‘Be productively paranoid,’ Globe CEO tells team
If there’s one thing that Globe Telecom Inc. president and CEO Carl Cruz does not shy away from, it’s subscribing to the telco’s perennial rival, Smart Communications Inc. of PLDT Inc.
And it’s not just one subscription. Cruz keeps separate smartphones for Smart’s prepaid and postpaid services, plus another for duopoly challenger DITO Telecommunity.
Of course, he also has Globe prepaid and postpaid phones, along with one for the telco’s digital brand GOMO.
It is Cruz’s way of keeping tabs on the competition as he seeks to preserve Globe’s No. 1 spot in the Philippine mobile business, where it has nearly 70 million subscribers and which remains its top moneymaker, raking in more than P60 billion in the first half alone.
That Globe is already the market leader in mobile connectivity is no reason for complacency, if you ask Cruz. Even with the telco titan at the top, he still wants to know exactly what his competitors’ customers are experiencing.
“To my mind, and it’s proven, if you’re able to offer the best-in-class experience, customers would stay with you,” Cruz tells Sunday Biz in an interview in his office at the Globe Tower in Bonifacio Global City.
But that obsession—or being “anal,” as he describes it—with network experience does not mean Globe is losing sight of businesses where it does not yet have the edge.
Cruz knows all too well that the Philippine telco landscape is becoming far more than just about calls, texts and data. And as he settles into his second year at the helm, he is embarking on a mission to turn Globe’s sprawling digital assets into new engines of growth.
‘Digital orchestrator’
There is still a long runway, he believes, as many Philippine businesses have yet to fully embark on their digital transformation. Where corporate clients once came to Globe mainly for mobile lines, Cruz says they are increasingly looking for cybersecurity, cloud and other digital solutions.
Broadband presents another opportunity, although Cruz readily acknowledges that Globe remains in “catch-up mode” against larger rivals.
And then there are data centers, where demand has accelerated on the back of artificial intelligence (AI). Globe-backed STT GDC Philippines expects to have 30 to 32 megawatts of capacity by yearend, which Cruz says could already be fully utilized.
Rather than treating these businesses in isolation, Cruz wants Globe’s network, data centers, subsea cables and digital platforms to work as one ecosystem.
“We want to be the main digital orchestrator of the digital economy of the Philippines,” Cruz says.
A different world
It is an ambitious vision coming from someone who spent most of his career mastering another sector: fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), where Cruz worked for three decades before making the big leap into the cutthroat telco business.
When he eventually entered telco through Airtel in Africa, the learning curve was steep. Three weeks into the job, Cruz reviewed the copious notes he had been taking and realized he still did not know what to do.
“So, I had to raise my hand and say, you know, I need help,” he recalls.
Cruz later found out that while telco could be simpler than FMCG in some respects, it is far more intense operationally because data —and customer feedback — come almost instantaneously.
But fret not, because that is exactly what Cruz had been looking for. “It’s music to my ears,” he says.
Into the trenches
By the time Cruz joined Globe in January 2025 and took over as CEO that April, he was no longer a stranger to telco after his stint at Airtel, now one of the world’s biggest telco brands.
Still, Globe was a different behemoth altogether. Apart from its core telco operations, Cruz inherited a growing portfolio of digital businesses, including fintech arm Mynt Inc., operator of GCash, which is now preparing for a landmark listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange in October.
More than a year into the job, Cruz says he is settling deeper into the role.
“I think I’m a bit more really in the trenches in terms of how we operate,” he says. “Whenever I move on to a new role, or a new market, or a new country, the first thing I always do is get myself immersed in operations.”
“Having been doing this for the last year and a half has given me that level of awareness in terms of where we really need to go,” he says.
“But I’m not at all being complacent,” he quickly adds.
That immersion can look like this: Mondays are largely reserved for meetings with his network team, where Cruz watches metrics such as video stall rates. At least once a week, he eats at the company canteen to hear what employees are dealing with and spot processes that can be simplified.
What’s next
Cruz is also looking far into the future.
As artificial intelligence (AI) changes how people use devices, Cruz says Globe is already studying a “future state architecture” capable of handling heavier data and latency requirements. That could mean peppering the country with smaller “edge” data centers closer to users as AI-powered devices and wearables become more commonplace.
Even Globe’s physical stores are being reconsidered. Cruz wants the company to be equally strong online and offline, with new flagship stores in the works that could eventually cater to enterprise customers as well as consumers.
Cruz says these are all part of his order to his team to be “productively paranoid.” This means constantly studying what global operators such as T-Mobile, Airtel, KDDI and Singtel are doing and measuring Globe against the best.
“Don’t get me wrong, we’re very good,” Cruz says. “But I always feel that someone is always going to be ahead.”
