Woman On Top

Chaye Cabal-Revilla redefines the modern woman with a high-stake financial job, an eye towards social responsibility, being a devoted wife and mother, and a loud, boisterous laugh

- Sara Siguion-Reyna

Chaye Cabal Revilla is a busy woman. The Chief Financial Officier of both Smart Communications, Inc. and PLDT Global Corporation, Chaye finds balance by focusing on her work, her philantrophic efforts, and her role as a mother. Despite her job title as the head finance executive in PLDT and its subsidiaries and affiliate companies, she says she never let that limit her. “One of the things that really helped me in this business was I didn’t let myself just stay in the parameters of finance. I got involved in HR, legal, network, marketing and sales,” she says. “I had to make sure I understood all facets of the business, from top to bottom. Because everything is interconnected. “

Chaye has been in PLDT for 18 years, a time she says has gone by like a blink of the eye. There were challenges, one of the biggest being a woman in such a male-dominated field. “Engineers are mostly men, and a lot of people connected to telco are men,” she says, adding that “even in finance, if you look at our annual report for the last 20 years, the female executives are only 25% of the population.”

In response, Chaye put in the grunt work. “I had to learn the network technology to be respected. I had to learn about cables and wires. While I am in the finance department, I work with people who are not just part of finance. I had to understand operations to make an impact.” When it comes to the daily stresses and frustrations of such a high-stakes job, she believes in keeping a clear head. “It’s always about perspective. I cannot control the situation around me. I can only control what I feel about the situation. I wouldn’t want to burden myself otherwise.”