Dubai-based Filipino Frando Sarmiento's 3 business triumphs in the UAE

Gulf News

Frando Sarmiento, 44, who was born and raised in a small Philippine town without electricity, always harboured a dream of becoming an entrepreneur one day. And his big dream has been realised in the UAE.  Today, Sarmiento runs a number of businesses, including the Luxurion FF Auto Service Centre, Human Endeavours – provider of business law and special project support, and Red Scorpion Pest Control, among others.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/meet-dubai-based-filipino-frando-sarmiento-who-owns-3-businesses-in-the-uae-1.97013788  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #filipino #business

Transcript

00:00I'm Frando Sarmiento. I've been in Dubai since 2005, direct from the Philippines.

00:08I started here actually working for a German company called ThyssenKrupp for about two and

00:16a half years and then there onwards from different, from various companies I've met

00:24my partner who's actually sat on the other side, partner on this business,

00:30when I was taking my car for repair and maintenance. That was a few years ago,

00:36certain years ago and I suppose during that first encounter we've had a good, let's say,

00:45rapport and relationship and through the years we've been telling each other, you know, one of

00:51these days we should partner and start our own and then it came a point, it came to a point

01:00during the pandemic, during the early part of the pandemic that we said let's just do it

01:04and we did and that's the story of how we started a business. I was leading a business development

01:12for ThyssenKrupp, a German company. It's the largest, third largest in the world back then

01:18in terms of steel products production. So I was distributing for the UAE market for steel

01:24products and then I moved to the Dubai Golden Commodities Exchange. It's a commodities platform,

01:30futures market. For about eight years I was heading product and business development

01:35for the exchange. After that I moved to Euler Hermes which is now called Allianz Trade.

01:42Euler Hermes or Allianz Trade is the largest trade credit insurer in the world

01:48owned by Allianz which in itself, at least back then if I remember correctly was

01:5334th on fortune for 500 is the biggest companies in the world by capitalization

01:58and after that I moved to, where did I move? I moved to Crift Dun & Bradstreet which was the

02:04recent company, no sorry, yes, yes, that's the recent one that I worked with prior to fully

02:12going to entrepreneurial work. Although of course from back home I did some, I would have some

02:19exposures in other businesses but formally within the local UAE market, yeah, it all happened at

02:26the same time when I started to dig in, dig my heel to becoming an entrepreneur. I guess

02:35everything else just fall into place and as I've mentioned earlier with you when we were chatting

02:40before this, there is also a pest control company, an investment banking law outfit with my American

02:46partner and so on and so forth. So I guess I dig my heel here and there. I suppose that was planted

02:52even during the university years because I finished business management and I know it's what

03:01school would teach you how to become an entrepreneur but for some reason you delay

03:05and you delay and you get comfortable and then you just reach a point then that you think to

03:11yourself, okay, hang on then, maybe it's time that I do this. I would have wanted to have started in my

03:17early days. I always tell the younger people, I hope I don't look as old but I always say that

03:26it's better to start when you're young. It doesn't matter how small the venture is. You can make as

03:31many mistakes as you can but that's the part of being young. It's the adventure of being young and

03:37you learn a lot more and then you can be successful if you start young.

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