Parañaque, Metro Manila, Philippines

With sheer guts and clear vision, Roland Quiambao took the leap of faith leaving a steady-paying job to establish Nonpareil International Freight and Cargo Services Incorporated in 1990. “Nonpareil” is a French word that means “having no equal.” Taking it one step further the company redefine it to mean ‘beyond compare.’ When Roland founded Nonpareil with his wife Belen, his vision was for the company to go exclusively on customs clearance and international freight forwarding because of his work experience. The domestic forwarding, which is the backbone of the company now, came in later. Mrs. Quiambao explains that domestic forwarding kicked off the company as she, along with her brother Jovic Pellosis, who is now VP for Domestic Operations, took on the odd jobs that other bigger companies simply too small. Beginnings With just five employees, Nonpareil thrive because Quiambao know the business so well. While Belen had strong connections and experience in domestic forwarding, she also handled the administrative work while Roland looked after the operations. The couple never let opportunities go by without trying. Belen knows a good deal when she encounters one. Four years into the business, she stumbled upon a company that needs domestic forwarding services. With combined decades of experience and faith in themselves, they took on the job for a leading telecommunications company, which remains their client up to now. Because it wasn’t a planned investment, Nonpareil had to improvise and the Quiambao’s homes serve as a warehouse. Belen also did her business calls at home -most of the time at the bathroom- because their neighborhood back then was not an ideal environment to do business transaction over the phone. “The determination was there,” Belen says. “I felt that there is something for us in the domestic market.” That something was delivering construction materials too highly sensitive and communication equipment that was to become the cellular phone backbone of the country. “We’ve delivered over 5,000 of the 7,000 sites set up In the country then,” proudly narrates Belen. “it was an achievement for a company of our size.” It was pure business sense and as Belen puts it, “Nonpareil thrive when the telecom industry also thrived.”