A rising star finds her footing
Monica D. Lorenzo knew the buildings long before she understood what went into creating them.
Growing up, Torre Lorenzo Development Corp. (TLDC) became a familiar part of her childhood. In fact, she vividly remembers dropping by the company’s first building along Taft Avenue in Manila with her father on weekends.
“I have very clear memories of the first Torre building, being five or six years old. It was near my Lola’s house so we would drop by there on weekends,” Lorenzo shared in an interview with Inquirer Property. “I was seeing what was done, but not realizing all the thought, all the hard work, and all the effort to make these buildings work.”
To her then, it was simply a building with the family name on it.
But today, the director for Leisure and Business Development of TLDC understands precisely what stands behind that name: The planning, the discipline, the difficult decisions and years of painstaking work required to bring each development to life. It also changed how she saw her own place in the company.
Fresh perspective
Now, three years into real estate, Lorenzo has been aptly named “Rising Star” at the 14th PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards, a prestigious recognition for a young executive who’s bringing fresh perspective to an established business.
Part of that perspective was actually first shaped outside TLDC.
Fresh out of the university, Lorenzo was then building a career in consumer goods and technology. When she eventually turned to real estate, she initially saw it much like any outsider would despite growing up around this industry: A place to live, a physical asset, an investment and a possible source of additional income.
“I’m not an architect. I’m not an engineer. I’m not technical in the usual sense of the word. I had never really studied the blueprint before joining TLDC,” she said in her acceptance speech. “I thought that I was starting from scratch, as someone coming in new to the industry, but what I realized very quickly was that real estate took off from everything I had learned in my past careers and so much more.”
First real test
Her first chance to put those lessons into practice came with Vertica Torre Lorenzo, TLDC’s upcoming university residence in Sampaloc, Manila. It’s also the first project that Lorenzo can claim to be part of from the very beginning, helping weigh in on the concept, project name, colors, unit designs, and even amenity mix.
“Vertica was my baby,” she said.
According to Lorenzo, Vertica also reinforced a lesson TLDC learned over the last two decades: Students may be in the same life stage, but they do not necessarily live the same way. Each university residence therefore has to respond to the habits, priorities and realities of the students it serves, while still meeting the same Torre
Lorenzo standards for quality and attention to detail.
For Vertica, it meant understanding the University Belt on its own terms, from the mix of schools and student profiles to the neighborhood conditions and competing developments. This project also allowed Lorenzo to understand that, with projects taking years to complete, they should be able to design for future generations, creating spaces flexible enough to adapt as needs change.
Given Vertica’s strong
market reception, it seems that Lorenzo and TLDC are getting it right.
“The project is selling much better than I thought it would. We’re optimistic that we’re on track. We’re selling faster than we planned and, knock on wood, we’ll be able to turn over in the next three and a half years,” Lorenzo told Inquirer.
Making her own mark
In many ways, Lorenzo’s path brings her back to the company she first knew as a child.
Her father, TLDC chairman Tomas Lorenzo, built the company’s name around premium university residences. She is thus careful not to claim what came before her as her own: “I don’t want to discount any of the work, or slap my name over what’s already been done.”
What she hopes to do instead is to build on that foundation.
“Now it’s more, how do we make what we’ve already built even better? How can we reach more people? How can we expand this (portfolio) into new areas, new markets, and through different kinds of properties? I think we’re slowly starting to do that,” Lorenzo explained.
“We’re pushing outside Metro Manila—Davao, Lipa, and Pampanga this year. The seeds have already been planted, and now it’s (more of) how far can we go from there? And that’s really where I’m hoping to put my own stamp on it,” she added.
This is important for Lorenzo because, she admitted, the family name carries more weight now.
“Whatever I do now, it’s not just for me; It’s not just for my family. It’s also for a company that has hundreds of people working for it. It’s for the thousands of people who live in our developments,” she said.
Big shoes to fill
For now, Lorenzo continues to learn, test ideas and watch some of her first concepts take shape. But the direction is becoming clearer. She wants to stay close to the people who use TLDC’s projects and keep finding ways to improve what already works.
“There’s so much potential waiting to be unlocked, and I’m excited to be part of the generation that gets to unlock it—to take the crazy ideas that might seem impossible today and turn them into places where people can live, work, grow, and build their lives,” she said.
There are, as Lorenzo herself acknowledged, “some very big shoes to fill.” But three years into the job, it seems that she’s already beginning to leave footprints of her own.
