Lito Villanueva is the Philippines’ award-winning thought leader on digital transformation and inclusive digital finance at scale. As the Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer at RCBC, he spearheaded RCBC's digital revolution, introducing groundbreaking and award-winning innovations. Among its recognitions include the Asiamoney’s Best Bank for Digital for four consecutive years (2020-2023), Gartner’s Eye for Innovation, and YouTube’s Challenger award, to name just a few.

Villanueva was recently feted as CX Professional of the Year by The Digital Banker, the Philippines’ Innovator of the Year for Banking in the Asian Management Excellence Awards, the Outstanding Achievement for Marketing Management in the Agora Awards, considered as the ‘Oscars’ of Philippine marketing industry, a two-time Circle of Excellence awardee in the Asia CEO Awards, PhilSec’s Digital Leader of the Year, and as the “Mr. FinTech of the Philippines” by NewsBiz Asia. He bagged triple LinkedIn awards as one of the Top 100 Filipinos on LinkedIn, Philippines’ Top 30 Leaders on LinkedIn, and Top Finance Leader under the LinkedIn Leadership Catalysts Awards in 2023. He is also featured in prestigious lists like the Asian Banker’s Global List of Leading Practitioners (LLP) in Banking and Financial Technology, Seamless Asia's Top 50 Banking and Payments Leaders and Top 100 Fintech Leaders in Asia, amongst his over 70 regional and global accolades.

He is the Founding Chairman of Fintech Alliance.PH, Global Chairman of the Alliance of Digital Finance Associations, a trustee at the Philippine Blockchain Council, Asia FinTech Alliance, and an advisory board member at the ASEAN Innovation Business Platform. He has authored publications including the award-winning Inclusive Digital Finance Report and has a regular business column ‘Bytes’ in the Philippine Star.

Villanueva holds two graduate degrees from prestigious institutions, and finished the Digital Transformation by Design at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK.