You’ve had a remarkably varied career that included finance, e-commerce, CPG, and outsourcing. But prior to joining Philippine Airlines (PAL) in 2019 as president and COO, you had never worked in aviation.
I didn’t have any airline experience. Philippine Airlines’ billionaire owner, Lucio Tan, better known as Kapitan, recruited me because the airline was losing money and I’ve always been a turnaround guy.
Looking at the financials, I saw that the company was overstretched on debt, but Kapitan was willing to invest $225 million and commit $375 million more. That meant if we could grow PAL’s $3 billion in revenue at the historical pace and knock $100 million off the cost structure, we’d break even. We had a good…