Rustans Department Store

Rustan's traces back to 1952 and a living room in San Marcelino, where husband and wife Bienvenido Tantoco Sr. and Gliceria Rustia-Tantoco began importing international goods for Filipino shoppers who had few local options for them. The store they built went on to introduce a run of retail firsts to the Philippines: the country's first gift certificate, its first wedding registry, and its first loyalty program, Frequent Shoppers Plus. Rustan Commercial Corporation, the flagship company behind the department store, was incorporated in 1957 and now operates five major stores plus a number of boutiques, carrying everything from Bvlgari and Hermès fragrances to Roberto Coin jewelry and Pottery Barn homeware. The Tantocos' business has since grown into the wider Rustan Group of Companies, which also brought Starbucks to the Philippines in 1997 — the first store, at Makati's 6750 Ayala Building, made the country the third market outside North America to get one — and runs SSI Group, now the country's largest specialty retailer with over 600 stores nationwide. Nearly 75 years on, the group still frames its mission the way the Tantocos first put it: 'serving only the finest.'