Over 70 First Balfour leaders attended the first ever digital leaders conference (leadcon) in the comfort of their own homes on April 30, 2020.

Head of human resources Carlos Salonga opened the conference by introducing new executives and first-time leadcon attendees including T1 Rentals consultant Edmidio Ramos, major projects division (MPD) business development manager Fiorella Fabella, MPD business development consultant and former First Balfour management trainee Suzenne Donovan, MPD finance head Jennifer Abella and NBAQ4 project director William Stewart.

In his welcome message, president and chief operating officer Anthony Fernandez reported that the company, whose thousands of workers are being monitored on a regular basis, remains COVID-19 free.

“We must have some strong and serious antibodies. Dugong First Balfour is special,” he said in jest.

He also mentioned the company’s community initiatives including the Metrotent project and ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.’s “Pantawid ng Pag-ibig” program. Fernandez closed his speech by pointing out: “There is a saying, ‘Never waste a good crisis.’ This crisis is unprecedented in scale and depth. This will change the way the world moves and will alter human behavior. It will change us and our industry, for sure. So let’s learn from this, adapt and overcome. Hopefully, we’re better coming out of this crisis.”

Return-to-work (RTW) guidelines were presented by Salonga, corporate physician Dr. Rhyan Gallego and environment, safety and health head Rey Arce. The RTW team highlighted that once the enhanced community quarantine is lifted, the company will be limiting the reentry of employees only to those whose functions are mission-critical; the rest will continue to work from home.

Their presentation was followed by guidelines moving forward in terms of commercial management by department head Clive Payne.

Leaders were then given updates on the company’s financial health by chief financial officer Jonathan Tansengco. This was followed by a more comprehensive look at the cash flow and liquidity management by head of accounting Ma. Theresa Villanueva and head of treasury Ruth Co, respectively.

The last presentations were division updates from MPD head Malcolm Lorimer, industrial projects division head Rey Villar and T1 Rentals head Levi Dy. Bibi Aquino of HR also discussed a free online counseling facility to ensure employee welfare and Mayors express gratitude wellness.