Philippines’ leading digital financial services platform applies AI and experience design across recruitment, employer branding, onboarding, and employee engagement
As AI changes how businesses operate, Maya, the country’s leading digital financial services platform, is applying the same AI-first, data-first mindset to how it attracts, hires, welcomes and engages its people.
The aim is not to automate the human side of work, but to remove friction, improve decisions and create clearer, more relevant experiences—from a candidate’s first interaction with Maya to everyday life inside the company.
This approach earned Maya seven recognitions in the 2026 Stevie Awards for Great Employers, covering AI-enhanced recruitment, experience-driven employer branding, onboarding, employee engagement and people leadership.
The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements, as well as HR-related products, solutions and suppliers that help create and drive great places to work.
In recruitment, Maya uses AI-assisted search to help identify candidates based on relevant skills and experience, while AI-assisted outreach supports more personalized conversations. Hiring decisions and accountability remain with recruiters and business leaders.
Maya has also redesigned how prospective and new employees experience the company. Its employer-branding work gives candidates a clearer view of roles, expectations and opportunities before they apply. Its onboarding program provides structured support from preboarding through integration, while employee engagement initiatives connect teams more closely with customers, recognition, wellbeing and the purpose behind their work.
“For us, being AI-first is not about replacing human judgment. It is about using technology to remove friction, make better decisions and help people focus on work that creates value,” said Carla G. Lanza, Chief People Officer of Maya. “We are applying the same attention to simplicity, relevance and experience that shapes our products to how we build our teams and culture.”
Maya received a Silver Stevie® Award for Experience-Driven Employer Branding, as well as Bronze Stevie® Awards for Scaling High-Quality Hiring with Embedded AI; Engineering Engagement that Creates a BOLDER Culture; and Designing a Purpose-Driven, End-to-End Onboarding Experience at Scale.
Lanza also received a Silver Stevie® Award for Chief Human Resources Officer of the Year. Other individual honorees were Andrea Agatha Pascual, Employee Engagement Manager, who received the Gold Stevie® Award for Employee Engagement Professional of the Year; and Rose Ann Belangoy, Senior Lead for Payroll, who received the Bronze Stevie® Award for Benefits or Payroll Professional of the Year.
More than 160 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s honorees. Winners in the Employer of the Year categories were determined by a unique blending of the ratings of the professional judges and more than 178,000 public votes.
Maya has been an early pioneer in applying AI across digital financial services, adopting the technology with strong governance and human oversight from the outset. Today, AI is embedded across the organization—from customer acquisition, personalization and service to credit, fraud prevention, operations and talent—helping Maya make faster, smarter decisions while keeping accountability, security and responsible use at the core.
