Francis Plaza to revamp republicasia as tech-driven newsroom

Photo by John Lester Calulo | RepublicAsia

REPUBLICASIA Media has tapped PayMongo founder Francis Plaza to be its adviser and consultant as it seeks to streamline its operations and more effectively reach its target audience.

Plaza signed an advisory agreement and consultancy agreement with republicasia to help the media company’s business development and management side.

He will be assisting the company by providing tech-driven information, insights, and recommendations that will help it to achieve its objectives and resolve challenges.

Present during the contract signing with Plaza were republicasia Media’s President and CEO Bran Reluao, Chairman Lutgardo V. Cruz Sr., and Director John Frederick A. Cruz.

In photo: (from left to right) RepublicAsia President and CEO Bran Reluao, PayMongo founder Francis Plaza, RepublicAsia Chairman Lutgardo V. Cruz Sr., and RepublicAsia Director John Frederick A. Cruz. | Photo by John Lester Calulo / RepublicAsia

Plaza said he was excited to join republicasia and to help it utilize more revolutionary techniques to deliver news and information to its target audience.

“We want to position republicasia as a technology-first, technology-driven media company in this new age where the new generations, like the Gen Zs, consume media quite differently than the previous generation,” said Plaza.

“I’m excited to be working with the republicasia team to build more innovation on how to deliver news,” he added.

As for his plans for the company, he said he and republicasia would be doing various experiments to design new approaches for news and media content delivery.

The use of technology would also help the company understand how the new generations of media consumers absorb content.

“We want to use technology to make delivery of content better and faster, like artificial intelligence and new advents of software,” he said. “We want to build the company in a way that we just want to try out new things and hopefully through that we can find those new innovations.”

Who is Francis Plaza

Plaza is an MIT-educated software engineer and entrepreneur.

In 2019, he founded PayMongo, a fintech company in the Philippines that was able to raise almost $50 million from top global investors.

He is currently an angel investor, startup advisor, and mentor. He is the chief investment officer for A Force Ventures.

In 2020, he was recognised as one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 for Asia. He is currently a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Joyce Remo

Joyce Remo has always dreamt of becoming a journalist since she was 10.Driven by her strong desire to serve as a voice for the disadvantaged, she took up Journalism at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines – Manila.