OLONGAPO CITY—Former Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma received yet another recognition for leadership after being cited two months ago for steering the Subic Bay Freeport out of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Eisma, now a director of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), received the Sustainability Leadership Award from the Mumbai, India-based World CSR Day during its 12th Philippines Leadership Congress and Awards 2023 at Dusit Thani Hotel in Manila last Wednesday, June 7.
The lawyer, who joined the DBP after leaving the SBMA service in March last year, received her latest honor for excellence in governance and sustainability leadership.
This was the third time that Eisma was cited by the World CSR Day group for leadership excellence. In 2019, she received the “CSR Leadership Award” and the “Woman Leadership Award” during CSR Day’s World Women Leadership Congress in Manila while she was still SBMA chief.
Eisma’s latest recognition came on the heels of her silver award for “Thought Leader of the Year” in this year’s edition of the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the only awards program that recognizes innovation in business throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region.
She received the silver Stevie for the proactive measures she instituted as SBMA CEO and for crafting “a roadmap to survival” before and at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, thus saving jobs and investments in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
Eisma’s survival roadmap for Subic was a series of innovations that included business teleconferencing; disinfection protocols and mass testing; emergency isolation facilities; online bidding for products and services; virtual job fairs; online medical consultation; and a “bubble” concept for sports tournaments, seminars and workshops, and other events to boost local business operations.
In 2018, a year after becoming SBMA’s first female CEO, Eisma also won a silver Stevie as “Female Executive of the Year for Government or Non-profit” under the individual women awards category.