A new chapter in the professional métier of industry hotshot Emmanuel “Manny” V. Rubio will be unfolding soon, as whispers are getting louder on his appointment as the next chief executive officer of Meralco PowerGen (MGen), the power generation investment arm of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) by July.

Rubio will be entering the new phase of his challenges at the helm of another industry giant, following his retirement as President and CEO of Aboitiz Power Corporation by June 30 this year.

His appointment has yet to be announced formally by the top leadership at Meralco, but several sources and industry insiders already affirmed Rubio’s jump into the fence of the utility firm’s subsidiary starting July 1 this year.

At Aboitiz Power, Rubio has solidified his sharpness and ingenuity as a corporate leader – both in his stints as top executive of SN Aboitiz Power (SNAP), which is the Aboitiz group’s partnership with Norwegian firm Scatec (formerly SN Power); and in his bigger role as the chief executive of Aboitiz Power.

It was during his leadership incumbency that Aboitiz Power had cemented its foothold as the biggest power producer in the country, with Rubio soldiering on with the investment and project development trajectories initiated and guided by fourth generation Aboitiz titans – primarily former Aboitiz Power Chairman and CEO Erramon I. Aboitiz, former Senior Vice President Luis Miguel Aboitiz; and the late Jon Ramon Aboitiz, who held the top post at the conglomerate’s Aboitiz Equity Ventures as well as current Aboitiz group CEO Sabin Aboitiz.

Rubio has been instrumental in helping grow the Aboitiz group’s hydropower portfolio when he was CEO at SNAP – with him and other Aboitiz executives being a constant fixture then in the asset privatization auctions of Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM), the state-run entity which privatized the assets of the National Power Corporation.

Then at Aboitiz Power, it was during his term that the ‘portfolio rebalancing strategy’ for the company’s energy mix has been framed – that entails wider focus on renewables and other clean technology investments and that is expected to be the development pathway that his successor will be pursuing in the years ahead.

On his move to MGen, Rubio is highly anticipated to propel the company’s aggressive investment cycle for RE projects, particularly for solar and wind farm installations; as well as its foray into liquefied natural gas (LNG) ventures.

The Meralco subsidiary has just recently reported its acquisition of majority stake in the integrated LNG facilities in Batangas – that was following the shares sell-down of SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. on its Ilijan gas-fired power assets; then on the MGen’s LNG development track in Atimonan, Quezon.

Rubio’s transfer to the new corporate territory will certainly not be a walk in the park as new challenges, or even headaches, await him – including for the solar projects that MGen will be advancing to commercial fruition in the immediate term – primarily the targeted 3,500 megawatts of solar and 4,500-megawatt hours (MWh) of energy storage installations which had been the company’s acquisition from SP New Energy Corporation.

The acceleration of MGen’s renewable energy developments is a well-calculated component of the long-term sustainable strategy (LTSS) of the Meralco group, with P100 billion capital outlay set to be funneled into it.