RYAN Charland commands a presence sitting at the end of the table, only that he’s wearing a youthful green and black sports jacket that he keeps pulling at the sleeves to reveal a Fitbit-like gadget on his wrist.
Charland, at just 36 years old, is the president and CEO of Manulife Philippines. If we go by the labeled eras described in a previous The Wire story that has gone viral on social media, Charland is somewhere between Generation X and Y and somewhat a millennial.
(The Wire report says Gen X-ers are those born between 1965 and 1984. It also notes of an age group called Generation Y, which includes those who feel they don’t belong to the Gen X lifestyle. Millennials, on the other hand, are “those born in 1982 and approximately the 20 years thereafter.”)
Asked if he considers himself a millennial, the jaunty boss of the 109-year-old Manulife Philippines says: “To be very honest, when I look at that generation, they’re like taking photos of everything, of the food before they eat it. They’re on social media all the time. I’m like bordering the two generations, I think.”
It’s not to malign the generation that is the target of blame these days for the brain drain in companies. In fact, Charland takes special notice of the role the young generation plays in the operations of the century-old company. He even admits being on Snapchat.
“I’m on a lot of these social media platforms. I just lurk, see what people are posting. I probably wouldn’t consider myself a millennial, but because I’m younger than a typical CEO, I can identify,” he says.
Charland says his “age” plays a big part in his role as president and CEO.
He describes the employee base of the Philippines as “very young… Being a bit closer to the age of most of the employed allows me to identify with them.”
This is also why Charland, who joined the Philippine team in 2014 after finishing his stint at the Manulife’s Hong Kong office, is stepping up marketing strategies by employing the likes of pop idols Sarah Geronimo and James Reid to model for the insurance firm.
“I think what’s unique about them is they’re all speaking to slightly different groups and different kinds of fans and segments. We have different customers from different backgrounds,” he says.
Reid, the current sensation in Filipino dramalandia for appearing in hits like On the Wings of Love, is the face of Manulife Move, a program that allows premium payment discounts as long as the subscriber maintains a healthy lifestyle.
Charland shows the fitness tracker on his wrist, which is synchronized to an app that counts the steps the wearer takes every day.
“Basically, you get this device and then you do an average of 5,000-, 7,000-, or 10,000-steps a day. You can get the average and get your 5-percent, 7-percent or 10-percent discount on your payout,” he says.
He says Manulife Move is proactive since it allows the client to grow his or her relationship with the firm while growing his or her savings.
It also helps that Charland is active in sports.
He plays ice hockey every Monday on an indoor ice rink in the middle of parched Manila. It’s a sport he can’t give up even if he has to make do with limited space and infrastructure. After all, ice hockey is something followed with religious fervor in Charland’s home country, Canada.
“It’s just a small community, but it’s growing. There are a lot of people who want to push the sport here,” he says of his team composed of both foreigners and Filipinos who meet on the ice rink at the Mall of Asia complex weekly.
The “national” team even competed and won several matches in a recent tournament in Hong Kong, beating the likes of Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates.
WINNING TEAM. (From left) Manulife Philippines VP Melissa Henson, actor Richard Yap, Manulife PH president and CEO Ryan Charland, singer Sarah Geronimo and Manulife SAVP Kay Wong-Baylon.
It’s a burgeoning sport that begs to attract the Filipinos’ penchant for anything new and “cool,” especially since Charland’s colleagues aim to gather young Filipino members to compete in the first ice hockey match in the Southeast Asian Games next year.
Ice hockey is also something Charland uses to de-stress.
“I’ve been known to go to a dinner and then I leave at 8:30 or 9 p.m. and I’ll rush and be late for my hockey, but I still try to make my hockey,” he says.
The “goal” of insurance and ice hockey is the same, he says.
“Hockey is a very fast sport. There are five people on the ice at any one time, plus the goalie. It requires a lot of synchronization and working together to make sure that you cover the different areas of the ice and trust each other,” he says.
Trust is also the goal of selling a business like insurance, he says.
“If you can assemble a team whose members trust each other, then they can work well together,” he stresses.
Older employees
This sense of team is also what makes Charland work well with older colleagues.
“For the last seven to eight years, I’ve been in this position (first in Hong Kong) where I’ve had people who worked for me who are twice my age… It can be a challenge,” he says.
He says it’s not about imposing one’s position, no matter how high it is in the value chain. “You’ve got to respect the knowledge the people will bring to the table and you’re not there to tell them how to do their job. They’re just trying to bring the team on the same page,” he says.
Charland says he is also no Mark Zuckerberg commanding a team. The insurance industry, for one, is an old industry, and for some, an easily overlooked industry.
MANULIFE’S top executive, 36-year-old Ryan Charland (in red jersey), is also promoting ice hockey in tropical Manila.
“We’re trying to bridge the gap… The business models need to change so I think that’s maybe how my age, my experience or my youth can come in and help,” he says.
Charland says the firm also needs to overcome the mindset of Filipinos, especially when it comes to saving.
He also cites the stigma caused by previous closures of pre-need firms. The insurance industry is more stable, he says, “but I think to this day, we still struggle a little bit. We need to continue to get the message out there that we’re a reliable industry and we need to help Filipinos learn more about the power of saving.”
Soon, the firm will also introduce the Global Target Income Fund, which will be invested in both bonds and equities and provide the customer an annual payout of 4.75 percent.
He says the company is expected to grow at a much faster rate than the industry.
“What I can tell you is that the industry is expected to grow by 20 percent and our goal is to outperform that for the year,” he says.
Charland says the last two years of his stay in the Philippines have been “extraordinary.”
The best, however, is yet to come.