Edward Lee
When Edward Lee was 17 years old, he stopped by the office of his JA mentor. With his eye fixed on the charts and numbers pinned on the wall, he asked, “What is that?” Little did he know that the question would set the course for the rest of his career.
Edward learned a little about stock trading that day in 1972, and he soon became fascinated by the financial markets. He dedicated his free time to understand the workings of the stock exchange and mastering the craft of trading stocks. His stock-trading journey got off to a rough start, however, during the 1974 economic turmoil in the Philippines, when he suffered big losses. Since then, in times of crisis, he has turned adversity into opportunity.
““Financial stability impacts every aspect of a person’s life, as being in control of finances offers the freedom to focus on other matters.””
Edward started his financial career with an international trading company and, several years later, started his own investment firm with two of his original JA teammates. COL Financial, a publicly listed company, was founded on the belief that everyone can invest, not only the wealthy. But this required Edward and his partners to teach financial literacy. So, they created a learning infrastructure around investing, launched the EKL Learning Viber Community, and established Caylum Institute to further the cause of a properly educated and informed citizenry in the area of stock trading.
During the COVID crisis, COL Financial had to reinvent itself. In the Philippines, most stock trades happen in person, but business shutdowns made that impossible. COL needed not only to make online investing possible but also create comfort with a virtual transaction. All the learning materials had to be transferred online, too.
Today, in spite of only a US $4,000 per capita gross domestic product and a global pandemic, COL opens 200 to 300 accounts per day.
Edward continues to be involved in JA, having served on the JA Asia Pacific and JA Philippines boards and mentoring Filipino students to repeated wins in JA Asia Pacific Company of the Year competitions.
And he sees clients on the streets of Manila every day, who thank him for educating them about financial literacy. Although many of his clients came to him for financial advice, Chairman Lee always reminds them that gratitude/compassion/generosity is the mantra for investing and encourages his audiences to keep those words dear to their hearts, no matter what successes they achieve through investing.
““If you can create an impact, no matter how small it is, you can change the lives of people. That is the most important achievement.””
