It was the late ’90s when Troy Arquiza, a fresh-faced graduate in his early twenties, spotted an anonymous newspaper advert calling for engineers.
“I put my résumé forward and found out afterward that it was actually with Bacardí,” Arquiza recalls to Fortune.
Arquiza, who had studied industrial engineering, was swiftly flown out from his hometown in the Philippines to the bright lights of Hong Kong for an interview.
Having landed the job, Arquiza embarked on an intense three-year trainee engineering program in the Bahamas—beginning with learning the ropes in the fermentation department.
The plan was for Arquiza to be redeployed to Asia where Bacardí was, at the time, rapidly expanding.
“But as the Asian financial crisis came, a lot of the companies put their projects of expansion on hold,” he says. “During that time, of course, [my role] got affected as well.”
A can-do attitude goes far
Like many workers who have faced diminishing job prospects after an economic crash, Arquiza was forced to pivot his career.
He turned to the late Manuel Jorge Cutillas—Bacardí’s former chairman and the great-great-grandson of the company’s founder, Don Facundo Bacardí Massó—for advice, who unexpectedly offered him a job as a blender.
Why? Arquiza says that his boss saw he was a “very good worker,” a can-do type of guy.
“I gave everything that was assigned to me 110%,” he said. “I call myself the ninja, I like to be in the shadows. Whatever support or information someone needs, I provide.”
Blending wasn’t a career Arquiza ever envisioned himself in, but he gave it his “best shot,” as always, and the rest is history.
More than two decades later he holds the role of a lifetime.
The legendary Jose “Joe” Gomez had served the company for over 40 years as its master blender, or maestro de ron, before the top job was passed to Arquiza.
Now, Arquiza oversees every drop of Bacardí sold across more than 160 markets—in 2022 reporting volume sales of 21.1 million nine-liter cases.
Embrace being different
When Arquiza first reported for business as Gomez’s new rum blender, his imagination ran wild with various concoctions he could invent.
Yet his boss, who had already been honing his craft for more than 20 years to perfect the brand’s 160-year-old recipe, was more reserved.
This is something he tried to instill in Arquiza.
“Joe is a lot more [focused] on the traditional, classical rum,” Gomez says, saying he always enjoyed experimenting with flavored drinks. “I have a funny streak. Sometimes I'd do gung-ho things and he really tried to taper me down.”
But actually being different, even if he jokes that he has since “mellowed,” is ultimately what’s made Arquiza stand out.
“Industrial engineering focuses on efficiency: There's always a better way,” he says, adding that his peers mostly come from a chemistry background. “When I’m faced with a challenge or a new task, I look at it with a curious eye and I’m not afraid to ask, ‘Why are we doing this? Can it be done this way?’”
This fresh perspective meant Arquiza has been able to streamline processes, make the company more efficient, and free up his fellow blenders to have more time to innovate.
Still, his promotion to master blender at the end of 2021 came as a surprise. “I wasn't really expecting it at all. I guess he [Gomez] kind of liked me,” Arquiza laughs.
It wasn’t only his engineering background or playful blending that threw doubt in Arquiza eye’s that he’d ever earn the coveted top spot, but also, his ethnicity: “All the previous master blenders are either Cuban Mexican, or Puerto Rican, not a Filipino.
“My advice is, just don't lose your curiosity, always give it your best shot, and do not be afraid to ask questions."
Make the most of experience
It would be easy to assume that Arquiza would try to make a name for himself with his experimental flavors. That couldn't be further from the case.
“To this day Gomez and I exchange a lot of WhatsApp messages,” he said. “Especially now that he's retired and traveling a lot, if he encounters new stuff in a cocktail that he’s drinking, he’ll send me: ‘Troy, try this.'”
Few leaders would take orders from a former boss, but Arquiza welcomes his mentor's steer.
When Arquiza switched the rum’s cask from sherry to rye, Gomez was the first person he asked for feedback.
“He really loved it,” he beams. “We always get his opinion about the new stuff."
Arquiza explained: "It's not just out of respect, but also with his vast experience over the 41 years that he spent with Bacardí, he can gauge the possibility of success of the new product we're launching.”
Ultimately, Arquiza believes future-proofing the brand for its customers and 9,000 employees speaks more to his leadership than making a point of being the company's new master blender with a risky launch.
“The recipe of Bacardí’s success has always been about quality and doing things the right way at the start," he adds. "That's the first thing that I could focus on right now, just keeping that legacy for the next 160 years.”
