The Making of an Entrepreneur

What makes an entrepreneur? Ask Rossana L. Llenado, president of Ahead Learning Systems, Inc., who was honored by Entrepreneur magazine as one of its 10 out-standing entrepreneur in the first-ever Entrepreneur 10 Awards, which were given out recently at the Holiday Inn Galleria Manila.

“In my case, the drive was there from the start,” says Llenado, who while still a child sold various items, from paper fans to cologne, to her classmates in order to augment her allowance and help in house-hold expenses.

Such entrepreneurial activities continued during her college years at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna where she worked as a student assistant, an officer in various campus-based organizations, and a part-time employee in government and private organizations, all while engaging in such enterprises as catering, subleasing, T-shirt printing, and mushroom growing—and still managing to land in the dean’s list for five semesters.

“It was tough and very tiring, but the experience of managing time, resources and people, provided good training for engaging in business,” Llenado recalls.

Following graduation, she worked as a sales and marketing professional, and did well in the avenue. The big step came in 1997 when she founded Ahead Tutorial and Review Center. There were four major players in the industry at that time, so she had to find the niche that would distinguish her company from the rest.

She decided to associate Ahead services with winners.

It was a radical approach, since tutorials and review classes at the time were associated with people who needed help to cope academically or to pass entrance exams that good student from the prestigious schools were though to breeze through. With her new company, Llenado decided to change all that.

“To be with Ahead was to be the best, with the best. The best company, the best programs and instructors, honor students, student leaders, the people you want to be associated with. We anchored our programs on excellence—and communicated this in our marketing efforts,” says Llenado.

The move paid off. Ahead is today considered by many the leader in tutorial and review course industry due to the impressive performance of its students in college entrance examinations. Since 1999, its students as a group have registered the highest passing rate in the college admission tests of the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and De La Salle University.

Ahead is still the only center that stakes its reputation for quality by publishing an annual passers list, indicating its unchallenged leadership in the industry as far as actual results are concerned.

For Llenado, being a successful entrepreneur means pursuing a vision, taking risks, and addressing a concern close to one’s heart.

“It’s the passion for excellence that sustains us, though,” she adds. “Without that passion, you simply fold up.” Ahead Tutorial and Review Center is now a division of Ahead Learning Systems, Inc. It has two branches in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, one in Greenhills, and two mall-based branches at the Ortigas Center.