At first glance, Jeffrey C. Lim seems to be the stereotypical Asian CFO: lowkey, modest, a silent worker who shuns the limelight.
But being the chief finance officer (CFO) and executive vice president of SM Prime Holdings, Inc., the country’s largest mall developer and operator, Lim has been known to scale new heights and conquer new territories that helped propel the company to its current stature. In a sense, he has acquired the ability to transform at will and carry out groundbreaking initiatives without calling attention to his role, which makes him a good CFO and a CEO’s partner.
His boss, SM Prime President Hans Sy, could attest to this. He thinks that Lim’s being named the 2012 awardee of the annual search for the ING FINEX CFO of the Year has been overdue. “I look at him not only as a CFO, [but also] as a partner. Every time we have a project, we would sit down together and we would look at the financials of the project and that has helped me make all the decisions,” Sy said.
The 51-year-old Executive Vice-President and CFO of SM Prime now joins an elite circle of CFOs that counts Delfin Gonzalez, Jr., who won when he was CFO of Globe Telecom in 2007; Sherisa Nuesa, who got the award when she was CFO of Manila Water Company in 2008; Jose Sio of SM Investments Corporation in 2009; Ysmael Baysa of Jollibee Foods Corporation in 2010; and Jaime Ysmael of Ayala Land in 2011.
Lim admits that landing the prestigious title was like another vertiginous climb throughout his 31-year career as a financial executive since starting as an auditor at SGV & Company in 1981.
“I will not want to go through it again,” he says of the screening and evaluation process of the ING FINEX CFO of the Year search, which is now on its sixth year. “It’s very thorough and secretive; I didn’t even know who the other nominees are.
I didn’t really expect to win. When I got nominated, I actually didn’t let a lot of people know about it because I thought if I lose, it will not be difficult because there are only a few people who knows about it.”
Being silent but efficient got Lim to where he is now. A graduate of the University of the East with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Major in Accounting, and a certified public accountant, Lim served as SGV auditor for seven years before joining Unisys (Philippines), Ltd., the local unit of the multinational IT company. After nearly three years in Hong Kong as regional manager of Unisys’ financial planning group, he was invited by a long-time colleague at SGV to come back to the Philippines and become vice-president for finance of SM Prime. The company was then just starting to flex its financial muscles and preparing for an initial
public offering.
“I have known him for almost 20 years now since we worked together in SGV. He contributed a lot in the development of SM Prime, not only in the Philippines, but also in developing the malls in China,” said Jose Sio, executive vice-president and CFO of SM Investments Corporation, also an ING FINEX CFO of the Year awardee in 2009.

The conquests
From having just four malls in 1994 when Lim joined the company, SM Prime now operates 50 malls, including four in China and one, which will be the biggest, due to open in 2014. In this conquest, his global exposure came in handy.
 “He worked so hard in developing the malls in China because we are in a new territory, we don’t know the tax laws there, the accounting rules, and all the investment regulations. Jeffrey, as CFO, was able to handle these issues efficiently and until now they are expanding in China,” Sio said.
SM Prime’s four malls in China now account for 10% of company revenues. In 2011, net income grew by more than 100% to P889 million from 2010. Strategic partnerships with global retailers such as Walmart to serve as anchor tenants in its malls in China significantly drew visitors to SM Malls.
Lim is also credited for making SM Prime one of the most active and closely tracked players in the market. By establishing its presence in both domestic and foreign capital markets, the company was able to raise a total of P49 billion and US$615 million in capital at lower-than-sovereign debt rates since he became its CFO. He also played a key role in the initial public offering of SM Investments Corporation, parent company of SM Prime, which raised P26.25 billion, making it the largest IPO in 2005.
Regional publication Finance Asia recognized these achievements and named Lim a second runner-up in its annual CFO of the Year search in 2011.

Beyond numbers
While being the company CFO confines him to numbers in performing his multiple roles in financial planning, treasury, business development, risk management and investor relations, Lim has always been known as a “people person.”
Diana R. Dionisio, SM Prime vice-president for finance and in-charge of the projects in China, attributes her 10-year loyalty with the company to Lim. “I couldn’t have stayed this long with the company if it weren’t for Jeffrey,” she stresses. “This kind of culture extends even to China where loyalty is not a common trait for people there because of the vast opportunities and the need for talent in the industry.”
Coming from a brood of seven and raised in Tawi-Tawi and Zamboanga before setting foot in the city may have armed Lim with the survival instinct that he has deptly used in the corporate finance world, as well as the “X factor” that conquers the hearts and minds of people in his organization. His people skills inspire a sense of loyalty, hard work, and teamwork that make his employees shy away from more lucrative job offers, Ms. Dionisio adds.
For his staff, Lim may have made a lot of conquests, but none as lasting as the one he has imprinted on them.
“For me, he’s like a kite flyer. He’s still in control of the string, steering it lightly with one hand, allowing us to fly back and forth to the window, allowing us to achieve our fullest potentials. But you know that he’s still there and if he sees that you’re losing control… he won’t hesitate to pull the string or tug it just to put you back in the right direction,” said Teresa Cecilia Reyes, vice-president for finance of SM Prime.
To be this year’s ING FINEX CFO of the Year may be one big career conquest for Lim, but for his colleagues at SM Prime, it is that and much more.
“It is a source of pride to be working with someone who is now being widely acknowledged as the country’s best CFO,” said Christopher Bautista, SM Prime’s vice-president for internal audit and a long-time colleague.
The award not only raises the bar for finance professionals to aspire for. For CFOs like Lim who work behind the scenes to get things done, the mercurial growth of the company, its people, and its contributions to the Philippine economy, are the true rewards.