Ireen Catane (NTT)
NTT has appointed Ireen Catane as CEO of the Philippines amid plans to drive digital transformation adoption across the market.
Effective immediately, Catane is tasked with enhancing customer relationships and driving talent development, in addition to leading ongoing integration efforts at a local level. Joining from Microsoft, the industry veteran reports to Kim-Meng Png as CEO of ASEAN.
“The Philippines is on a growth trajectory with immense opportunities for digital transformation,” Kim-Meng said. “Ireen’s passion for leading with innovation and delivering value through outstanding client relationships is pivotal in this fast-evolving technology services sector.
“With her track record in leading the growth of various respected brands in the industry, I’m confident of Ireen’s ability to drive operational excellence and lead our high-performing teams to do great things for our clients in the Philippines.”
Drawing on more than 28 years of industry experience in the Philippines, Catane was most recently commercial director of Microsoft, having previously spent more than 10 years as country manager of IBM. This is in addition to leading local operations at HP and Dell.
“NTT is uniquely positioned to offer clients a full stack of world-class solutions with local customisation to address different client’s digital challenges,” Catane added. “It is a privilege to be trusted to lead the next phase of growth and contribute to the overall success of NTT.”
At least 30 per cent of organisations across the Philippines are expected to achieve "digital determination" by 2020, according to IDC.
IDC classifies organisations as either “digitally distraught” or “digitally determined” based on readiness to leverage the full potential of digital transformation.
Specifically, “digitally determined” organisations demonstrate the ability to "visualise" how the markets and customers will change, while "reinventing themselves" to better respond to the needs of future stakeholders through new and emerging technologies, capabilities and business models.
Furthermore, the analyst firm expects that 40 per cent of CIOs will initiate a digital trust framework in 2020, which goes beyond preventing cyber attacks and enables organisations to resiliently rebound from adverse situations, events, and effects.
“To be digitally determined, Philippine organisations require more than just resilience; they need a 'blueprint' that consists of a unified enterprise strategy, a long investment plan based on the principle that digital is inherently valuable to the business, and a single digital platform to scale technology innovations,” said Sudev Bangah, managing director of ASEAN at IDC.
