Guest: Chaye Cabal-Revilla, EVP, Chief Finance, Risk and Sustainability Officer, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), Chief Executive Officer, mWell
In this episode, we are joined by Chaye Cabal-Revilla, EVP & Chief Finance, Risk and Sustainability Officer, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), and Chief Executive Officer, mWell. Chaye shares her extensive background and experiences, and discusses the role of financial metrics in quantifying and strengthening ESG (environmental, social & governance) goals and efforts within the MPIC group. Chaye also shares her viewpoint on the implementation of technology in the field of healthcare to improve the lives of Filipinos.
Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC) is a Philippine investment management and holding company, specializing in infrastructure assets. MPIC aims to enhance their business through acquisitions, partnerships, and regulatory collaboration to boost operational efficiency and expand customer reach.
Guest: Chaye Cabal-Revilla, EVP, Chief Finance, Risk and Sustainability Officer, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), Chief Executive Officer, mWell
In this episode, we are joined by Chaye Cabal-Revilla, EVP & Chief Finance, Risk and Sustainability Officer, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), and Chief Executive Officer, mWell. Chaye shares her extensive background and experiences, and discusses the role of financial metrics in quantifying and strengthening ESG (environmental, social & governance) goals and efforts within the MPIC group. Chaye also shares her viewpoint on the implementation of technology in the field of healthcare to improve the lives of Filipinos.
Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC) is a Philippine investment management and holding company, specializing in infrastructure assets. MPIC aims to enhance their business through acquisitions, partnerships, and regulatory collaboration to boost operational efficiency and expand customer reach.
The AIBP ASEAN B2B Growth Podcast is a series of fireside chats with business leaders in Southeast Asia focused on growth in the region. Topics discussed include business strategy, sales and marketing, enterprise technology and innovation.
Irza Suprapto:Hello and welcome to the ASEAN Innovation Business Platform B2B Growth Podcast where we sit down with business leaders driving growth for businesses in the Southeast Asian region. Today we have a very special guest with us dialling in all the way from the Philippines. For some reasons we seem to have a lot of guests from the Philippines this year, but I promise you, Ms. Chaye is someone who is a little bit special. I will try to introduce her, though I think she will do a better job of doing it herself. But Ms. Chaye is actually the Chief Finance, Risks and Sustainability Officer at Metro Pacific Investment Corporation, which is a leading infrastructure investment company with holdings in a range of businesses including energy, water, tollway and healthcare. So, Ms. Chaye, you have a lot of titles. I think I shall leave you to introduce yourself and what you do. I think the audience will be particularly interested to learn about, you know, how you ended up in your role today.
Ms Chaye - MPIC:So hello, AIBP family. Thank you for inviting us. I'm Chaye Cabal-Revilla, yes, coming from Manila now. So Metro Pacific Investments Corporation is a leading infrastructure company in the country. We do, as Irza said earlier, we are into power water, toll roads, health care, real estate, light rail, food and agri waste management and many more. So we basically touched the lives of Filipinos in more ways than one.
Irza Suprapto:A lot of ways. And I'm sure you have a lot on your plate, you know, holding the roles of finance, risk, and sustainability officer. Ms. Chaye, just give us a background, you know, with regards to your background, and how you ended up in your role, because, you know, there are very few people that I know of who runs all three portfolios, risk, finance and sustainability. And I know you care a lot about sustainability. I think that was the first thing that struck me when I met you for the first time last year, or a couple of years ago.
Ms Chaye - MPIC:So I'm actually part of the MVP group of companies that the Philippine portfolio for specific, I was with PLDT Smart, the telco group, for like 21 years. And I'm having the mandate to expand sustainability across the group. I was asked to come here to Metro Pacific. So we do sustainability from a bigger impact and a bigger group perspective.
Irza Suprapto:And your background. You started out within finance, is that correct?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Yeah. So I'm really a CPA by profession. So I started with SGV, or EY, when I was 10 years old. So yeah, that's my background. I'm a CPA. So finance, yes.
Irza Suprapto:Okay. You know, I think one thing we want to touch upon today specifically, is within the sustainability portion of your portfolio. In the recent annual report, for example, you mentioned that placing sustainability at the core of what you do, pushes you to be more agile and responsive, dealing with changes, you know, now required to address the country's different problems. Maybe you want to talk about examples about how sustainable practices are being run within the MPIC group.
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Well, in the MPIC group, it's really, sustainability is really part of our DNA and our ways of doing. It wasn't as bifurcated as it was before. When say, for example, sustainability ESG related topics are separate in the budget, or the OPEX there. Now, it's really intertwined, because we've had this integrated way of thinking and doing for many years now and it has really proven effective for us, because we are mindful of everything from a holistic and end to end approach. So our take on sustainability is really on
four aspects:economic, environmental, social, and governance. So other companies look at sustainability as ESG, but we look at economic plus ESG. And it gives us a better way of taking stock of our performance from a holistic perspective. And when you talk about integrated thinking and reporting, we are also able to integrate the impact and the value creation that we provide to our many stakeholders, again, on that ESG or holistic end to end approach. Because before, finance or economic was looked at as a separate thing from ESG, right, ESG was just nice to have. But the very nature of ESG is really, it's not different. It's intertwined because the environmental, social aspects and governance aspects affect our economic or financials, for example, with the Category Five storms that we experienced in the Philippines, because we're one of the hotspot countries in terms of climate change, and we're one of the, one of two highest countries in the climate index risk. So any Category Five storms will affect our businesses and our communities and our people, our customers, our suppliers, our full value chain, right, so which affects our economics, obviously. And then for social, if our employees are happy, then they stay with us, and are more productive, and our customers are more loyal, because they're happy, the communities that we are enabling to improve are also, also become our customers in the long run. So it actually expands our revenue opportunities. Maybe I go back to the environment, again, if we are not prepared, we're not resilient, then we end up losing our service, meaning we cannot collect revenues or you know, to our subscribers. For example, if our poles, Meralco poles are down, because we were not able to fortify it from a risk perspective, in terms of higher storms, and whatever, then we lose our ability to be able to provide service and obviously get revenues from it. And so there's also a customer experience aspect in that. In terms of governance, the way our stakeholders trust us, because of the things that we do, help not only our share price, our ESG ratings, but really, on an overall perspective. It really strengthened us as a business and as a group.
Irza Suprapto:Was that something, this is something I'm quite interested in, because I think, we've spoken to quite a few Chief Sustainability officers in the region. Not many of them, I must say, actually come from a finance background. In fact, very few people do. You know, in the typical view of the
world:sustainability people are the nice people, and the finance people are the cruel people, right? But when I first met you, you mentioned that, you know, tell me anything that is sustainability related, and we'll find a metric, a financial metric to tie it to. And even today, I think we are seeing a lot of startups in the sustainability space, a lot of it is linked into financial reporting and analysing financial data to look at how a company is doing well on the ESG front. But for yourself, you know, you are in sustainability way before it became such a big thing. What actually, was it something that was incorporated within, you know, the MVP group? Was it something that you cared about personally? How did that come about? That's something I'm interested in.
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Oh, when we started the sustainability back in PLDT and Smart, it was more of an advocacy because, one, it was not required. So we did our sustainability reporting in terms of voluntary reporting approach.
Irza Suprapto:Which year was this? When was this?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:2015, and the Philippines' SEC required all publicly listed companies to submit the sustainability reports, I think for a year in 2020. Yeah. So we were five years, so we had a head start in studying the sustainability standard, and learning from any global alliances where we can actually learn from so maybe it was easier for me to take on both roles, because one, at that time, the mindset was that it was nice to have and it was not necessary. So it sort of gave me the push to put numbers into sustainability because that was how everybody understood what needed to be prioritised at that time, right? Because if it had no financial impact to the business, then why do it? Yeah, you get what I mean? And so it was maybe a, how do I see this? It was designed providentially because when I was asked a difficult questions, I was able to answer using financial metrics on why we should be doing sustainability.
Irza Suprapto:Which always makes sense for a publicly listed entity, right?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:That's correct. Because most stakeholders, even up to this time, you really look at the financial impact, you know, that the numbers really speak for itself. And what we have done was to put a number, an impact to the economics and share price, etc. That made everybody embrace it.
Irza Suprapto:I think that's still something a lot of companies in not just in the Philippines, but in Southeast Asia, are struggling with, the idea of how to play sustainability and what you call the economic impact to share price performance, or even financial performance of the firm. So you're great advocate for that. And it's nice to see what you're doing in the Philippines. And I think a lot of our listeners are actually from overseas outside of the Southeast Asian region. Just to give some background context, in the Philippine, the GDP per capita stands somewhere about what, 3000, 4000 per year. So it's not like when Ms. Chaye says, you know, sustainability was nice to have in 2015, there were a lot of other pressing issues, which first needed to be solved. So it's actually very, very nice to see that group like MVP actually focused on something like that. Let's talk about the other businesses within Metro Pacific. Let's talk about what you're doing. You know, you talk about UNSDG, and then you talk about sustainability. MPIC is actually doing quite a lot of things within agriculture and healthcare as well. We'll get to mWell a bit later on. But do you want to give an overview of what you're doing within the agriculture space as well?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Well, our foray into food and agri was basically to address the food security need in the country. When the pandemic happened, and when, when all logistics movements stopped, right. And, and the challenge for the country was that we were importing most of the food requirements that we had. And, you know, God forbid, if another pandemic happens, and some logistics freeze happen, then how would we feed the country? And so that's really part also of our epic purpose to be able to contribute to national progress and really help in terms of the day to day lives of the Filipinos here, and thus we went into food and agri.
Irza Suprapto:Okay. And now the main gist, you also are the CEO of mWell, right, which is, which was for us with the winning project from the 2023 ABB ASEAN Enterprise Innovation Awards from the Philippines. Congratulations once again. mWell is a convergence of, it's a company which converges tech and healthcare. And I understand, you know, right now, there are a lot of problems that are trying to be solved in Southeast Asia, one is obviously access to basic IT infrastructure, two would be financial services, because we are completely, we are very, very, very much underbanked here in Southeast Asia, not just in Philippines, in Indonesia, and some parts of Thailand, Vietnam, as well. And healthcare, healthcare is something that I think mWell focuses on, do you just want to tell us a little bit more about mWell, how it came about and what actually you're doing within the Philippines?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:So, mWell is actually an integrated health So mWell, when was mWell started again? And how long has it been and wellness platform, you know. And maybe it was at the right time to do this for us in the group because having come from the telco group, we know that the data penetration of Filipinos is on the high level. And therefore you just need to be able to take, tap on that opportunity to be able to provide another thing other than fintech. So health tech and wellness tech or however we call it, and it just didn't happen when the when the pandemic happened to things. Right, people were constrained from getting out and seeing doctors, and number two, our hospital group was also full. And so we had two issues, number one, to be able to provide safe medical care and consultation to the people wherever they may be, and also to provide opportunities for doctors wherever they need to be able to help out. Because having a digital platform makes our health accessibility borderless, right? And number two, it was really to support our hospital group which had few beds at that time. And we want to supplement the services by providing non critical care through our digital platform. in existence? So, mWell basically started during the pandemic, but we had to get out of the old platforms that was used, because it was not meant for the Filipino market. So maybe as an example, so because it's in their national platform and design, you know, with an international culture where people come on time. So for example, if the appointment is at three o'clock, you have the doctor, and the patient has to be there at three o'clock, you know, on the dot, right, but Philippine time, either the doctor is late or the patient is late, and so that booking gets cancelled automatically. And so we had to customise and do a digital waiting room such that you are given, say, three, five minutes to wait for each other before the booking gets cancelled, things like that; small things, but critical things right, that enable the doctors and the patients to meet. Also, from a Philippines context, there's not much doctors in the regional areas. So based on the World Health Organization's requirement, you have to have one doctor for every 10,000, or three doctors for every 10,000, we had less than that, because the concentration of the doctors are actually in Metro Manila. And so having the digital platform enabled Manila doctors to be able to service Filipinos outside the cities, right. And then because our platform was made locally, it was not geolocked, so we are able to also service the overseas Filipino workers, 20 million of them 20-30 million of them outside the Philippines, where they are given the opportunity to talk to Filipino doctors in their language, you know, they mean, so it gives them comfort and a peace of mind.
Irza Suprapto:Yeah, but looking at that, I mean, the number of doctors in the Philippines as a ratio to the population is still fairly low, right, but I guess this makes it a little bit more efficient for them. Can they actually support, you know, local Filipinos as well as overseas Filipinos?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Yes, actually, um, the point is, it really depends on how the platform is able to support the doctors and the patients. So we actually developed and transformed over time. So in the case of doctors, for example, we added the patient records and being able to onboard digitally using optimal optical character recognition, so that there is enough time for the doctors to be able to care for the patient, rather than doing the records, you know what I mean? So even the electronic certificate, medical certification, electronic prescription, the ability to be able to push the e-prescription directly to the drugstores and being delivered to the doorsteps of the patients, we have been able to develop that over time, because we wanted the doctors to have optimal time in servicing many patients. And that's why the things that the doctors had to do, manually, we had to digitise for them to have, you know, more productive time and be able to get care for more patients. And we also worked with the telco, our sister company PLDT, because key to the good service is good connectivity, right? So if you're an MO doctor, we provide a discount on the fibre data subscription from our sister company to sort of have a bundled overall service because we really want to take care of the doctors because during the pandemic, they were our real heroes, right?
Irza Suprapto:Yeah, and I think that's the wonderful thing about in the Philippines, as always, in Indonesia and Thailand, there are quite a few conglomerates who have different business units, who can then come together to provide what you call bundled services to actually, I guess, provide ease of access for different kinds of technologies or even services and products, that's wonderful. Ms Chaye, thank you very much for the overview on mWell. Before I let you go though, I would like to pick your brain a little bit on a couple of things. So for yourself, you know, you've been in MPIC for a while, MPIC is going through some changes now, a lot of changes, and it's still growing, what does innovation mean for you, as well as the MPIC group going forward?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Innovation actually would be the process of being able to continue to improve ourselves, having that sensitivity, and the empathy to address the pain points and the needs of our customers, of our stakeholders to be able to make things easy for everybody, in terms of experience, employee experience, customer experience, in the case of mWell doctor experience, because that's what technology is about. And we look at our businesses not on a static basis, but on a dynamic basis, because you cannot stand still, because the world continues to revolve evolve and move, right. So then we have to move in the same way. And that has always been one of our sustainability pillars, because the things that are useful now may not be useful in the next few years. And therefore we should be, you know, mindful of that, and being able to proactively take a look at what, what the next you know, cutting edge technology or requirements or needs of the market will be in respect of the essential services that we do.
Irza Suprapto:Yeah, and Ms. Chaye saying this not just as as buzzwords or using it lightly, because we actually had the pleasure of visiting her in the office and talking about doing what's new. Ms. Chaye actually runs weekly Zumba lessons, right? Daily now; daily Zumba lessons where she has this big TV, and it's all the latest Tiktok dances as well. So if you get the chance to visit the Philippines and Ms. Chaye in her office, I can assure you it will be a very, very interesting visit. Last question, Ms. Chaye, before I really let you go, you know, looking forward, you know, in the Philippines, I think you've been involved in quite a bit of work not just within the Philippines, in the region, as well as globally in your role as finance, risk and sustainability officers. What are you excited about when it comes to growth in the Philippines as well as the greatest Southeast Asian ASEAN region in the next three to five years?
Ms Chaye - MPIC:There's many things to be excited about. But to us, what fuels us is really how we are able to make a difference in the lives of many, to be able to uplift them up, and maybe to raise everybody up in a level that will make them live better lives. And that's why we have been doing many things out of the extraordinary or expected ways that we are supposed to do business. Because we care about, you know, our stakeholders and the people around us and our environment, of course, because everything that we have surrounding us in all capitals, natural capital, social capital, etc, are equally important. We cannot dispense one over the other. And because everything is interlinked, that at the end of the day, we are stewards of God's blessings, right. So that's why we have to take care of our environment and of each other as people, because that's what we're supposed to do.
Irza Suprapto:That's such a nice thing. And I can assure you, Ms. Chaye is taking care of the people who work for her because as reminded, she does Zumba lessons every day in the office. And Philippines is going to continue to be interesting for us because it's one of the fastest growing economies here in Southeast Asia as well. And we'll obviously keep a lookout for continued growth by MPIC, your MVP companies as well as the greater Philippines. Ms. Chaye, thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today. And I'll see you hopefully next time again, the next Zumba class you host okay.
Ms Chaye - MPIC:Yes, see you and thank you for the opportunity.
Irza Suprapto:Thank you Ms. Chaye.
Voice Over:We hope you've enjoyed the episode. For more information about business growth in the ASEAN region, please visit our website www.iotbusiness-platform.com.