Pioneering EESG & Digital Innovation in Philippines Financial Landscape

Chaye Cabal is an experienced business leader from Philippines’ Financial Landscape. She currently serves as the Treasurer at Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation from the past 14 years and at PLDT-Smart Foundation for over 18 years. In addition, she has given 2 decades of her professional journey to PLDT. She’s also the concurrent chief executive officer of mWell.

In a recent conversation with the Global Woman Leader Magazine, Chaye discusses about the evolution of Philippines’ finance landscape, especially post the pandemic. She talks about GDP,economic metrics anddigital healthcare platform. Emphasisng on automation and digitalization, she talks about traditional finance tasks and Economic plus ESG while shedding light on sustainability initiatives (not specifically CSR). Chaye also speaks about digital solutions.

Read out the article to know more.

How do you perceive the current financial landscape in the Philippines? What unique opportunities or challenges do you see emerging for finance leaders?

The Philippines has effectively optimized its post-pandemic recovery. Among Southeast Asian countries, we have consistently demonstrated growth across GDP and other economic metrics. Every challenge, like the pandemic, also brings opportunities. We focused on ensuring essential services such as electricity, water (one of our core businesses), healthcare, and infrastructure remained available. Digitalization played a key role in achieving this.

Our post-pandemic strategies prioritized both customer and employee experience, with a shift towards technology and digitalization to address evolving touchpoints. The pandemic accelerated digital adoption across markets, and customers are now more open to digital solutions. This shift has also unlocked complementary business opportunities, such as mWell, the digital healthcare arm of our Metro Pacific Health business.

During the pandemic, hospital congestion and a shortage of doctors and nurses became critical challenges. To address this, we expanded access to healthcare professionals, considering the limited availability of doctors in the Philippines. The World Health Organization recommends one doctor per 10,000 people, but in urban areas, our ratio is 1:26,000, and in rural areas, it's 1:40,000. For mental healthcare, the gap is even wider, with only one psychologist for every 100,000 people.

Our digital healthcare platform now allows doctors to reach patients across the Philippines' 7,000+ islands, overcoming geographic constraints. It also extends care to the 20 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) supporting families back home. Recognizing the importance of mental health, which  we refer to as "mind health" to avoid stigma, the platform provides mind health scores through WHO-sanctioned assessments and self-help modules.

Through these initiatives, we not only addressed challenges but also transformed them into opportunities, enhancing customer experience and expanding our portfolio with new revenue streams.

What unconventional strategies have you found effective in turning around struggling companies to achieve profitability and stability? Can you provide insights on specific metrics you use to assess turn around success?

The MPEG group has achieved double-digit growth by adopting a unique approach called EESG, which adds economic KPIs to the traditional ESG framework (environment, social, governance). While many organizations focus solely on ESG, we balance all four aspects economic and ESG using a comprehensive scorecard to guide our strategies.

One of our unconventional strategies involves addressing internal and external pain points to improve both employee and customer experiences, which enhances cost efficiency, brand value, and opens new revenue streams. We believe happy employees deliver better service, so we focus heavily on employee wellness and satisfaction.

We also link sustainability initiatives with community programs, not as mere CSR efforts but as sustainable advocacy. By uplifting communities, they become economically empowered, which benefits our core services such as water, power, toll roads, and healthcare creating a multiplier effect.

People are at the heart of our strategy. Even with the right technology and plans, success depends on our employees. We’ve invested in their well-being and aligned them with our EESG goals, treating them as stakeholders. Unlike other companies, where sustainability-linked compensation is limited to top management, we’ve cascaded EESG KPIs across all levels, with incentives tied to collective performance. Achieving EESG targets earns a bonus on top of financial rewards, while missing them results in a deduction, ensuring everyone has a stake in meeting these goals.

What innovative approaches have you implemented to optimize cost structures without compromising quality or service delivery? How do these strategies align with priority trends?

Over the past five years, we’ve heavily invested in automation and digitalization. This has made us more cost-efficient while enabling employees to focus on strategic, higher-value work instead of routine tasks like processing transactions. We also re-engineered processes to reduce steps for example, cutting tasks from 10 steps to three or four. This shorter process cycle helps us go to market faster and better meet customer needs, while allowing quick adjustments when necessary.

As part of automation efforts, we’ve implemented daily dashboards, not just monthly ones. These give real-time insights into our business performance, such as daily traffic on toll roads or rail ridership.

This allows us to optimize usage, strategize for high-traffic periods, and provide customer notifications similar to navigation apps advising users on the best times to travel.

We’ve also developed dashboards for healthcare, with a focus on predictive analytics. At mWell, for instance, our platform integrates with health devices like Apple Watch, Samsung, Fitbit, or Garmin. While these gadgets provide raw statistics, mWell delivers a tangible health score that users can track daily, covering areas like physical activity and sleep. Our goal is to help users improve their well-being by identifying trends. For example, maintaining a score above 80 over a year suggests a lower risk of chronic disease, while consistently low scores signal potential risks. By leveraging this data, we aim to improve the quality of life for our users.

How are you leveraging FinTech innovations to enhance operational efficiency and customer engagement? Which technologieswill have the most significant impact on financial operations in the near future?

In terms of technology, we’ve leveraged solutions that empower users, rather than relying solely on IT personnel. For example, we use the ANA plan for budgeting, which is highly user-friendly compared to other solutions that require IT support to develop structures. Since it’s cloud-based and user-enabled, our finance executives can independently create models and develop certain frameworks.

Additionally, we’ve made significant strides with our health tech platform at Emuel. We’ve introduced health and wellness scoring, including a mind health score, and gamified the process to enhance employee engagement. At MPIC Group, we’ve implemented a leadership board for health and wellness, where enrolled employees can track their rankings. Our HR team incentivizes top performers to encourage participation.

For MindHealth, we’ve also developed a dashboard, particularly beneficial for universities and schools. When students complete their baseline mind scores, those with the lowest scores are identified for support by guidance counsellors to ensure they receive the help they need. This initiative addresses critical mental health issues and helps prevent tragedies stemming from feelings of hopelessness.Beyond business transformation, our efforts aim to positively impact the lives of every Filipino we engage with, contributing to both personal well-being and financial stability.

How do you foster collaboration between finance and other departments like marketing or operations? What innovative. practices have you found successful in creating a unified approach to business challenges?

We take a holistic, end-to-end approach to EESG Economic plus ESG. This requires our finance team to go beyond traditional finance tasks and actively engage across all aspects of the business. We now measure outcomes not just annually or quarterly but monthly, integrating both financial and EESG metrics.

This shift has made our finance team more involved in every function, from marketing to operations and networks. It has transformed them from mere record-keepers to value creators and true business partners. If finance only has a superficial understanding of the business, their input is limited. We want them to actively participate, even in product innovation and pricing, ensuring everyone aligns with the financial metrics and understands how their actions impact the bottom line and our goals.

How do you envision the role of finance leaders evolving in the next five years? What new competencies will be essential for future finance leaders to navigate the complexity of the finance industry?

I can only speak for myself, but I’ve expanded my reach and responsibility. I’m not sure if other companies follow a triple-hat approach covering finance, sustainability, and risk. This became possible because, as a finance professional, I could integrate numbers into sustainability and risk, making these areas more tangible and easier to understand and embrace. Clear targets are essential since you can’t measure performance without tracking initiatives.

My hope is for others to expand finance beyond traditional boundaries not just into sustainability and risk, but into other functional areas. Finance is a core competency that becomes even more powerful when combined with other skills. The ability to analyze numbers and tell stories through them elevates finance executives. It enables them to understand all aspects of the business and contribute meaningfully to strategy, resilience, and achieving goals.

Every person’s limits are self-imposed. No one will stop you from expanding your skills except yourself. If you can self-lead and embrace areas beyond your core expertise, you’ll grow into a better professional. In my case, I’ve gone beyond finance, sustainability, and risk to embrace digital technology. Who would have thought an accountant could branch into tech? But true growth happens when you break your own mold, step outside your comfort zone, and keep learning. In doing so, you also inspire your teams and mentees to become even better than you.

Message for Readers

For women leaders, there’s no glass ceiling it’s the limits you set for yourself. Success comes from self-management, self-leadership, and expanding your core competencies. Balancing professional duties with personal roles as a mother, wife, or otherwise is possible. There’s no specific formula; you need to create the right pace and space for yourself based on your circumstances. Ultimately, when your purpose aligns with your passion, the journey becomes easier.