Lito Villanueva

Lito Villanueva is the Philippines’ leading and award-winning thought leader on digital transformation and inclusive digital finance. He has over 20 years of experience in banking, telecommunications, payments, development finance, and financial technology. He merited over 50 global and regional awards including being cited as one of the Top 100 FinTech Leaders in Asia, the first and only Filipino, thus far, for scaling digital innovations and financial inclusion. He was also named “Mr. FinTech of the Philippines” by BizNewsAsia magazine.

He is presently the Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer for RCBC and concurrently as Chief Digital Transformation Advisor for the Yuchengco Group of Companies. He had stint with Economist Intelligence Unit, Visa, Smart Communications, IFC of the World Bank Group, Voyager Innovations covering PayMaya (formerly Smart Money) and FINTQnologies as its managing director. He created and scaled Lendr, the Philippines’ largest digital loans marketplace disbursing in excess of US$1 billion in less than five years.

He is also the founding chairman of FinTech Alliance.ph and president of the BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. Institute for Growth towards National Inclusion, Transformation, and Empowerment (IGNITE). He released various publications including the award-winning three-volume Inclusive Digital Finance Report and the Uncharted Beyond: The Taxonomy of FinTech in the Philippines.

Finished the Cambridge Intellect Leadership Programme in 2019 on Digital Transformation by Design at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education. Earned two graduate degrees: Master of Arts in Public Administration with magna cum laude honors from the University of Santo Tomas (UST), and Master in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines as a state scholar. His undergraduate degree is in political science also in UST.