By the top of the annual stockholders’ assembly of Globe Telecom Inc. on April 22, Ernest Cu will step down as its president and CEO after an eventful 16-year stint that noticed the as soon as trailing firm rework right into a constant market chief.
Certainly, the 64-year-old is retiring from one of many predominant engines of the Ayala Group that has turn into far greater, higher and extra worthwhile than the one he took over in 2009.
The stellar numbers supply proof.
Globe ended that troublesome 12 months coming off the worldwide financial disaster with an 11-percent development in web revenue to P12.6 billion, pushed largely by development in its cell, broadband and company information enterprise. Its cell subscriber base then was pegged at 23.2 million.
Quick ahead to 2024—his final full 12 months within the driver’s seat—and Globe’s revenues soared to a report P165 billion, 2 p.c greater than the 12 months prior, as key segments from cell to broadband and monetary know-how options delivered development, leading to a web revenue of P24.3 billion.
Its cell buyer base likewise ended at 60.9 million from 57 million in 2023, nearly triple the quantity at the beginning of his time period.
Extra importantly, Globe has advanced over 16 years into its personal group of corporations providing options that embody cell, mounted, broadband and information connectivity companies to satisfy the telecommunications and know-how wants of shoppers and companies.
Plus, it has pursuits in monetary know-how, digital advertising and marketing options and enterprise capital funding for startups.
Cu has additionally performed a job in furthering monetary inclusion within the nation via GCash, which is making ready to record on the Philippine Inventory Alternate.
With Globe firing on extra cylinders that may guarantee its continued development, Cu believes that it’s “the very best time to go” and provides solution to new blood.
Succession
Taking his place is 54-year-old Carl Raymond Cruz, former CEO and managing director of Nigerian market chief Airtel Nigeria, who has been reporting to Cu as deputy CEO from Jan. 1 this 12 months.
“It’s a secure time within the trade. Margins are up, inventory worth is up, market share is secure so it’s a good time to step off the bus,” Cu tells Sunday Biz.
Cruz, he says, is greater than able to leveraging Globe’s strengths and elevating it to the following stage. However his fervent hope is that his successor will protect the customer-centric tradition within the firm that took years to develop right into a power.
Beneath Cu’s visionary management, Globe launched into a purpose-led transformation in 2016 to create a extra sustainable group.
On the high of its values is to place prospects first.
With its renewed mission, imaginative and prescient and core values, collectively embodied within the new Globe objective, the corporate has set its sights on contributing to nation constructing via its expanded suite of services and products.
By embracing disruption and doubling down on placing prospects on the heart of its operations, Cu says Globe reworked crises into alternatives for substantial development.
“That’s actually what took us to management. Alongside the tradition of centricity is the tradition of collaboration, that idea of buddies on a mission. It’s our tenet,” he says, “At one level the mission was [for Globe] to turn into primary within the trade. Now it’s to proceed to assist the Filipino individuals via digital means.”
The entrepreneur
That Cu was capable of make Globe into the dominant market participant he attributes partly to his background as a profitable entrepreneur.
Previous to becoming a member of globe in 2008, the Industrial Administration Engineering graduate of De La Salle College was rising SPi Applied sciences, a methods software program and know-how options firm that he based and led as president and CEO from 1997 to 2008.
He was there within the early days of the enterprise course of outsourcing (BPO) sector that has since turn into one of many nation’s predominant sources of greenback earnings.
Cu is widely known as one of many founding fathers of the BPO sector within the nation, and his pioneering spirit was acknowledged in 2003 when he was named ICT Entrepreneur of the 12 months by Ernest & Younger.
Being an entrepreneur, he explains, permits him to view the panorama “a bit extra in a different way” in comparison with executives who have been shaped inside a strict company construction.
This labored properly for him as a result of this allowed Globe to take calculated dangers and transfer extra rapidly.
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“That’s the reason whenever you take a look at the values of Globe, they’re nearly an entrepreneurial set of values. This encourages individuals to innovate, encourages individuals to take dangers, encourages individuals to maneuver rapidly. These are the tenets of an entrepreneur and people are the issues that I introduced into Globe,” he says.