Eric and Bea Dee are building a life and a business based on partnership, purpose and mutual goals

As the doors roll up and the store finally opened, Eric stepped outside and sat quietly on a bench. Tourists wandered in. Thai shoppers lingered over lipstick shades. Customers tried on sunglasses, customised their flasks, ordered coffee and made time for eye consultations. They were engaging with the brand exactly as customers did back home in the Philippines. In that moment, Eric sent a message to Bea, who was unable to travel because she was pregnant with their third child, and their team. “I think we made it,” he said, full of joy, teeming with pride. 

To this day, Bea still teases him about it. Every time the story comes up, she says, Eric becomes emotional. Perhaps because the opening represented far more than a successful expansion. Every person who helped build that store was Filipino. Every detail had been imagined, developed and executed by a team from home. “It felt like we were given an opportunity,” Eric says. “And we had to do it well to open the gates for every other Filipino brand that hopes one day to be a global player.”

Read also: Sunnies Studios’ Martine Ho on building a wildly trendy and thriving lifestyle empire

Long before Sunnies, there was Charlie, the fashion retail venture that Eric and Bea speak of with a kind of reverence. Charlie was where they learnt how difficult entrepreneurship truly is. There were no shortcuts. No large teams. There were only two young founders figuring things out one day at a time.

They worked overnight visual merchandising shifts. They chased supplies through flooded streets in Divisoria. Eric once carried pattern paper above his head while rain poured relentlessly. At four in the morning, Bea squeezed into crowded textile warehouses, racing seasoned buyers toward towering piles of fabric. 

Looking back, those years seem almost unbelievable. Yet they remain among the couple’s most treasured memories. “We were so lucky,” Bea says. “That first business taught us everything we needed to learn to make our next business succeed.” More importantly, it taught them how to navigate difficulty together.

Sunnies began with a simple red box before it became a retail empire. “We came up with a nicely packaged box of six in a bright red colour that said Sunnies by Charlie,” Eric recalls. “We gifted it to friends.” The timing proved fortuitous. Instagram was still in its infancy. Influencer marketing had not yet become an industry. Seeding campaigns had no name. Around a hundred people received the package. What happened next surprised everyone. “Every single person posted,” Bea says.

The red box did more than create awareness. It attracted the people who would eventually help shape Sunnies into what it is today. The first to arrive was Georgina who was one of their friends who received the red box. She instantly recognised the brand’s potential and asked to become involved. Through Georgina came her cousin, Martine Cajucom-Ho, then based in Los Angeles, who helped develop the brand’s earliest visual identity. Years later, Jessica Wilson would join ahead of the launch of Sunnies Face.

The formula sounds simple but the reality is considerably more complicated. “I’m working with my husband. George is working with her family, her cousin and her sister. We’re working alongside each other as friends. All the things that everybody said not to do, we did,” says Bea. Together, they navigate a business that many would consider an impossible arrangement and yet, more than a decade later, they remain intact.

When asked what they meant to each other, the couple clearly states: Bea brings vision; Eric brings structure. To illustrate, Bea explains that if she dreams of opening a hundred stores, her husband would insist on building ten excellent ones first. Together, they polish ideas until both perspectives become stronger. “I’ve never done it without her. So I wouldn’t know what that even feels like. It’s very fulfilling to be with someone you love 24/7, building a life you both dream of together,” says Eric. “I respect his strengths and we guide each other in the daily and in the future outlook,” Bea says simply. Mutual respect, they believe, is what allows relationships and even businesses to endure.

Over the years, the couple found themselves drawing heavily from the example set by Eric’s parents, seasoned restaurateurs Rikki and Beng Dee, whose lessons often arrived not in formal boardrooms but around the family dining table.

For Eric, those conversations provided a masterclass in execution and long-term thinking. “My parents always instilled in me the importance of executing something end-to-end, not leaving anything unfinished,” he says. Bea, who has spent years listening to those discussions firsthand, describes them as an education in themselves. “I’ve learnt so much from them, especially work ethics,” she says. Some of the most valuable lessons centred not only on business success, but on longevity. Family dynamics, succession planning, sustainability and stewardship were recurring themes. “You don’t think one year. You think 20, 30, 40, 50. We want to be there for the long term,” Bea says.

Beyond the business wisdom passed down by Rikki and Beng, Eric and Bea want to instill an additional, core lesson in their three children (Braeden, 11; Billie, 8; and newborn Benesse Eliane): the pursuit of happiness. “They have to enjoy what they’re doing. It might be simple, but now I understand what people mean by it, and this is something that we’d like to share with our kids. We just want them to learn to appreciate the daily small joys of life, to laugh heartily and to be kind,” Eric says. Furthermore, in today’s often chaotic world, the couple hopes to raise loving individuals. “I just want them to be kind, healthy, and to love each other. If you have that, everything will fall into place,” shares Bea. 

Now a family of five, Eric and Bea ensure that they give time to their children despite their busy schedules. “They see that in us everyday and in the way we prioritise being together for meals and taking time to travel and bond together,” says Eric. “We have no gadgets when we are eating. At the same time we have set schedules for board games, walking, movie nights and tennis. We also keep them close to us at night. They still sleep in our room and it really helps bring us closer together. We also make sure we have fun together in the activities that we do.” 

Fifteen years in, Bea and Eric prove that enduring businesses and lasting relationships—whether marriage or friendship—share the exact same foundation: trust, mutual respect and a shared conviction that the future is something worth building together.

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