Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) president and chief executive officer Napoleon L. Nazareno
Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) president and chief executive officer Napoleon L. Nazareno has been nominated CEO of the Year at the Asia Communication Awards (ACA) 2014, an annual recognition program for outstanding telco players which is organized by London-based industry publication Total Telecom.
Nazareno was shortlisted for the award along with 18 other Asian telco CEOs following a call for nominations from industry members. Winners will be determined by an industry vote and assessment by a panel of judges.
Under Nazareno’s leadership, Smart has gone beyond providing traditional voice, SMS, and data services into becoming an innovative technology company. Last year, Smart launched the Spinnr website and mobile application which allow its subscribers to stream and download up to 3 million songs, and pay for their transactions via prepaid load or postpaid credits. Mobile credits can also be used to pay for personal movie-viewing and purchase of e-Pins for online games.
Smart also boosted financial services in the Philippines by launching BayadLoad, which enables subscribers to use mobile credits to make their monthly contributions to social security, health insurance, and housing funds.
Moreover, the company launched the Smart Sat service powered by the Thuraya SatSleeve, a revolutionary portable case that transforms an iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s into a satellite device with the aid of a mobile app.
With Nazareno at the helm, Smart also expanded its LTE (Long Term Evolution) footprint to cover 85 percent of the country’s population – the most extensive LTE network in the Philippines. And just recently, Smart launched in beta the PowerApp, an app that offers mobile data packages that suits different lifestyles (email, social networking packages, etc.) for as low as PhP5 for three hours.