At the University of Chicago, Clemente was one of seven women in a department of over 400 students. She had little money, lived in a small apartment and taught herself to cook--a skill formerly left to servants.
"It gave me a lot of confidence being able to survive in a foreign country," she says. "I bought Filipino cookbooks and learned." She also stacked books in the school library for $1.25 an hour.
She got her master's in agricultural economics and international trade in 1962 and returned to Manila. On June 24, 1964 she married Leopoldo. For the next two years Leopoldo worked on his MBA from Northwestern University while Clemente was a happy housewife taking courses with an eye toward a doctorate in agricultural economics.
When Leo decided to pursue a PhD, Clemente went to work as an economist for CNA Financial Group to help make ends meet. There she coped with a dull administrative job while yearning to transfer to the more exciting-looking investment department across the hall.
When an opening came up for a metals analyst she applied but was turned down because "women don't know anything about metals." She convinced them to give her the job by explaining her upbringing and her knowledge of precious metals.
The entry level position provided excellent training, but Clemente soon discovered that she was being paid only half the salary of her male counterpart. She felt cheated and angry and fought back by toiling fiercely to prove her talent and worth. Each day she arrived at the office early and was the last to leave.
Her determination bore fruit. Within a year she won a major promotion and was moved from a cubby-hole to a spacious office with a view of downtown Chicago. By 1969 when Leo got his PhD and was hired by Merrill Lynch's New York office as a portfolio manager, Clemente was already managing a $300 million portfolio of steel company stocks and copper futures.
But she moved to New York with Leo and got 18 job offers. She became the first woman to land an investment management job at the Ford Foundation, not to mention becoming the foundation's youngest employee. This was her big break. At 28 she became director of research. Clemente was the youngest investment broker and assistant treasurer. She managed a staff of 14 analysts and a $3 billion portfolio.
The Ford Foundation had a reputation as a tight-fisted player. The $3 billion was invested in American securities. "I was only a 28-year-old kid," Clemente recalls, "and was sitting with Henry Ford and all these brilliant minds."
She asked Henry Ford why there were no international investments. He pointed out that in 1962 the U.S. government had placed a surtax called Interest Equalization Tax on foreign securities purchases, virtually closing the door to overseas investing.
Clemente learned that the shares of Japan Fund traded on NYSE weren't subject to the tax and convinced the Foundation to buy $5 million worth of the $50 million fund. She also persuaded it to let her invest in Asian markets. In two years she channeled $150 million into the Pacific Basin, the bulk of it into Japanese stocks whose value soon soared. Her efforts turned the foundation into a global investment pioneer.
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After seven years at the Ford Foundation she launched Clemente Capital Inc (CCI) in 1976 with one secretary and a used typewriter. She started by building a database. She packaged it into a monthly newsletter on Asian economic, industrial and political developments and got Prescott Ball to sell it. Clemente began working as a consultant for her former employer, the Ford Foundation, as well as companies like Capital Research and the Southern California Edison pension fund. She also managed some funds, including $5 million on behalf of Jesuits and nuns.
In 1977 Georgia-based American Family Life Assurance had recently entered the Japanese market with cancer insurance and needed Asia experts. It gave Clemente much needed capital for her fledgling fund management business and still owns 30% of CCI.
By 1981 she was attracting notice from the Asian Wall Street Journal for her success in "zeroing in on some of the world's most attractive markets."
CCI got another big boost in 1983 when it launched a mutual fund for Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management, a company owned by financial giant Paine Webber. In two years Clemente grew the Paine Webber Atlas Fund from $66 million to $206 million, earning it a number one ranking among global investors. By its third year it had grown to $300 million and became the hottest fund in town.
In 1986 Clemente re-structured CCI to take on five partners. That year the deteriorating political situation forced her parents to flee the Philippines and move to New York where they worked actively as advisers to the Ninoy Aquino Movement for Peace, Justice and Democracy.
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