MANILA — Stephen CuUnjieng sat down with Century Pacific Group executive chairman Christopher Po and social entrepreneur Nanette Po on the pilot episode of his show "Banker After Dark", a business program featuring casual conversations with local business giants about career, economics, and more.

CuUnjieng said he wanted the two — partners in business and life — to be his first guests since they both graduated with Latin honors and have both been interviewed by CNBC and Bloomberg.

1. Chris learned to get to the bottom of things and take risks from the past companies he worked for

Chris shared on the interview that after business school, he worked at management consultancy McKinsey & Company, for the Gokongwei family, and for Guggenheim Partners —  an asset management firm.

"So with a firm like McKinsey, what I learned was get to the bottom of things, boil an issue down to the essence. There's a joke that everything you can boil down to three bullet points, right? " he said.

"[Also worked] in the corporate planning and business development group at JG Summit, the holding company of the Gokongwei family. So there I learned... in an entrepreneurial firm, once you get to 80%, you take 20% of the effort to get to 80% of the answer and with that you go, right?" he continued. "You don't need to get 100% because by the time you get to 100%, the opportunity's gone, right?"

When Chris worked in investment management, he explained that he learned to take risk in order to attain a certain goal.

2. Chris realized a team has to try new ideas and take decisive actions in order to balance his current company's growth in the market

Chris also shared a formula on how they get his current company to prosper. He attributed it to his trait of being a "perfectionist".

"To my point earlier about 'no risk, no reward'. And I think as a company, if we come up with new ideas, new products, new services, and if our success rate is 90% or 100%, then we're doing something wrong. We're being too safe, right? So I find myself actually encouraging people to act more decisively, take more risk, and then if we have a battling, as long as the wins are more than the losses, then I think we're good," he said.

3. Nanette founded HOPE aspiring to show the community that investing in social good would be deemed great by the public.

Nanette believed that when they established HOPE, the business community would see how the people will greatly receive social welfare-related causes. She told CuUnjieng that the investment she viewed was children's education, since it's the "best return of investment for a country".

She also detailed the group's advocacy on solving plastic pollution in the country.

"We're [Philippines] infamously the third-worst offender for ocean plastic pollution. And I think that being in a business where we have plastic packaging, it was interesting to see how we were going to tackle that challenge and not realizing that our own experience would be very much  I want to say instructive," she said.

"But it would really give us a lot of insight into how other businesses, even Chris's businesses, have plastic packaging in their supply chain, how they might deal with plastic responsibility... And now we're so excited that the Philippines is really leading in a way that we didn't expect in the plastic responsibility space," she added.

CuUnjieng also narrated his own experience and observation at the Century Pacific Food Inc. building where "there is no single-use plastic".

"And let me say, as someone who's been honored to be an independent director of Century Pacific, they do take it very seriously, even in their building. There's no single-use plastic. Like, you have to bring your own glass of water or reusable container, because they take the commitment seriously, even up to the small detail," the host emphasized.

4. Chris sees Philippine agriculture lagging behind Asean peers

Chris meanwhile expressed concern at the state of agricultural growth in the country.

"If we look at our ASEAN neighbors, the growth in agriculture averages around 3 to 4%, whereas over the last 10, even 20 years, our growth in agri is about 1%," he said.

"On food security, I would say that the biggest issue is rice. And Secretary Kiko (Tiu Laurel) is very well aware of that. Today, he just made a statement. Well, as you know, the rice tariffs have been brought down from 35% to 15%. And hopefully that will alleviate some of the pressures on rice prices in the next few months. So a lot of effort is being put in there," Chris further explained.

Nanette then discussed how HOPE helps the agriculture sector on its own ways through its coconut tree project.

"There was a call by the administration to plant 100 million coconut trees, 10 million for which would come from the private sector, we kind of took it as a call to action. We are by the end of this year in December would have planted 2 million already coconut trees with smallholder farmers," she narrated.

She said the project helps smallholder farmers get livelihood and it also enhances the competitiveness of the coconut sector.

5. The two also share some details how a biz couple stay so strong

Chris and Nanette have been together for 30 years now, but the way they admire and refer to each other on every question makes them look just like a new sweet couple.

They both think of each other as important pieces of the fruitful relationship.

"Chris, he's the special sauce!" Nanette expressed smiling.

"What I have to say about that is part of it is luck or providence, however you want to call it. I don't mind saying that I think I won the wife lottery," he emphasized while holding his wife's hand.

The loving couple said the secret lies on choosing to be together in addressing issues and working through them throughout the years.

There's more to watch from the episode proper so don't hesitate to check it our right away!

For the rest of the upcoming interviews, catch "Banker After Dark" every Friday at 6 PM, before TV Patrol on the ANC cable channel, IwantTFC, and via the ANC 24/7 YouTube page.

Viewers can also have more exclusive access to on-demand business news, lifestyle, and exclusive members-only perks on ANC Prestige via ANC's YouTube channel.