RCBC’s Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer Lito Villanueva was feted with three recognitions for thought leadership having been included in prestigious lists by premier career-oriented social platform LinkedIn.
The multi-awarded executive was included in the Top 100 Filipinos on LinkedIn Philippines’ Top 30 Leaders on LinkedIn, and Top Finance Leader under the LinkedIn Leadership Catalysts Awards 2023. Villanueva was selected after demonstrating the award-giving body’s core values of integrity, empathy, courage, inspiration, and resilience. He also bested other leaders after putting spotlight on RCBC’s multi-awarded and hyperscale digital and financial inclusion initiatives anchored on Innovations with Empathy campaign. The Philippines’ Top Filipino Leaders on LinkedIn is an initiative organized by IMS Learning & Consulting, Coach Anda, and VB Consulting.
The RCBC Executive is the person behind RCBC’s innovative and multi-awarded digital solutions at scale: the world’s first multilingual financial inclusion application RCBC Diskartech, hyper-personalized mass affluent digital banking app RCBC Pulz, the Philippines’ first and largest bank-agnostic ATM network RCBC ATM Go, and the country’s first phygital or physical-digital banking experience, RCBC Moneybela Barangayan Banking.
Villanueva said that these latest accolades serve as a motivation to continuously lead his team and the rest of the bank to new heights. He added that the awards are not only a testament to his commitment to improving banking services for Filipinos but also to the relentless dedication of his team in thinking outside the box.
“These recognitions are important platforms for us to showcase the brilliance of Filipino talents within RCBC in creating high impact inclusive digital finance solutions that are relevant to every Filipino,” said Villanueva.
2023 was another banner year for Villanueva. The award-winning thought leader was also named Digital Leader of the Year at the PhilSec Awards, Legend CIO at The World CIO 200 Summit 2023, one of Rising Tigers’ 2023 Trailblazers and Innovators, and as a Circle of Excellence Awardee in the Global Filipino Executives of the Year category of the Asia CEO Awards.
Villanueva also led the bank towards clinching its Philippines’ Best Bank for Digital Recognition award from Asiamoney for four straight years, and the coveted No. 1 spot in the Philippine Customer Service Survey by the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Statista. RCBC RCBC also emerged as the first bank worldwide to be awarded ‘The Challenger’ by YouTube for their engaging and entertaining video campaign on financial inclusion – ‘Ang Utang ni Tatang’ (Tatang’s Loan), encouraging low-income, remote and rural Filipinos to embrace formal banking systems for loans and credit.
RCBC embarked on a massive digital transformation journey, catapulting itself from 8th position in 2018 to 5th in 2022 in the list of the Philippines’ largest banks in terms of assets. The bank boasts of close to a hundred regional and global recognitions for its digital innovations.
