Mitch Locsin Helped Build the Philippine BPO Industry — His Legacy Lives in a $40-Billion Digital Economy
MANILA, Philippines — When the history of the Philippine business process outsourcing industry is written, the biggest names may not always be the ones whose work was most visible.
Albert Mitchell “Mitch” Locsin was one of those builders.
The longtime technology, telecommunications and IT-BPM executive died on August 19, 2026, leaving behind a career that stretched across some of the most important years in the transformation of the Philippines from an emerging outsourcing destination into one of the world's major global-services hubs.
He served as the first executive director of the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines, known in its early years as BPAP, and later returned to the organization in leadership roles including as a board trustee. He also became a leading figure in the country's contact-center industry and spent years at PLDT working on the technology infrastructure increasingly required by outsourcing firms and other businesses.
But reducing Locsin's legacy to job titles would miss the bigger story.
The industry he helped promote when the Philippines was still fighting for credibility with foreign investors has since become an economic pillar employing roughly 1.9 million Filipino workers and generating more than $40 billion in annual revenue.
And perhaps more importantly, the industry's growth did not remain confined to Makati, Ortigas or Metro Manila.
That is where one of Locsin's most consequential contributions enters the story.
When the Philippines Still Had to Sell Itself
Today's status of the Philippines as a global IT-BPM center can make it easy to forget just how different the industry's position was two decades ago.
IBPAP traces its beginnings to 2004, when the association that would eventually represent much of the country's outsourcing ecosystem was still being organized.
According to an IBPAP tribute following Locsin's death, he became its first executive director while the organization was still finding its footing.
The association recalled something particularly revealing about those early years: Locsin personally sought financial backing for the industry's first development roadmap, going from company to company to persuade business leaders to support a national strategy.
It was not glamorous work.
But it was exactly the kind of groundwork required at a time when the Philippines still needed to convince global corporations that its workforce, telecommunications infrastructure and business environment could support large-scale offshore operations.
Locsin himself later described those years as essentially having to sell the Philippines and Filipino talent to the world.
That sales pitch eventually worked.
The Idea That BPO Shouldn't Stop at Metro Manila
One of the most significant shifts in the Philippine outsourcing story was the realization that growth could not depend entirely on the capital region.
The Next Wave Cities initiative sought to identify locations outside established BPO centers that had the talent, infrastructure, cost profile and business environment needed to attract outsourcing investments.
Locsin was identified as one of the figures instrumental in developing the program.
Government and industry records show that the initiative grew into an important regional-development program. The early Next Wave Cities strategy evaluated dozens of locations and helped direct attention toward areas including Baguio, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Lipa, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and other emerging hubs.
The logic was straightforward but transformative: instead of forcing qualified Filipinos to migrate to Metro Manila for outsourcing jobs, companies could bring those jobs closer to where workers already lived.
DOST later described the initiative as a way of generating employment, entrepreneurship and economic opportunities outside the capital.
The program eventually evolved into Digital Cities, an initiative backed by government and industry groups to develop sustainable IT-BPM locations throughout the Philippines.
That means part of Locsin's legacy can be measured not merely in corporate projects but in an idea that became fundamental to Philippine outsourcing:
growth should reach the regions.
Then Came the Pandemic's Ultimate Stress Test
That nationwide BPO footprint faced an extraordinary test in 2020.
COVID-19 lockdowns suddenly forced hundreds of thousands of outsourcing employees away from centralized offices and into work-from-home environments.
Locsin later recalled the scramble to get wireless broadband devices into workers' homes, including efforts to move equipment onto aircraft so it could reach employees in the Visayas and Mindanao.
He estimated that roughly 900,000 to one million IT-BPO workers were ultimately able to continue providing services from home during that period.
The episode highlighted a reality that would increasingly define Locsin's later career.
BPO was no longer simply a story about people answering calls.
Its future depended on connectivity, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data centers and resilient networks.
From Selling the Philippines to Building Its Digital Backbone
Locsin joined PLDT in 2011, according to an industry profile published by the Contact Center Association of the Philippines.
His roles expanded over the years, eventually placing him in senior leadership across PLDT's Enterprise business.
A PLDT regulatory filing later identified him as First Vice President and Head of PLDT Enterprise Business Group, with that appointment taking effect in July 2023.
By then, enterprise telecommunications had moved far beyond voice lines and basic connectivity.
Companies increasingly needed cloud systems, cybersecurity, managed networks, data centers and infrastructure capable of supporting artificial intelligence and increasingly complex digital operations.
Locsin became one of the executives publicly making that case.
In 2023, for example, he discussed PLDT's plan to expand its data-center presence as the company prepared its largest hyperscale facility, designed to serve large cloud providers, enterprises and government customers.
His work also extended to technologies aimed at connecting difficult-to-reach locations. In 2025, he spoke about integrating Starlink satellite connectivity into PLDT Enterprise services to strengthen internet availability in areas where conventional infrastructure remained limited.
The numbers show how important that digital shift has become.
The Business He Helped Shape Became a ₱48.4-Billion Operation
PLDT's official 2025 financial disclosure reported ₱48.4 billion in Enterprise revenues.
Corporate data and ICT generated ₱36.3 billion, representing about 75% of Enterprise revenues, while ICT revenues rose 25%.
Those results illustrate how enterprise technology has evolved from basic telecommunications into a portfolio increasingly dominated by data and digital infrastructure.
PLDT's strategy during this period included managed IT services, cloud technology, cybersecurity, data centers and new authentication technologies designed to reduce dependence on conventional SMS one-time passwords.
Locsin's corporate career therefore overlapped with two transformations.
First, he helped promote the Philippines as a global outsourcing destination.
Then he helped work on the infrastructure that allowed increasingly sophisticated digital businesses to operate here.
The Industry He Helped Build Is Now Worth More Than $40 Billion
Perhaps the clearest way to understand the scale of that transformation is to look at where Philippine IT-BPM stands today.
IBPAP said the sector generated more than $40.3 billion in revenue in 2025, supported approximately 1.9 million workers, and accounted for around 8% of Philippine GDP.
That is a dramatically different industry from the one Locsin helped promote in its early formative years.
The sector has also moved beyond conventional customer-service work into areas including banking and financial services, healthcare information management, analytics, software development, business intelligence and global capability centers.
The OECD describes the Philippine IT-BPM sector as a major economic pillar that has increasingly diversified into higher-value services.
But the next chapter will not necessarily be easy.
Artificial intelligence and automation are already changing how global services are delivered.
In July 2026, IBPAP revised its longer-term industry outlook, setting a best-case 2028 revenue target of $50.5 billion, below the previous $59-billion projection. Its best-case employment projection was also lowered to 2.14 million jobs from an earlier target of 2.5 million.
The challenge is increasingly shifting from simply creating more seats to creating higher-value jobs.
That means retraining workers, developing AI skills and competing on expertise rather than labor cost alone.
It is a different challenge from the one Locsin confronted during BPO's early days.
But the underlying task is familiar: convincing the world that Filipino talent can move up the value chain.
Colleagues Remember the Person Behind the Executive Titles
The tributes following Locsin's death focused repeatedly on something less measurable than revenue or employment.
Accessibility.
IBPAP described a leader who was willing to take calls, connect people and tackle assignments even when they fell well outside his formal responsibilities.
PLDT Global remembered him not only as an executive but as a mentor, friend and source of guidance to colleagues.
His cousin, former Commission on Elections commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, offered a more personal portrait in the Manila Bulletin.
Larrazabal recalled growing up with Locsin in Ormoc City and wrote that behind his corporate achievements was someone who approached challenges with a sense that difficulties could ultimately be overcome.
That may help explain why Locsin remained closely associated with an industry defined by continuous disruption.
BPO went from telephone-based outsourcing to multichannel customer experience.
Telecommunications evolved into cloud, cybersecurity and digital infrastructure.
Regional offices became distributed workforces.
And now artificial intelligence is forcing the industry to reinvent itself again.
The Bigger Legacy Is Hiding in Plain Sight
There is a temptation when remembering business leaders to measure their careers through revenue, titles or corporate milestones.
Locsin's story suggests another measurement.
Look at the Filipino who found a technology job without moving permanently to Metro Manila.
Look at the regional city that became an outsourcing hub.
Look at the company that kept operating when the pandemic emptied its offices.
Look at the digital infrastructure now allowing Philippine companies to compete for more sophisticated global work.
Those developments were never the work of one person.
The rise of Philippine IT-BPM required decades of effort from government, educators, entrepreneurs, telecom companies, investors, industry associations and millions of workers.
But by IBPAP's own account, Mitch Locsin was there near the foundation, helping turn a young association and an ambitious industry proposition into something investors could believe in.
Today that industry generates more than $40 billion a year.
Its next test is whether it can survive—and capitalize on—the AI transformation.
Locsin will not be there to see that next chapter unfold.
But some of the foundations on which it will be built are the same ones he spent much of his career helping put in place.
WWC ONE MEDIA M.J.E