165: From Manila to Manhattan: How One Man Cracked Wall Street’s Inner Circle | Butch Meily

Have you ever wondered what it takes to succeed in a high-stakes business? 

It’s not a simple life. There’s things to gain, but also things to lose. Today’s episode is an incredible cautionary tale for those of you who are building your way to success. 

In today’s episode, Damon is joined by Butch Meily, former PR strategist to Reginald Lewis, a leveraged buyout dealmaker, and now humanitarian—to discuss his powerful memoir From Manila to Wall Street. 

In this episode you’ll learn 

• Why proximity to power can be both a blessing and a burden 
• The personal cost of chasing high-level success 
• What business titan Reginald Lewis taught Butch about leadership, identity, and pressure 
• How Butch transitioned from PR executive to global humanitarian 
• Why “ordinary lives” often lead to the deepest happiness 
• And so much more. 

Timestamps: 

00:00 – Intro to Butch Meily 

00:29 – The cost of attaching yourself to powerful people 

01:30 – Why Butch finally wrote his memoir 

02:36 – Who the book is for and how it's structured 

03:50 – Butch’s first meeting with Reginald Lewis 

05:17 – Reg’s early PR battle and the New York Times story 

07:10 – Getting screamed at in a Bentley: Butch’s first ride with Reg 

08:49 – The emotional toll of working under constant pressure 

10:35 – Life regrets and the wisdom of Barbara Bush 

12:10 – Can you have both success and happiness? 

14:02 – Leveraged Buyouts 101 + the Beatrice takeover story 

18:55 – Where Reg’s courage really came from 

20:10 – Reg’s mantra: Keep going no matter what 

22:18 – The role of luck and hard work 

23:27 – Why America is still the land of opportunity 

25:03 – Butch’s “candy cane” vision of America vs. Reg’s experience as a Black man 

27:14 – The pressure of being “not a Black success—but an American success” 

29:21 – The Hamptons mansion fire: real-life suspense 

34:12 – Reg passes away, then Butch’s father dies days later 

37:39 – Butch is fired—then brought back by an unexpected new CEO 

40:12 – How Loyda Lewis led with grace, faith, and fierce business savvy 

42:34 – Would Reg like the book? And why Butch wrote it now 

44:36 – Butch’s new life: humanitarian work and startup mentorship 

46:01 – Final lesson: why “ordinary” is extraordinary 

Resources Mentioned: 

• From Manila to Wall Street by Butch Meily 
• Butch Meily LinkedIn
• Butch Meily’s Website 
• Reginald F. Lewis Museum 

 About the Guest: 

Butch is the author of the memoir, From Manila to Wall Street – An Immigrant’s Journey With America’s First Black Tycoon. 

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. 

Previously, Butch was First Vice President and Special Assistant to the chairman of PLDT and president of PLDT Smart Foundation.  Prior to joining PLDT, he served as Vice President, Communications for TLC Beatrice International, a food company in New York and Paris and the main subject of his book.  He has worked with several New York public relations firms and a financial startup there. 

Butch graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University and earned an MA in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida (UF), becoming the first honors graduate of the program. He returned to UF as a Freedom Forum Distinguished Professor and received a Distinguished Alumnus award and was named to the school’s Hall of Fame. He started but did not finish his MBA at Northwestern University. He has taken writing classes at Grub Street and at New York University’s Continuing Education Program, a long time ago. 

In 1997, he established a permanent scholarship in his father Joe Meily’s name, at the Ateneo. That same year, he made a small donation to the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. 

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