The curious leadership of Maynilad COO Chris Lichauco
Always asking, always listening:
Published Oct 18, 2025 07:26 am
Christopher Jaime T. Lichauco
When Christopher Jaime T. Lichauco eats out, his wife knows what’s coming.
“My wife always gets mad at me because it embarrasses her,” he said, smiling. “Whenever I’m in a restaurant, I ask the waiter or waitress where they live, to know if they’re Maynilad customers. If they are customers, I ask them: ‘How’s the water pressure in your area—is it strong?’ And then, I joke around after: ‘I hope you pay your bills!’ I just want to be in touch with the customers. It’s instant feedback for me.”
That simple habit captures how Lichauco approaches leadership: always curious, always listening, and never too far removed from the people Maynilad Water Services Inc. serves.
As the largest water concessionaire in Southeast Asia, Maynilad supplies potable water and wastewater services to more than 10 million people in the West Zone of Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Now at the helm of the company’s operations as its new chief operating officer (COO), Lichauco carries with him nearly three decades of institutional knowledge—a 27-year journey that began in the most unglamorous of settings.
Christopher Jaime T. Lichauco, new chief operating officer (COO) of Maynilad Water Services Inc. (Maynilad), effective Sept. 1, 2025. A homegrown talent, Lichauco has been with Maynilad for 27 years. He started as a project manager and later became business area operations head before being appointed in 2013 as head of the customer experience and retail operations (CXRO) division, the company’s largest business unit. (Maynild
From rough start to responsibility
Lichauco’s career began soon after the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) was privatized in 1997—a landmark reform that divided Metro Manila’s water service area into east and west zones. Maynilad took charge of the West Zone, covering cities from Caloocan to Las Piñas.
“I came in with the Benpres move,” he said, referring to Benpres Holdings Corp. of the Lopez Group, which then managed Maynilad. “I came in October 1998. We were faced with El Niño then.”
Lichauco had just returned from the United States (US), where he earned his master’s degree in international management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. “It was the Asian financial crisis,” he recalled. “Water supply was a challenge, but we knew that El Niño was a cycle.”
The conditions he entered were far from easy. “I remember the offices were not as nice as these,” Lichauco said during the interview with Manila Bulletin at Maynilad’s modern headquarters in Quezon City. “I didn’t have my own room. We were like a classroom. When it started to rain, it was really raining on me.”
Those early hardships shaped Lichauco’s sense of duty. “It’s happiness and a great responsibility, especially for someone like me who’s been here practically from the start,” he said. “I’ve invested most of my life here in Maynilad, and I’ve seen it transform from its early days.”
The transformation years
That transformation is one of Lichauco’s proudest points. “The last three years have been really remarkable years for Maynilad as an organization,” he said. “We hit our targets as far as service levels. We had to hit 88.3 percent of our customers with 24 hours and seven psi [pounds per square inch] of water. At the start of the year, we thought it was impossible.”
The company has also improved its efficiency. “We brought down non-revenue water (NRW) from 42 percent to 38 percent,” Lichauco said. “Recovering water is like creating your own source of water.”
Maynilad Water Services Inc. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Chris Lichauco with another Maynilad employee during the company’s Grand Walk-the-Line initiative. The initiative is part of the company’s efforts to reduce non-revenue water (NRW). An ongoing program, the initiative mobilizes employees from various departments to conduct field inspections where they identify potential leaks, inspect drainage systems, and identify illegal connections. (Maynilad photo)
These results, he emphasized, were built on years of collaboration. “Those foundations were laid down by previous COOs, and I give them credit for that,” he said.
Humanizing leadership
As COO, Lichauco’s immediate goal has been to sustain that momentum—but with a more personal touch. “My first year of being COO, I want to keep the momentum going,” he said. “The challenge I have is huge—targets that I’ve set for myself this year. I need the operations team to be one in attaining those targets.”
He believes connection begins within. “My first task was really to humanize myself to the employees under me,” Lichauco said. “I wanted them to know me more intimately—not just as a boss or as a Maynilad employee, but as a human being as well.”
For him, collaboration means breaking barriers. “We have this wall—you can only reach me if I want you to,” he said. “I wanted to break down those walls, because to keep the momentum going, all the more we have to collaborate.”
This includes teaching teams to understand each other’s work. “A water-supply operations employee has to learn the language of customer experience, and vice versa,” Lichauco said. “By doing this, you’re able to relate, to understand other people’s problems and successes.”
A workforce that cares
“I know, and I’m sure people here will say that Maynilad employees are very hardworking and very passionate,” he said. “We’ve seen it through the years—especially in the last three years, when everyone banded together to hit those ambitious targets.”
Lichauco wants every employee to keep learning. “Whoever you are today, what you are, your technical know-how—two to three years from now I hope to see you better than what you are today.”
Listening, he said, remains the most underrated leadership skill. “When I came in with the Benpres move, the first thing I did was to listen,” Lichauco said. “Listening is a skill. It’s different to listen and to hear.”
And he values every voice. “No matter who you are—whether you are an assistant manager or a supervisor—I can learn from you,” he said. “You have value in what you’re saying.”
“I’m promoting the power of teams because I believe in it,” Lichauco said. “We’ve shown that with teams, we can really hit our targets in serving the customers.”
Future-proofing the business
Lichauco’s gaze, however, is firmly on the long term. “We need to future-proof Maynilad all the way until the end of our concession for 2047,” he said. “We’re not just looking at a 10-year horizon. We’re looking all the way to 22 years from now to ensure there will be very minimal interruptions.”
That long view aligns with the water company’s environmental and sustainability goals. “By the very nature of our business, ESG is part of our DNA,” Lichauco said, referring to the environmental, social, and governance sustainability framework. “In the journey in the years to come, it will really be all about integrating ESG and further enhancing all of our sustainability initiatives.”
Maynilad’s solar farm within La Mesa compound. The company’s shift to renewable energy (RE) is a key strategy toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2037. It harnesses solar power through two solar farms within La Mesa Compound, which supply energy to its water treatment plants and pumping stations—helping reduce reliance on the grid and fossil fuels. (Maynilad photo)
He has seen how access to water can change lives. “Back then, 27 years ago, you will not believe it—we gave water to a community that had not seen a faucet for generations,” he said. “When we were able to expand and give them water, all of a sudden, their community was very clean. It added to their dignity.”
Lichauco is also keenly aware of the challenge posed by climate variability. “The normal for today may become a new normal for tomorrow as far as our water sources’ qualities are concerned,” the Maynilad official said. “We’re continuously upgrading our facilities, promoting conservation, and treating wastewater into potable water.”
Innovation and technology
Maynilad’s new initiatives include the country’s first large-scale wastewater recycling plant. “We see the value in this not just as far as additional water source contributing to our buffer but as far as sustainability is concerned,” Lichauco said. “It’s like a circular economy for us.”
Maynilad’s new water treatment plant. A first in the Philippines, this pioneering initiative converts treated used water into potable water, offering a sustainable solution to augment Metro Manila’s water supply. The facility utilizes a multi-stage treatment process that purifies treated used water to meet the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water (PNSDW) set by the Department of Health (DOH). (Maynilad photo)
The company is also taking responsibility for cleaning rivers and water sources, and aims to plant one million trees by 2030 to protect watersheds.
For Lichauco, climate unpredictability demands preparedness. “You cannot afford to be taken by surprise; hence, our upgrading of plants and the like to meet those challenges.”
On the technology front, Lichauco is particularly excited about the use of artificial intelligence (AI). “We’re investing in AI as far as leak detection is concerned,” he said. “You just feed information, and it automatically generates where the leaks are.”
He also highlighted the company’s central control room (CCR). “It’s the first in the Philippines where we can monitor everything that’s happening in our network,” he noted. “If there’s any anomaly, we can easily send advisories to our customers and dispatch a crew to repair the anomaly.”
Maynilad’s central control room (CCR) allows the company to manage and monitor its water supply network and facilities across the West Zone concession area. Through the CCR, Maynilad ensures efficient and timely responses to situations and improvements in water management. The CCR is part of the company’s digital transformation efforts to streamline operations and enhance service delivery to its customers. (Maynilad photo)
Automation, he added, has become essential. “We’re also automating our water-treatment plants so there will be fewer manual errors involved.”
Building the next line of leaders
Succession planning is another focus under Lichauco’s leadership. “I can identify already three or four who can take my place anytime,” he said. “That makes me sleep well at night. I want to deepen and widen that bench.”
He sees mentorship as part of his legacy. “I want my vision, or the legacy I would like to leave behind, to maintain Maynilad as the leading, number-one water service provider in the Philippines,” Lichauco said. “As far as customer service, we are number one.”
Preparing for IPO
As Maynilad readies for its initial public offering (IPO), Lichauco has taken an active role in engaging potential investors. “We’ve been involved with our roadshows and representations to investors,” he said. “We’re excited about it because it will enable us to proceed with our investments sooner than later. But it will also heighten our transparency and accountability. What we promise, we have to deliver.”
Listing publicly, he added, is not just about capital. “It will enable us to lock in more funds to reach more customers and expand service levels,” Lichauco said. “We’re also looking at other communities outside our concession. We’d like to contribute to nation-building by doing this.”
The impact, he believes, goes beyond business metrics. “Once you serve a community, their lives will improve almost instantly,” he said. “They get more dignified, and their quality of life improves.”
A leader who listens
Even at formal gatherings, he seeks real-world insight. During Maynilad’s recent IPO roadshow at a hotel in Makati City, Lichauco asked a waitress where she lives and if she’s a customer.
The waitress, who’s from Bacoor City, Cavite, gave him instant feedback: service is good.
“That’s valuable to me,” Lichauco said.