MAPping the Future

At the beginning of the year, our business was gearing up to accommodate increased postpandemic economic activity. A few months later, the global economy made us slam on the breaks.

With this kind of environment, what is a young or budding CEO to do? What costs do we cut to save the bottom line of our financials? Are profits still the primary measurement of success?

In the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) NexGen Committee, we perceive that young Filipino corporate professionals view success beyond economic power.

Aside from money, young professional millennials and Gen Zs quantify success as having: well-being, which drives productivity; ability to do remote work, which weighs in on their job choices; diversity and inclusion in the workforce, which enhances performance, not because of gender or religious beliefs but because diverse thinking sparks diverse solutions; and making a social impact in the community and environment, which counts more than money. The reshaping of success is the focus of our upcoming 4th MAP NextGen Conference 2023.

Older managers may view the new perception of success as unnecessary costs and a distraction to the core of doing business. At the start of the millennium, social media URLs were blocked in most internet servers because employers felt that employees were wasting time instead of working. We now know social media can be a business platform for better marketing and learning. The notion of success and how it is achieved from the previous generation to the current is changing.

The shape of success is shifting

In today’s paradigm shift of success, we try to understand the vision and values of the young workforce, professional managers and emerging CEOs.

Conglomerates that initiated digital transformation before the pandemic became prominent winners as they were ready to serve clients faster than those with legacy business processes. Small and medium enterprises need help to catch up due to the limited resources available to future-proof the business. Joining our conference will give insight and guidance rather than reinvent the wheel to determine how to shape the company’s future.

Innovation is moving at its fastest pace, catalyzed by the pandemic. Companies with legacy business processes lag and must catch up to survive the next generation.

Our MAP NexGen Committee chair, Cliff Eala (a behavioral strategist at BS Works), elegantly summarized our upcoming conference theme—the novel approaches to success: (1) embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to expedite and commoditize execution of repetitive manual and mental tasks; (2) future-proofing companies through innovation and venture building; and (3) enabling us to influence behavior through behavior change design where rules and rationality have failed.

The conference to attend before 2023 ends

A dynamic exploration of what the future holds for us in business and leadership will be addressed by our speakers and panelists. They are exciting young personalities in their respective industries of real estate (Mariana Zobel de Ayala of Ayala Land), banking (Isabelle Yap of East West Bank and Ana Delgado of Union Bank), fintech (Christo Georgiev of FinScore and Sara Venturina of GCash), logistics (Sheila Lina of AIR21 Holdings), manufacturing (Alvin Lao of D&L Industries), management and innovation consulting (Pauline Fermin of Acumen and Rolan Garcia from Embiggen), motivation and well-being (Elle Adda-Lane of Fuel to Flourish Workshops), and data security and analysis (Dominic Ligot of Cirrolytix).

Our opening keynote speaker, Geogiev, will share his journey as a builder of financial inclusion by using alternative data for credit scoring. As closing keynote speaker, Garcia, an innovation and venture building specialist, will discuss seven steps to creating compelling value through embedded innovation.

Our first group of panelists will address AI and well-being at work; the second will share succession strategies for cultivating a legacy of success in family conglomerates. We hope the second/third-generation leaders can tell us their vision of value and success, and their agenda for the next generation of business.

SGV and MAP will announce the winner of the 3rd SGV-MAP NextGen CEO Transformative Leadership Program 2023 from a pool of executives from companies in Manila and Cebu.

The next phase after the conference is a speed networking session for participants to connect. Afterwards, you can continue conversations with free-flowing cocktails, allowing us to expand the ideas of the day or relax while the DJ plays music.

MAP is inviting all generations of CEOs, management professionals and entrepreneurs to join the event. See you there!

Register via https://map.org.ph/4th-map-nextgen-conference-2023/ for the 4th MAP NextGen Conference on Nov. 9, at the Sheraton Manila in Pasay from 2 to 9 p.m.

The author is co-vice chair of the MAP NextGen Committee and president of Pacific Sun Solutions Inc. Feedback at map@map.org.ph and ridoloso@pacificsun.ph.