The new CEO of the Philippines’ largest telco says his Nigeria and India experience taught him to ‘never underestimate’ any market


Carl Raymond Cruise, CEO of Globe Telecom, has experience with the “privacy” of different markets. The Philippine citizen worked in many different markets, including Sri Lanka, India and Nigeria. Cruz has just seized the Philippine Telco as its new executive, to replace the Ernest Cu, which runs Southeast Asia 500 for more than a decade.
Nigeria, where Cruz was based before joining Globe, was an economy where “fluctuations on doping” were. Cruz was the CEO of Indian Nigeria operations, from May 2023 to December 2024.
“During my time, the local currency moved from 519.6 Nira to the dollar to 750 lights to the dollar within three weeks, and a quarter of other weeks onwards, and it became more than 1,100 Nastra for the dollar,” Cruz recalls. “The inflation rose to approximately 41-42 % in parts of the country.”
This Cruz experience never reduced any market. “I could say” Oh, after 10-15 years of the Philippines, “he says, even with my eyes closed, I know what to do.” But he did not take this approach, and he found that “right enough, there are properties in every market.”
Who is Karl Raymond Cruz?
Cruz joined Globe as Deputy CEO in January, before assuming the position of CEO on Tuesday. It is relatively new in the communications industry. He spent a lot of his career in the fast -moving consumer commodity sector, and works with Unilever across many different markets.
But Cruz says he was always attracted to the communications industry. FMCG and communications focus on consumers, but “you feel more influencing on wireless and wireless communications,” says Cruz, given that it works as a spine of the digital economy.
When Aartel Nigeria approached him, Cruz did not hesitate to jump on the ship – given his “bias” of Indian companies, caused by his experience in India.
“I love the accuracy of the wonderful Indian companies. I love operational intensity,” says Cruz.
Globe Plans
Cruz wants to take advantage of the Philippine fast digital economy to develop the Globe user base. While Globe leads the telecommunications sector by the maximum market and in mobile phone users, Cruz wants to make Globe a major player in both wide range and fiber, as well as in institutions services.
“We want to be the most admiration, the largest and the largest
Part of the Globe GCash network, which is the Finance Super-APP application, which is run by Globe Affiliate Mynt. Cruz noticed, previously, that the GCASH public subscription could come early in the last quarter of the year.
“We have not made any proposal or request to the list at this time. The focus is to make sure that we are ready when the time comes,” says Cruz.
Cruz notes that the “Tahrir Day” tariff in Trump is part of the reason that he wants this flexibility in GCASH. But while Trump’s axes of commercial policy caused global uncertainty, Cruz is confident that the Philippines can withstand any major shocks.
“Inflation has decreased to less than 3 %. GDP hovering between 5.5 to 6 %. We have very stable [business process outsourcing] “The sector and 72 % of GDP of local consumption. From the perspective of Macro, the Philippines will be flexible,” says Cruz.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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2025-04-24 09:26:00