Ex-finance chief, Singtel CEO join Ayala board

Ayala Corp. said former Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima and former Singtel Group Ceo Chua Sock Koong have joined its board of directors following their election at the company’s annual stockholders meeting last Friday.

Purisima and Chua take the seats of outgoing directors Keiichi Matsunaga and Antonio Jose U. Periquet, who had been part of the Ayala board since April 2017 and September 2010, respectively.

Purisima served as the country’s finance chief and chair of the economic development cluster of the President’s Cabinet from 2010 to 2016. Under his leadership, the Philippines received its first investment-grade ratings. He also served as Chairman and Country Managing Partner of the Philippines’ largest professional services firm, SGV & Co.

Chua is currently senior advisor at Singtel, Asia’s leading communications technology group, where she also served as group Ceo for 13 years until December 2020. She is currently the Deputy Chairman of Singapore’s Public Service Commission and a member of the Council of Presidential Advisers and the research, Innovation and enterprise Council.

In his message to the stockholders, Ayala Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala said, “We always strive to achieve sufficient diversity of thinking across our board representation and have worked to create a proper combination of knowledge, experience, and expertise to guide management. With an increasing demand for companies to adhere to new ESG standards, we understand the need to always focus on revisiting our board composition and allowing transitions to take place at appropriate moments.”