From Manila to Wall Street: An Immigrant's Journey With America's First Black Tycoon

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Michael Beas

Butch Meily’s From Manila to Wall Street: An Immigrant's Journey With America's First Black Tycoon is an extraordinary and inspiring account that sheds light on the intersection of ambition, culture, and perseverance. With clarity and insight, Meily recounts his experience as a Filipino immigrant navigating the complex world of finance and his collaboration with Reginald Lewis, America's first Black billionaire tycoon. This memoir transcends personal history, offering profound lessons on resilience and overcoming adversity.

Meily's writing is both detailed and accessible, enabling readers to conduct a comprehensive examination of a world characterized by high stakes, pivotal business decisions, and a struggle for inclusion in an often exclusionary system. He achieves a smooth flow by blending personal reflection with a professional point of view in his story. The most impressive thing about Meily is how well he has combined his experiences as an immigrant with his professional life. His life and work are defined by the small steps forward he took and the hard work he put into each chapter of his thoughtful, purposeful writing. He keeps people interested by writing about his own problems, successes, and the people who have helped him along the way.

At its heart, From Manila to Wall Street is about how things can change when people of different races and cultures work together. Goals and who you are are also big parts of the story. In a world that tends to favor the rich, Meily's experiences show how important it is to be honest, make friends, and take advantage of chances. They did business with Reginald Lewis, who helped them get along and work together. This shows how having a common goal and working together can give people the strength to face challenges and succeed. One of the main ideas of the book is that to reach the American Dream and get past systemic barriers, you need to keep going, learn about other cultures, and have a mentor.

This book does make you feel things, no doubt about it. Anyone who has ever been treated unfairly or had a hard time being seen and heard in a dominant culture will really relate to Meily's honest thoughts on how hard it is to deal with a different culture and high-stakes money.  His journey serves as both a reminder and a guide, underscoring that success, particularly for those from marginalized backgrounds, requires not only talent but also an unwavering commitment to succeed.

From Manila to Wall Street is an absolute must-read for anyone who appreciates narratives of cultural resilience, business innovation, and determination. It is a compelling testament to the human spirit's capacity to surpass expectations. This work is an essential read for those who aspire to understand the more extensive forces that shape our world and the individuals who resist them.

About the Author

Butch Meily

Butch is the author of an upcoming memoir, From Manila to Wall Street – An Immigrant’s Journey With America’s First Black Tycoon. He has written articles for Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Black Enterprise magazine and the Philippine Star newspaper. He has done two book tours promoting his former boss’s biography, Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun?

Butch’s current job is President of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF), a private sector disaster management organization that includes the major business groups in the country.  He helped found PDRF, turning it into a global role model for private sector involvement in calamities. The organization operates the world’s first national private sector Emergency Operations Center. Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT), his parent company, received the 2016 Prince of Wales Business in Community UPS International Disaster Relief Prize for its work in organizing PDRF after Typhoon Ketsana in 2009 and mobilizing it during Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.

Butch has worked in conflict situations in the southern Philippines including a terrorist siege in 2013 and an ISIS-inspired rebellion in 2017.

Butch wears several hats. He heads IdeaSpace Foundation, a technology accelerator for early-stage startups, and QBO Innovation Hub, a public private partnership launched to mentor startups. Until December 2020, he served as president of Pacific Global One, an aviation firm affiliated with PLDT.