After making Globe a market titan, what’s next for Ernest Cu?
By the end of the annual stockholders’ meeting of Globe Telecom Inc. on April 22, Ernest Cu will step down as its president and CEO after an eventful 16-year stint that saw the once trailing company transform into a consistent market leader.
Indeed, the 64-year-old is retiring from one of the main engines of the Ayala Group that has become far bigger, better and more profitable than the one he took over in 2009.
The stellar numbers offer proof.
Globe ended that difficult year coming off the global economic crisis with an 11-percent growth in net income to P12.6 billion, driven largely by growth in its mobile, broadband and corporate data business. Its mobile subscriber base then was pegged at 23.2 million.
Fast forward to 2024—his last full year in the driver’s seat—and Globe’s revenues soared to a record P165 billion, 2 percent higher than the year prior, as key segments from mobile to broadband and financial technology solutions delivered growth, resulting in a net income of P24.3 billion.
Its mobile customer base likewise ended at 60.9 million from 57 million in 2023, almost triple the number at the start of his term.
More importantly, Globe has evolved over 16 years into its own group of companies offering solutions that include mobile, fixed, broadband and data connectivity services to meet the telecommunications and technology needs of consumers and businesses.
Plus, it has interests in financial technology, digital marketing solutions and venture capital funding for startups.
Cu has also played a role in furthering financial inclusion in the country through GCash, which is preparing to list on the Philippine Stock Exchange.
With Globe firing on more cylinders that will ensure its continued growth, Cu believes that it is “the best time to go” and give way to new blood.
Succession
Taking his place is 54-year-old Carl Raymond Cruz, former CEO and managing director of Nigerian market leader Airtel Nigeria, who has been reporting to Cu as deputy CEO from Jan. 1 this year.
“It is a stable time in the industry. Margins are up, stock price is up, market share is stable so it is a good time to step off the bus,” Cu tells Sunday Biz.
Cruz, he says, is more than capable of leveraging Globe’s strengths and elevating it to the next level. But his fervent hope is that his successor will preserve the customer-centric culture in the company that took years to develop into a strength.
Under Cu’s visionary leadership, Globe embarked on a purpose-led transformation in 2016 to create a more sustainable organization.
At the top of its values is to put customers first.
With its renewed mission, vision and core values, collectively embodied in the new Globe purpose, the company has set its sights on contributing to nation building through its expanded suite of products and services.
By embracing disruption and doubling down on putting customers at the center of its operations, Cu says Globe transformed crises into opportunities for substantial growth.
“That is really what took us to leadership. Alongside the culture of centricity is the culture of collaboration, that concept of friends on a mission. It’s our tenet,” he says, “At one point the mission was [for Globe] to become number one in the industry. Now it is to continue to help the Filipino people through digital means.”
The entrepreneur
That Cu was able to make Globe into the dominant market player he attributes in part to his background as a successful entrepreneur.
Prior to joining globe in 2008, the Industrial Management Engineering graduate of De La Salle University was growing SPi Technologies, a systems software and technology solutions company that he founded and led as president and CEO from 1997 to 2008.
He was there in the early days of the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector that has since become one of the country’s main sources of dollar earnings.
Cu is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of the BPO sector in the country, and his pioneering spirit was recognized in 2003 when he was named ICT Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernest & Young.
Being an entrepreneur, he explains, allows him to view the landscape “a bit more differently” compared to executives who were formed within a strict corporate structure.
This worked well for him because this allowed Globe to take calculated risks and move more quickly.
“That is why when you look at the values of Globe, they are almost an entrepreneurial set of values. This encourages people to innovate, encourages people to take risks, encourages people to move quickly. Those are the tenets of an entrepreneur and those are the things that I brought into Globe,” he says.
