Our People

As President and CEO, Rahul is responsible for the development and execution of Manulife's strategy in the Philippines, supercharging the business so we can continue making every day better for more Filipinos.

Hora is an insurance industry veteran, having taken on various sales and distribution leadership roles in operations, agency, and bancassurance across geographies. He joins Manulife from another multinational insurance company, where he held distribution roles at market and regional levels, and most recently led their life and non-life insurance operations in the Philippines.

As Chief Financial Officer, Justin leads the optimization of Manulife Philippines’ financial strategy and performance, including revenue generation, capital management, and solvency. Helferich has been with Manulife since 2010 and has held progressively more senior roles in the United States and Asia. Before his most recent appointment, Helferich served as Chief Executive Officer of Manulife Cambodia, where his resilient and determined leadership helped maintain the company’s strong market position.

As well as being the President of the joint venture between Manulife Philippines and China Bank Ltd, Neil is also responsible for all Manulife Philippines' distribution partnerships and corporate solutions. 

He has a wealth of experience in leading bancassurance partnerships, multi-channel distribution, and business transformation. Prior to joining another regional insurer in 2018, where he was Director for Group Partnership Distribution, Neil was Chief Bancassurance Officer for Manulife Singapore. There, he was responsible for the overall development of our bancassurance operations in the country, including Strategy, Distribution Operations, Business Development, Sales, and Learning & Development.

As Chief Agency Officer, Sailesh is responsible for empowering and further scaling Manulife’s trusted, empowered and growing agency force, anchored on strategies that bolster initiatives on digitalization, sales and productivity, talent recruitment and development, training and data analytics-based planning and decision-making.

Prior to joining Manulife Philippines, Sailesh was with Manulife Asia's Distribution Team and based in Hong Kong, responsible for Strategic Management and Planning for Regional Distribution. He also spent more than a decade of insurance industry experience having worked for for two other multinational companies in Asia. 

Sonali has more than 18 years of leadership experience in bank partnership, customer experience, and digital innovation across Manulife and Citibank. She has demonstrated a proven track record of delivering results, including in the Manulife-DBS digital channel and the first digital protection solution with Techombank in Vietnam.

As Chief Marketing Officer, she drives innovative marketing strategies and customer propositions that will bolster our brand reputation and industry leadership, and maintain our NPS growth trajectory. She also plays a key role in enabling and empowering our sales teams with dynamic and data-driven marketing campaigns and initiatives to increase lead generation, propel business growth, and help achieve our bold ambition to become the most digital, customer-centric global company in our industry.

As Chief Legal Counsel and Compliance Officer, she advises the company on various legal matters and reasonably ensures its compliance with various regulatory issuances. She also identifies legal and compliance risks and issues relative to the company's intended actions.

Fritzie has been a member of the Philippine bar for nearly 20 years now. Her professional experience includes corporate counseling and commercial practice, including heading the legal services group of a universal bank.

Fritzie completed her law degree at the University of the Philippines and her Political Science degree at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, Summa Cum Laude. She placed 9th in the 1999 bar examinations.

As Chief Information Officer, Ivan oversees the Company’s Enterprise Delivery and Information Systems functions. He is responsible for Manulife Philippines’ strategy to build robust systems and digital capabilities, which are foundational to our customer experience transformation. He is a seasoned information technology leader, having held various IT leadership roles managing IT solutions and transformation across a variety of industries. Ivan has worked in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Philippines. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from University of Santo Tomas. 

As Chief Risk Officer, Candy is responsible for overseeing action plans, acting as a strategic partner to the business, and ensuring proper identification and mitigation of company risks.

Candy first joined Manulife as Chief Financial Officer for its Philippine business in August 2017. In 2021, she moved to the Manulife Emerging Markets team, where she led In-force and Expense Management. Before joining Manulife, she was with another life insurer where she headed its Actuarial Division that included research, product development, and valuation. Candy has over 27 years’ life insurance industry experience.She is a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of the Philippines and a Fellow of the Life Office Management Association.

As Chief Health and Product Officer, Grace drives three key areas of the organization: Health strategy, product proposition development and management, and inforce management. She also leads initiatives towards creating the company's best-in-class product portfolio, as well as customer lifetime value through strategic inforce management initia

Grace has 20 years of experience in the insurance industry, with various leadership roles in Product Management and Marketing, Health Business and Strategy. More recently, she has led the e-Commerce Business and Digital Marketing of another local insurer. She holds a Business Economics degree from the University of the Philippines. 

As Chief Human Resources Officer, Ardhi drives Manulife's culture, talent strategy, and employee engagement, oversees talent retention efforts, and works to strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion within the organization. Ardhi leads ongoing initiatives to attract and retain top talent, building a winning team that can help accelerate Manulife's goals for its customers and other stakeholders.

Ardhi brings extensive leadership experience from across the banking, technology, and insurance industries, including his prior role as CHRO of Manulife Indonesia. Before joining Manulife Philippines, his most recent position was as Head of Human Resources for Manulife Business Processing Services in Quezon City, Philippines. In this role, he led the HR team in supporting the ongoing transformation of Manulife's global business services, in partnership with the MBPS leadership.

Ardhi holds two Master's degrees -- Executive Master of Business Administration on Strategic Management from Prasetiya Mulya Business School, Jakarta, Indonesia; and Master of International Human Resources Management from the University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom.

As Chief Operations Officer, Rhea is responsible for leading and empowering Manulife's operations team as they drive key initiatives to transform and elevate claims experience, operational performance, cost efficiency and overall customer satisfaction efforts into the best that Manulife's customers and stakeholders deserve. 

Rhea has over 25 years of experience in the insurance industry, particularly in Operations and Business Transformation. Prior to joining Manulife, she was head of Operations of a leading non-life insurance company specializing in health, travel and accident insurance. She also held a regional operations role in another global financial services company, covering Asia Pacific.

A Certified Project Manager, Rhea took on underwriting roles for both life and non-life early in her career. Through the years, she held various Operations leadership roles covering policy administration, customer service, IT project management, quality management, and process re-engineering.

Rhea holds an AB Social Science degree from Ateneo de Manila University, and an MBA from the Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, where she also served as part-time instructor on management and entrepreneurship.