Editor's Note:
Welcome to the “10 Candid Career Questions” series, introducing you to the infrastructure and PPP professionals who do the deals, analyze the data, and strategize on the next big thing. Each of them followed a different path into infra and/or PPP practice, and this series offers an inside look at their backgrounds, motivations, and choices. Each blogger receives the same 10 questions that tell their career story candidly and without jargon. We hope you will be surprised and inspired.
1. What was your first job?
My first job was as a project analyst for a Philippine boutique investment house.
2. What was your best job?
As the Executive Director of the Philippine’s PPP Center. Challenging, frustrating but very rewarding as it involved nation building.
3. What do your family members think you do all day at work?
Order people around. =)
4. What do you really do all day at work?
Identify problems (urgent and potential), and find ways to solve problems.
5. What do you wish you did all day at work?
Actually solve the problems.
6.What is your go-to industry website?
Anything related to infrastructure development and financing, especially PPPs; online newspapers; LinkedIn for industry news; Twitter to follow what’s going on in the Philippines.
7. What did the book that made the biggest impact on you professionally teach you?
Dream big, back it with actions to make it a reality. This advice is actually an amalgamation of all autobiographies of successful people that I’ve read, but it is nicely encapsulated in The Wisdom House by Rob Parsons.
8. What are you shocked to hear yourself say when you give advice to young professionals?
Go into government service.
9. What is the most rewarding thing you have experienced in the course of your Infrastructure and PPP practice?
The look of gratefulness and amazement from teachers and students when we handed over to them finished classrooms with furniture that were delivered via a PPP. In the Philippines, which is a developing country, the general public’s expectations from government infrastructure is so low, they equate free service with poor quality.
10. In what ways do you think the Infrastructure and PPP area you work in will look different in 10 years?
More people, especially the general public, would be more conversant and familiar with PPP-delivered projects.
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