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Life is quieter now compared to the eventful life story of the founder of Ri Happy, who also was a very successful doctor. Even he admits, when talking about dreams, that he doesn\u2019t have any more long-term large projects or ambitions: \u201cI just want to live peacefully. For my daughters to live happily, for my grandchildren to be healthy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Sayon is 66 years old and says he\u2019s a very fulfilled person. And this statement is not hard to understand when he begins to tell his story. Ricardo Sayon\u2019s will to become a doctor was in synch with his father\u2019s stance, who didn\u2019t want his children involved with business. Sayon\u2019s father worked with retail and industry, in sectors so different from each other like fabrics and turbo generators, and he also was an airplane pilot in his spare time. He used to do aerobatic stunts. He believed that Brazil would become a communist country and, thus, he wanted his children to focus on knowledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were required to study because he believed that the world was going to turn communist\u201d, says Sayon. The father believed it would be impossible for the enormous gaps between rich and poor to last for too long. \u201cHe thought that money corrupts, so we couldn\u2019t be a part of the business, make money, we had to study and graduate,\u201d he says. The path of the youngest son, an admirer of Dr. Kildare in his childhood, was the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP).<\/p>\n Ricardo Sayon was a pediatrician for 16 years, worked for public services and institutes in the area, taught at the university. When he quit the practice, he left behind a successful private clinic. As a pediatrician, Sayon would show his acumen for business. He built a playground in his practice as to make a visit to the doctor not so scary for the children. \u201cI would give treats, would go to (street) March 25th<\/sup> and buy blowouts, whistles. The trouble wasn\u2019t for the kids to come into my clinic, but rather to leave it,\u201d he says enthusiastically.<\/p>\n His life as a businessman began when he received, as inheritance, a land that was being used as a parking lot. Talking with a friend, Roberto Saba, Sayon\u2019t business associate to this day, they decided to keep the parking lot open and manage it and do with it something innovative for the 80s: issuance of receipts and the control of memberships through a computer. Saba had a computing-services business and the two of them became partners in both businesses. It was the beginning of a parking lot chain called Pare Bem, which was sold by Sayon around four years ago. The computing-services office was closed later with the popularization of computers.<\/p>\n Ri Happy was created because Ricardo Sayon had a vacant property at the intersection of Pamplona and Lorena streets, in S\u00e3o Paulo, which was racking up costs and problems. The jewelry store that was occupying the place went bankrupt and the estate remained close for nearly a year. Annoyed with the situation, when the place had authorization to re-open, Sayon asked her wife, phonoaudiologist Juanita Sayon, to open a business there. She opened a toy store and named it \u201cRi Happy\u201d so her husband would be happy. Friend Roberto Saba also joined the project.<\/p>\n Sayon was still working as a pediatrician, but in 1991 Ri Happy had four stores and wasn\u2019t doing so well financially. \u201cThe money that Pare Bem would make, Ri Happy would spend it all and more,\u201d says the businessman. The decision made was to close the chain and Sayon went up to toy manufacturer Estrela to return products. Once there, he got an advice from an executive to open even more stores \u2013 and good ones. Sayon took the challenge and decided to leave his medical practice aside for some time. \u201cI said: well, I go there, spend six months, solve everything and come back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n After a talk with his partner and employee Maria Cecilia do Nascimento, a teacher who became the operational director of the company, they decided to invest in services. Ri Happy began to inform about immunization, prevention against violence against kids, sports, among other themes, and the employees began to teach the parents about the most adequate toys for each age. The staff would receive instruction on childhood. The ads in the newspapers brought activities for the kids, such as word searches and games.<\/p>\n The stores were decorated with many themes, such as pirates, and promoted campaigns, through which they would fulfill the dreams of an employee and a client of the same store. \u201cWhen one of the stores was selected to fulfill the dream of an employee, someone from the community was also elected,\u201d says Sayon. The company gave from wheelchairs to trips to Paris, renovations of houses and 15-year-olds birthday parties. When Ri Happy was sold it had 111 stores and Ricardo Sayon was being invited to give lectures about the case in Brazil and abroad.<\/p>\n Ri Happy\u2019s buyer was the American corporation Carlyle. Sayon and Saba initially held on to 15% of shares, but in 2014 they sold their stake in the company. Pare Bem, other large business of Sayon, had 60-plus parking lots during its peak and was, at a time, Brazil\u2019s second largest parking lot chain. It was also sold, almost at the same time of when they sold their remaining stake at Ri Happy.<\/p>\n Sayon is occasionally invited to give lectures on entrepreneurship and now fill his days with the management of the malls. For instance, the mall Shopping P\u00e1tio Pinda is a venture developed by him and his partner Saba. \u201cEvery entrepreneur has an itch: that life will only be complete if he does something,\u201d says Sayon, when asked about the reasons for being involved in some many projects. Innovation always drove him, he admits.<\/p>\n In the space he occupies in an office building in Bela Vista district, there are some figures of little suns spread out, the symbol of Ri Happy, plus some symbols of Palmeiras \u2013 the team of which he\u2019s a fan. A written Arab prayer decorates the wall behind his chair. A fan of his father, whose life story he tells with pride, Ricardo has much of Lebanon in his own story. Among the memories, the ones from his parent\u2019s house, which was always with its doors open to the family\u2019s friends.<\/p>\n \u201cAt Thursday\u2019s supper and Sunday\u2019s lunch, Arab food was always served. The doors were open to friends, mine\u2019s and theirs. My mother would cook for 50 (people), she didn\u2019t know how many would show up. You could do anything but couldn\u2019t miss Thursday\u2019s supper and Sunday\u2019s lunch. Only if someone had died to miss those, otherwise you were kicked out of the family,\u201d he jokes. His father had two groups of friends, one of them with only Lebanese friends. And Ricardo Sayon does the same: friends of Arab descent with whom he has been playing tranca (a card game) for over 30 years.<\/p>\n Sayon visited Lebanon around ten years ago and he\u2019s planning to return this year with his two daughters. The businessman knows half of the world, but says that he\u2019s never been with a people so \u201cfamily\u201c and generous such as the Lebanese people. Even without any immediate family in the country, he says he was welcomed as a brother. \u201cI went to visit the small house where my grandfather, Manoel Sayon, was born, a very simple house in Hasbaya, a very poor village. The Druse man that lived there invited me to come in, drink some juice, eat some dessert,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The invasion of the city by the Druze was exactly the reason by which Ricardo Sayon\u2019s grandfather from his father\u2019s side was sent to Brazil at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century when he was 15 years old. \u201c(He) was one of the first Lebanese immigrants to arrive in Brazil,\u201d says Sayon. He worked in a farm, sold products door-to-door and later opened a small grocery store at the community that later became the city of Ibitinga. An entrepreneur, Manoel\u2019s businesses ranged from a farm to trade and industry.<\/p>\n Ricardo Sayon\u2019s grandfather from his mother\u2019s side, Rachid Rayes, also was a businessman, sold products door-to-door, opened a store, owned a farm. He settled in the city of Borborema. His grandmothers, also Lebanese, were homemakers. Despite being born in the countryside of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, Sayon\u2019s father and mother met in the capital of the state, when Sayon\u2019s father spotted his future wife walking alongside the nuns near the Catholic school in which she attended. \u201cHe fell in love.\u201c<\/p>\n In the trip that he\u2019s planning to Lebanon, Ricardo Sayon wants his daughters to know the place of origin of the family. As a good Arab man, the businessman talks with proud and tenderness about his children \u2013 and of his wife, of his second marriage, that began 32 years ago. Recently, Sayon had a scare: lung cancer. It was an early diagnosis and he recovered. The illness brought new activities to his life: exercises and the smoking habit left behind.<\/p>\n Outspoken, enthusiastic and simple in style, it seems the businessman had answered the prayer stamped on his office\u2019s wall: \u201cMy God! If you would give me wealth, don\u2019t take away my happiness; if you give me strength, don\u2019t take it away my good senses; if it was given to me to prosper, don\u2019t allow me to lose my modesty.\u201d<\/p>\n Translated by S\u00e9rgio Kakitani<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/escaesco.com.br\/lab\/anba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/SAT_0991rs_proc-300x215.jpg\")
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