Without a doubt, Cosette Canilao is one of the country’s leading authorities on public-private-partnership (PPP) in so far as infrastructure projects are concerned.
Canilao is the president and chief executive of Aboitiz Infra Capital Inc. and holds the distinction of being the only female to be at the helm of such a huge enterprise.
She graduated in Finance from the University of the Philippines and attended executive education programs at Harvard Business School.
She piled up 20 years of leadership experience in PPP, in addition to investment and corporate banking, crisis management and restructuring expertise.
He credentials list management positions for the Crisis Management Group and Financial Services Industry at PricewaterhouseCoopers, director at Standard Merchant Bank Asia, and managing director for PPP Advisory at Atkins Acuity.
She was also instrumental in developing and promoting PPP frameworks and shared knowledge with developing countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Tanzania.
Prior to joining the Aboitiz Group, Canilao was executive director of the PPP Center during the Aquino administration. She was at the forefront of executing strategic infrastructure projects for the government and had a say in the successful bidding of 12 state projects from 2011 to 2016.
Being at the driver’s seat of the Aboitiz InfraCapital, there is no stopping this amazingly young achiever in her pursuit of major infrastructure projects, with a keen focus on economic growth to spur national development through the construction of water facilities, digital infrastructure projects and transport systems.
Canilao seriously considers tapping the assistance of highly qualified personnel from the distaff side of the corporate workforce.
She fairly justifies her inclination to empowering women. “Conscious and unconscious bias should be eliminated and women should be allowed to flourish and achieve their utmost potential in any field, in any workplace,” she said.
In 2022, Aboitiz InfraCapital became a new member of the Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment, and it dovetailed perfectly with the firm’s commitment to empowering women and promoting equality in the office.
In a media interview, Canilao said: “Glass ceilings should be broken effortlessly; glass cliffs should be overcome easily, until both are extinct. We can only achieve this by being deliberate and articulate in the policies that we put in place. With the support of evidence-based data, it is my hope that more progressive, proactive, and bold policies will emerge to allow female genius to flourish.”
But she has more to say about her favorite topic which, of course, is PPP. In an essay, Canilao said investors generally prefer PPP projects that are low-risk and bankable. Needless to say, that is clearly understandable.
She pointed out, however, that bankability for a developing country involves more than de-risking projects, which means “de-risking the country and its PPP program.”
She advises the government to create an “enabling environment” that would encourage private investors to be state partners in infrastructure development.
Cosette said this involves policies on ease of doing business, from registration of the new company to capital transactions.
She said the country’s credit worthiness “is also a fundamental requirement in encouraging project finance including attracting offshore financing interests”
“Availability of local financing enables ease of structuring of deals and lowers attendant financing costs. Frameworks for aligned and smoother infrastructure implementation, such as right of way laws, sectoral regulations and arbitration processes, are also a must,” Canilao said.
