learn forever. That's the new trend... We're in the midst of recreating our business model. To be ready not for them — not for me — but for the future generation. It's a reinvention. It's a process. It's not an overnight thing."
HE walks into Sunnies Café in Bonifacio Global City clad in an all-white outfit. There's an air of extraordinary confidence about him. You wouldn't have guessed that this man in white had just turned 60.
He actually looks younger than the last time I saw him a decade ago when he had just opened Food Hall by Todd English at SM Aura.
And you also wouldn't have known that he had just been through a war of sorts, courtesy of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We shut down 38 stores, big and small. The high-end concepts were the first to go," Foodee Group CEO Rikki Dee tells The Manila Times.
"Our revenue was down by 80 percent. We had to furlough 2,000 employees. It created a big dent on our resources," he recalls.
"We prepared for any eventualities. We were ready for casualties. This is part of our threat assessment," he shares. However, admittedly, "we were not that prepared."
The preparations they had were for a big calamity or a war, "but not as big as Covid; and not as long. It was like experiencing World War II!"
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