Cementing a Legacy: Ayala’s Purposeful Journey to a Sustainable Future  

 
 

At the heart of Ayala Corporation's engagement with The Purpose Business was the desire to unify its legacy and future ambitions under a clearly articulated purpose and set of strong values, ensuring its continued positive impact on the Philippines and its people.  

Challenge

Ayala Corporation, with a legacy spanning nearly two centuries in the Philippines, has always been guided by a deep-seated ethos of building companies that spur the nation’s growth and enable its people to thrive. As the company approached its 190th anniversary, its leadership sought to articulate its corporate purpose and values more explicitly in order to ensure that its guiding philosophy could be effectively communicated and adopted by future generations of leaders and employees.

Despite a strong sense of corporate identity among employees and leaders, Ayala recognised the need for a unified voice to express its core beliefs and ambitions. The absence of a clear, shared articulation of Ayala's purpose was seen as a barrier to fully harnessing the conglomerate's potential for positive impact, especially in the context of post-pandemic recovery and national development.

In partnering with The Purpose Business (TPB), Ayala sought to ensure that its purpose resonates clearly and meaningfully, guiding the conglomerate and its subsidiaries toward a future where business and social outcomes are mutually reinforcing. The company also recognised that its values should evolve from principles into daily practices and behaviours that every employee could embody.

Solution

To meet Ayala’s aspirations to define a more tangible purpose and a concrete set of actionable values, TPB devised a focused and pragmatic strategy: 

  • Defining Corporate Purpose: TPB helped to articulate a clear corporate purpose for Ayala, encapsulating its historical impact and future ambitions. This purpose was crafted to resonate with all stakeholders, aligning Ayala's diverse business units with its sustainability and growth objectives. 

  • Clarifying and Activating Values: TPB refined Ayala's values to ensure they were actionable. This involved identifying specific practices/behaviours that would embody these values, making them integral to Ayala's corporate culture. 

  • Inclusive Engagement and Facilitation: Through creative facilitation, TPB engaged a broad spectrum of Ayala's workforce, from front-line employees to executives, in meaningful conversations. This approach uncovered diverse perspectives on Ayala's role and impact, ensuring the developed purpose and values were grounded in the reality of its operations and aspirations. 

  • Building on Ayala's Legacy: Leveraging Ayala's existing narratives and insights from across the organisation, TPB's strategy was rooted in the conglomerate's legacy, yet focused on future relevance. This included challenging Ayala to think deeply about its unique contribution to nation-building and translating this into a purpose that would guide its path forward. 

Impact

The collaboration between TPB and Ayala Corporation culminated in the development of a succinct, actionable corporate purpose and a set of values that were to be integrated and lived out across the conglomerate.  

The impacts of TPB's work with Ayala were multifaceted, reflecting strides in both internal and external operations, including:  

  • Updating recruitment and onboarding processes to better align with its newly articulated purpose and values  

  • Aligning internal and external messaging for Ayala’s 190th Anniversary with its corporate purpose. This involved showcasing Ayala's history, legacy, and vision for the future, underlining the continuity of its commitment to the principles it stands for

  • Inclusion of Ayala’s corporate purpose statement in the company’s 2024 Integrated Report, while serving as a guiding principle in Ayala’s sustainability and investment strategy  

This work helps to lay the groundwork for Ayala’s long-term goal: to anchor the company's overarching strategy, encapsulating sustainability efforts, future and existing investments and employee engagement, in corporate purpose to ensure that its initiatives contribute meaningfully to societal and environmental well-being, in line with the company’s values. 

 

“A genuine and clearly defined purpose is fundamental to building trust among our company, our customers, and our broader stakeholder community. With that belief, we collaborated with TPB to ensure our purpose was clear to our stakeholders, actionable for our employees and reflected in our past decisions and actions. We built meaning around the values that bring our purpose to life, building on the insights we gained from the process. 

Our purpose is integrated into our talent management and serves as the overarching driver of our sustainability strategy and continues to inspire our investment decisions. As we celebrate our 190th anniversary and look beyond to the next 190 years, we are eager to continue this journey of building businesses that enable people to thrive – and we are committed to using purpose as our guide as we navigate the evolving landscape and strive to positively impact our stakeholders and our community.“

     — Carissa Feria, Head of Strategy and Transformation, Ayala Land