Estrellado Passing the Baton

Life begins at 60 for Randy Estrellado, chief operating officer of Maynilad Water Services Inc., as he celebrates his birthday this month and formally retires from an 18-year career with the West Zone water utility provider on Sept. 1, where he first started in 2007 as chief finance officer.

- MARIANNE GO

Randy's 40-year career actually began with the Lopez Group, first with Bayantel and then with First Gen, and also with broadcasting group ABS-CBN as CFO, before moving on and settling with Maynilad.

Randy is among the first wave of Gen X - those born between 1965 and 1980, following the Baby Boomers - born between 1946 and 1964. Thus, unlike the Baby Boomers who don't want to retire, Randy acknowledges that he was able to work and that it does not need to be extended further as a form of gratitude. He believes in work-life balance, and to enjoy the remaining good and healthy life he has.

He reveals that his family has a history of cancer, with his grandfather and both his parents succumbing to the disease, and another sibling also passing away early unexpectedly. "In fact, every time I get my executive checkup, I just wait for them to tell me, oh, we found something. If they tell me, okay, that's where it came from. So in my mind, if the 60s are my last decade, I want to be doing something else. Because I've been in corporate my whole life. I started working at 20, so 40 years now in corporate... So I want to do something else."

Likewise, Randy points out, "With Maynilad, I don't feel like I have unfinished business. Because when I came in, it was a company under rehab. Now, it's about to go public. So I'm very proud of that."