MARIA ELENA (MAYA) BALTAZAR HERRERA, FASP

Maya Herrera is an actuary, a consultant and an educator. She has been in the training and consulting field since 1989.

She provides both technical advice in the areas of finance, strategy and human resources as well as on-the-ground facilitation, training and executive coaching services. With her partners and associates in Solutions Inc. and Abelica Global, she provides consulting in the fields of strategic planning, advice for financial institutions, strategic finance, strategic measuring, enterprise-wide risk management, strategic human resources planning, total compensation design, managed health care and actuarial services.

She brings with her a unique perspective that comes from being able to bring together both a finance and organization perspective to her projects. Her strength lies in her capacity to understand the human element and connect it with rigor to the business perspective. Maya is director of Solutions Incorporated, a member of the Abelica Global group of consulting firms.

She is also currently an Associate Professor at the Asian Institute of Management where she concentrates on executive education. She teaches finance, risk management, corporate valuation, leadership and human resources management. She is program director of the Institute’s Strategic Finance, Finance for Senior Executives and Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Programs.

Prior to AIM, she was the Chief Financial Officer and Actuary of the Manufacturer’s Life Insurance Company’s Philippine office. In this position, she was in charge of all the finance functions including financial reporting, controllership, plan accounting and agency compensation; investments; internal audit; corporate planning and the actuarial department. She was chair of the Company’s local legal committee and sat in the Company’s Regional Operating Committee.

She was practice leader of the health care, group and risk management practices of The Wyatt Company (Philippines) – now Watson Wyatt. In this capacity, she was also involved in retirement plan consulting and assisted many companies in establishing their retirement plans. Ms. Herrera also worked as a manager of the actuarial and group benefits department of Lincoln Philippine Life Insurance Company (now Colonial Mutual Group).

Ms. Herrera is past President and General Manager of East Asia Plans, Inc., at the time, one of the top ten pre-need education and pension companies in the Philippines. She is also past President and General Manager of LTS Philippines, at the time the fourth largest direct selling operation in the Philippines.

Maya writes the column, Integrations, for The Manila Standard Today. She is a Fellow and Past PResident of the Actuarial Society of the Philippines and has served in various capacities in its Board of Governors. She is in the Board of Abelica Global.

Maya has a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines and a Master’s degree in Actuarial Mathematics from the University of Michigan. She is a member of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, the Philippine Acedmy of Management and the International Actuarial Association.