The Show Must Go On
From pitching much-needed digital productivity tools to running Ayala’s very first ever online annual stockholders meeting, tech guru Gavin Barfield did it all from his wife’s dresser table at home
Words by JOY ROJAS
“I don’t think I can cast myself as a hero,” says Ayala Corporation Chief Information and Technology Integrator Gavin Barfield of what he did for the company during the months-long lockdown against COVID-19. “You look at the contributions people have made on the frontlines. I just sat in front of the computer screen most of the time.”
Behind-the-scenes of a milestone Zoom meeting
Gavin sits in front of a computer screen at home in a little studio that was originally his wife’s makeup room. Here, he took on the mammoth task of organizing a first for Ayala Corporation and the Philippine business sector: an online Annual Stockholders Meeting (ASM). Conducted via Zoom, Ayala Corporation’s 10 ASMs combined pre-recorded speeches and reports with live questions sent in earlier by shareholders through email.
The new workplace. Gavin steers the company into the digital age from his wife’s repurposed makeup room. “It’s bizarre, when you think about it,” he said. “I’m sitting here thinking, ‘I’m helping run this from my bedroom.’”
Sure, the virtual event did away with the usual logistics of stockholders’ meetings (no five-star hotels and caterers to book, no LED screens to put up), but it was not without its initial technical hitches like selection of the appropriate webinar tool, video delays, buffering, and wheeling. Tremendous coordination work and practice sessions with the business unit teams and suppliers did the work.
“We all found a way to make it happen,” said Gavin, a no-nonsense, roll-up-your-sleeves kind of guy.
““We didn’t have the option of doing anything fancy. It really was people working from home.””
Ayala Group’s different teams focused on their specific assignments: Investor Relations handled content and board presentations, AG Legal covered the meeting’s processes following SEC guidelines, Brand and Reputation Management handled the overall video shoots and audio syncing of speakers with visual materials, and Globe provided the high-capacity network.
Gavin had his hands full setting up webinars, overseeing days of technical rehearsals, and manually creating emails for each and every ASM participant before the big day.
“And everything went smoothly,” he said after the historic presentation. “We didn’t have the option of doing anything fancy. It really was people working from home, and I think it added an element of authenticity to it. We were letting the business carry on, we were doing what needed to be done in a relatively professional way.”
Keeping our commitment. The 2019 Annual Stockholders Meeting (above) marked Ayala Corporation’s 185th year in business. This year, despite the Luzon-wide lockdown, the ASM pushed through via Zoom (below) , a testament to the resilience and stability that have carried Ayala Corporation through seven generations for almost two centuries.
Bizarre
Still, there’s a part of Gavin that can’t believe he actually helped put together a major event—at the height of a pandemic at that—for one of the oldest and largest conglomerates in the country. “It’s bizarre when you think about it,”" he said. “I’m sitting here thinking, ‘I’m helping run this from my bedroom.’”
It won’t be the last time. As COVID-19 remains a threat and working from home has become the new normal, Gavin has had to steer Ayala Corporation—from chairman and chief executive officer Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (JAZA) to the conglomerate’s staff—to the digital age, all from his wife’s repurposed makeup room, amid a tangle of cables, computers, makeup, and knickknacks.
He actually began laying the groundwork when he joined the company in January 2020. The plan was to slowly introduce tools like Zoom and Teams to groups of 10 to 15 people in donut-and-coffee sessions that would stretch for three months.
The coronavirus accelerated adoption dramatically. Together with his team of six, Gavin regularly creates and sends out tech tips online. He started Wednesdays Work-from-Home Webinars, half-hour sessions that walk executives through making audio and video calls, logging in from outside the office, and other tech-related concerns.
Zoom-ing forward. Gavin and the Ayala executives share updates on the company’s initiatives to support employees in the virtual town hall, now dubbed #VirtualFridays. These digital meetings enable everyone to align tasks, goals and the Ayala values, even if they work remotely.
Engaging employees
“Now everything is done remotely,” he said. “We’ve had product launches, board meetings, round tables—everything being held online. And people are getting much more comfortable with it.” This includes JAZA and Ayala Corporation president and COO Fernando Zobel de Ayala, who keep employees up to speed on company matters in an hour long webinar called Virtual Fridays. “I hope it carries on, because we normally would never have that level of engagement in the office.”
For this UK national, the biggest drawback to working from home during a pandemic is not being able to truly be home. Gavin (who worked for 20 years in Singapore, then served as chief information and technology advisor for Meralco for five years before joining Ayala Corporation) is troubled by news of illnesses from both his and his wife’s families during the crisis. Strict travel protocols have prevented her from seeing her family in Pampanga and him from flying to England.
Working from home also finds him working constantly, “so 8 o’clock in the evening is like 5 o’clock in the afternoon.” And he misses human interaction, talking to people in person instead of on a screen.
“But you know,” he said, “at the end of the day, I’m lucky that my work can be done in the safety of our apartment. When you look at people who have no choice but to be outside, I’m fortunate that I can work from home.” #
PUBLISHED JULY 31, 2020
