Find Your Leadership Quotient

August 10, 2013 will go down forever as one of the most historic days in Philippine basketball. On this day, Coach Chot Reyes and his band of ill-prepared, way-too-short, and inexperienced warriors went out and defied all odds to beat long-time national team tormentor South Korea in an emotionally gripping game, 86-79, thereby earning for the Philippines a ticket to the FIBA World Cup in Spain, 2014, for the first time since 1978.

In the World Cup in Spain August, 2014, Chot coached GILAS to its first win on the world stage in the last 40 years: an 85-83 victory vs Senegal. They lost to powerhouse Croatia by 2pts, Puerto Rico by 4, and World #3 Argentina by only 4pts – pushing all those teams to the limit before succumbing.

There were many doubters and detractors. But through all the negativity, Coach Reyes did what he always does: WIN.

For this feat, People Asia has named Chot one of its ‘People of the Year’ for 2013; while SPIN.ph voted him ‘Sportsman of the Year”.

Chot has consistently shown his ability to win regardless of the team and players at his disposal, being the only coach to win 3 All-Filipino titles with different teams – Purefoods in 1993, Coca-Cola in 2002, and Talk N’ Text in 2009, 2011, & 2012.  He created history with each title. At Purefoods he was the youngest to win in his first try at 29 years old. At Coca-Cola, they became the first team to win a championship in their rookie year in the PBA history. His 2009 championship at Talk N’ Text made Chot the only 3-time All-Filipino winner with different teams; while his 2011 title made him the only coach to win 2 championships with 3 different teams.Last February, 2012, Chot again created history by leading TNT to become the first team in 27 years to win the prestigious PBA All-Filipino championship 2 years in a row.

His other PBA championships are in import tournaments, with Purefoods in 1994, Coca-Cola in 2003, and Talk N’ Text in 2011.  8 titles in 16 Finals appearances in 30 tournaments – these feats earned for him five (5) “Coach of the Year” awards – again the only coach so far to have won this prestigious award as much, as the most anyone has won is thrice.

This led to Chot being selected to coach the National Team once more, and in July, 2012, Chot led the GILAS PILIPINAS national team to the 34^thWilliam Jones Cup title in Taipei – for the first time in the last 14 years – in the process again creating history by becoming the only Filipino coach to win this prestigious championship. He beat a crack USA selection in a nerve-wracking final. Internationally, he coached the Philippine National team to the 2005 and 2006 Brunei Cup titles and the 2007 Philippine Cup Championship.

All of the teams Chot coached to victory were completely different from each other – in terms of talent, size, depth and experience.  The one constant has been their ability to work together as a team.  While all coaches preach teamwork, Chot’s teams live and breathe it. The only Filipino member of the International Advisory Board of the United States Basketball Academy and a member of the Board of the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines, Chot quotes legendary coach John Wooden, “I may not be the best or brightest coach. But the one thing I do better than most is my ability to motivate a group of individuals to work with ONE HEARTBEAT.” Truly, his latest feat with Gilas made the “Laban Pilipinas. PUSO!” motto he coined practically the national battlecry.

Having gone through intensive business and corporate coaching education in London and New York, Chot has been providing executive coaching to executives (including expats) of various top 500 corporations in the Philippines through his company Coachcom.inc. He conducts regular coach mentorship programs to middle managers of companies in the insurance, banking, retail, manufacturing, BPO, and telecommunications industries. His module on teamwork is also a much sought-after training program, especially among the top consumer companies. Coach Chot is also a licensed John Maxwell Teambuilding Workshop facilitator.

But what differentiates Coach Chot’s Executive Coaching is the focus on Leadership Development.  Chot is a Certified John Mattone Intelligent Leadership Coach. John Mattone, who was the coach of Steve Jobs and Roger Enrico, has just been named the #1 Executive Coach by GlobalGurus, is Chot’s personal coach.

In recognition of the need to equip leaders at all levels for the increasing VUCA world, Chot has likewise completed his training as an ICP-Agile Certified Coach, enabling the organisations and leaders he works with to not only “DO Agile, but BE Agile as well.” This combination of TEAM expertise, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT focus, and AGILE capability truly sets the coachcom program apart from others in the filed.

After leading the Philippines back to the world stage, Chot formally retired from professional basketball coaching at the end of 2014 to return to his much-delayed corporate career. Since 2013 he took over Sports5, the sports division of TV5 Network, Inc where he was likewise entrusted with the task of building and heading Digital5, TV5’s digital operations division.

At Sports5, Chot turned a heavily losing operation into profit in 2 years, while at the same time acquiring such valuable sports properties as the 2016 Rio Olympics, FIBA Asia and FIBA Worlds, to complement their already robust line-up of the PBA, women’s volleyball’s PSL, the SEA and Asian Games, among others.

All this has led to Chot moving up at the start of 2016 to President of Media5 – the Sales, Marketing, and Digital arm of TV5. But his corporate movement for 2016 was not done yet. In an unexpected turn of events, the TV5 President announced his retirement in July; and on October 1, 2016, Chairman MVP named Chot as the new TV5 President and CEO. His goal was to turn the network around from its losses since the start of operations into profitability in 3 years’ time. To do this Chot led a game-changing partnership with worldwide sports leader ESPN to re-position TV5 from a general entertainment network  to a primarily sports and news channel. This established TV5 as the #1 Sports channel and more importantly allowed TV5 to cut its losses by 50% in 2017, and another 30% in 2018.

After 3 years at the helm of TV5, Chot retired to concentrate on his entrepreneurial endeavours. He took the opportunity to take a much-needed vacation and focus on upgrading his executive and leadership development skills.This allowed Chot to complete his Intelligent Leadership and Agile Coach certifications.