MANILA - Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) on Thursday said its board has appointed Gil Buenaventura, who is currently senior executive vice president, as chief operating officer effective January 1, 2010.

The 56-year-old executive has served as head of BPI’s corporate-banking group since 1996, and is responsible for over P200 billion in loans to top-tier corporations, the middle market, and small and medium enterprises.

He was president of Prudential Bank, which was absorbed by BPI in 2005. He was instrumental, the bank said in a disclosure to the stock exchange, in leading one of the quickest integration exercises in BPI and in the history of the banking industry.

The former Citibanker, who was a product of the merger between BPI and CityTrust Banking Corp. in 1996, started his banking career in 1973 when he was guest trainee in two US banks—Chemical Bank and First National City Bank.

Buenaventura is concurrently the chairman of the board of directors and nomination committee of BPI Leasing Corp., and also holds several positions in other units of BPI, the country’s biggest bank by market value and No. 3 in asset size.

He also serves as chairman of the boards of BPI Bancassurance Inc., Citytrust Realty Corp., BPI Rental Corp., BPI International Finance Ltd., BPI Express Remittance Corp., Pilipinas Savings Bank Inc., BPI Computer Systems Corp., BPI Direct Savings Bank Inc., Citytrust Securities Corp., Ayala Life Assurance, Inc. and Ayala Plans Inc. He is a member of the board of trustees of BPI Foundation,Inc.

Buenaventura obtained his economics degree from the University of San Francisco in 1973 and finished his MBAfinance degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1975.