ALI’s Jaime Ysmael: Catalyst for change

MANILA, Philippines - Jaime E. Ysmael is far from being just your ordinary chief finance officer (CFO). Ayala Land Inc.’s CFO surely knows more than just numbers when it comes to the country’s oldest conglomerate, having been part of the group for 24 years now.

With decades of experience in number crunching, strategic planning and playing so many other roles, Ysmael can now be considered as the second most important “Jaime” in the entire Ayala conglomerate.

“The CFO’s role is quite unique because he sees a lot of things from the entire operations from a financial point of view and interacts with the different unit heads. So the CFO is in a unique position to actually know the different parts of the business. They can provide additional inputs in terms of how to drive business performance,” Ysmael said in an interview with The STAR.

The recipient of the ING-Financial Executives’ Institute of the Philippines (ING-FINEX) CFO of the Year award in 2011 has already seen five Philippine presidents led the country during his nearly a quarter  of a century stay in the Ayala group.

Sustainability and longevity, therefore, are nothing new to Ysmael, making him and one of the largest property companies in the country a match made in heaven.

“The ability to think long term is important because real estate is a very long term product. The projects that we do last generations. A mixed use project, for instance, takes five to 10 years or even 15 years to complete. That’s why whenever we make decisions, it has to be very long term in nature,” he said.

“That’s why we adopted sustainability as a business principle because our projects last a lifetime, technically. We affect the lives a lot of people not just before, during, but more importantly after the development has been completed many years down the road,” added Ysmael, a graduate of Business Administration, major in Accounting, at the University of the East in 1980.

Sustainability

With his years of being part of the Ayala group, Ysmael admitted policies sometimes vary per administration which is why “future proofing” projects by anticipating upcoming trends is important.

For Ayala Land’s part, Ysmael said the property giant always takes into account sustainability by making sure its projects stand the test of time.

“We don’t plan in anticipation of a public private partnership program. We do the infrastructures ourselves so we don’t actually wait for the government to do it for us.  Self-sufficiency is really our development model. We don’t rely to the government to provide the basics or the essentials to make a community work. We actually do it ourselves to make sure the development becomes attractive to the intended buyers or residents. We make sure our projects should stand the test of time,” Ysmael said.

“Sustainability is not just taking care of the environment, you also have to be socially responsible to the communities you serve and at the same time, also be profitable because we also have to fulfill our mission which is to create value for our shareholders. Sustainability is something that we are serious about because it’s really how we do things at the end of the day,” he added.

But as Ayala Land adapts to the changes in the property sector in the years ahead, Ysmael knows he too should be able to adjust to the evolving demands of his job.

Ysmael, after all, has had the privilege of experiencing firsthand the evolution of the CFO’s role in the company over the past years.

“The traditional role of a CFO in the past is as a steward of the company’s financial health and insures that we report on the performance of the company and then we take care of controls. But that role has evolved significantly because of the demands of the business,” he said.

“The role has become from reactive to proactive, historical to forward looking, transactional to strategic. From just making sure that things are okay from a financial standpoint, CFOs are now being looked upon as catalysts for change for the company. The role has evolved, it has become bigger, it has broadened and as a result of it some CFOs have also taken on CEO roles effectively. That’s a natural progression,” Ysmael explained.

Top CFO

This year, ING and FINEX will again be on the hunt for the country’s top CFO.

Ysmael regards the search as “prestigious” because it is an award handed out by their peers in the industry.

“It made the position more visible and earned me more credits in terms  of the business community which benefited me personally and career wise. More importantly, I was able to inspire some of the aspiring CFOs, inspire them to aspire for something better,” he said.

When asked on what would make a good CFO, Ysmael said: “In today’s environment where the demand is much more broader and diverse, the CFO must have a very wide perspective in terms of appreciation and understanding of the business. One of the rules is to become a catalyst so to be a catalyst, you have to influence people and move them toward a certain direction.”