Mel is the Vice President and Group CISO of MERALCO, the largest Power Distribution Conglomerate in the Philippines. She is part of the Executive Committee of the ASEAN CIO Association. She is concurrently the Chairman and President of the Women in Security Alliance Philippines (WiSAP). She has been cited as 2022 Influencer by the International Security Journal and has been recently cited by Technology Magazine, Energy Digital and Cyber Magazine as a leading CISO among global cybersecurity leaders and a regular contributor in Women in Security Magazine in Australia. She is the former Cyber Security Leader of a Big 4 auditing firm and the largest fintech in the Philippines.
She has more than 15 years of combined experience in Cyber and IT Governance, Application and Infrastructure Security, Operational Technology (OT) Security, Business Continuity, Privacy, IT Audit, Project Management across multiple industries. She led the PCIDSS Certification for the largest payments network in the Philippines. Further, through her leadership, Meralco’s Fintech Subsidiary, Bayad won the W Media Awards for Southeast Asia under Cybersecurity Implementation on 2021.