Quick 5 Interview with Innodata Knowledge Services’ Jemima Villa
Team AdvantageClub.ai
February 12, 2026
In this edition of our Quick 5 Interview series, we are thrilled to speak with Jemima Villa. She walks us through her day and shares how she aligns her strategic priorities in this fast-paced HR world. She emphasizes providing the right tools and resources to employees to thrive and gives us a peek into how she sustains employee engagement as the world undergoes key shifts.
She offers thoughtful insights on prioritizing emotional intelligence in this tech-driven world, especially in the corporate world, and shows how it can help build a culture of care at the workplace. She encourages employees and pushes them to be their best selves, which is truly the mark of a great leader.
Here is the excerpt from the candid conversation with Jemima Villa, the Country Head at Innodata Knowledge Services, Inc. in the Philippines. With over three decades of experience, she leads the company’s nationwide operations across Manila, Legazpi, and Mandaue, overseeing key functions that enable the delivery of data-driven solutions to international clients across highly regulated and innovation-focused industries. Her leadership spans across business continuity, talent planning, integrated support functions, and technology enablement, supporting Innodata’s mission to power diverse AI use cases. She continues to drive transformation through capability building, leadership development, and employee experience initiatives, making sure that the business remains agile and future-ready.
She is also a winner of AdvantageClub.ai’s Most Admired Women Award 2025 in the Leader category.
Read below
Q1. What does a typical day in your life as the Country Head - Philippines look like? How do you juggle your strategic priorities with the daily pulse of employee well-being and engagement?
A1. So, I’m a very prayerful person. So I start my day with a prayer and with devotion. And of course, at our level, the first thing you do is to look at the calendar and see what’s in store for the day. Before I took on the role of Country Head, my career was really in HR. So I’m really a people person.
But personally, I’m also an entrepreneur. So I always try to balance business and people. And when we think about plans or we think about any initiatives or anything that we need to implement in the organization, we always look at what the impact will be on the people as well as the impact on the business.
The culture that we have built at Innodata is people-first. If you make your people happy, if you make your people motivated, the business will never fail. So we always look at the welfare of our people and how it will impact them when we deploy or implement initiatives. We always try to strike a balance between people and the business.
Q2. As someone who plays a crucial role in shaping company culture, how do you keep employee engagement dynamic, especially when teams are adapting to new ways of working?
A2. It’s very challenging, especially now that we are adapting to a hybrid setup. We have to ensure inclusivity, particularly when it comes to employee engagement activities, learning and development, and other people-focused initiatives. What we are pursuing and have already implemented is innovation through a platform that brings everyone together, enabling engagement activities, rewards, and recognition on one unified platform.
Whether employees are working remotely or on-site, the feeling remains the same. We always provide them a platform, even if they’re working remotely, to continue learning. So we have a robust learning management system for them to be able to access at their own pace, at any time of the day, any time that they have the spare time to learn. Because in the AI space right now, you really have to upskill, reskill, retool.
You cannot simply encourage people to upskill without providing them with the tools and resources. That’s why we provide a platform to develop themselves. We also try to give exposure to our people, especially our leaders, to the outside world. Whenever there are forums, conferences, or other related sessions that are relevant to our business, we invest in sending our people so they can learn.
Since we are working in a hybrid setup, every year we make sure that we bring everybody together in person. So we have this year-end celebration for all innovations, and we do this for all locations, so that if you cannot attend, like in Mandaue, you can attend in Manila or in another location, because this is the only way that you can connect in person with your colleagues. It’s really different if you are seeing people in person rather than seeing them virtually.
This is one of the key engagement initiatives we continue to sustain to keep our people engaged. And of course, there are still a lot of things. So you need a lot of collaboration. That’s why we have the management team collaborate regularly on how we keep on sustaining what we have right now in terms of employee engagement initiatives and activities.
Q3. In your career, you’ve likely faced challenges that tested your resolve. What’s a life lesson that has helped you overcome difficult moments?
A3. Maybe I can share a little bit about my personal life. I actually became independent at a very young age. I graduated when I was just 18 years old and started my own career, and I started living independently.
And I guess that experience made me who I am today. I always have this determination that if you aim for something, to reach that goal or dream, you can have it. So, related it to my job, when I transitioned from HR into operations, these are two different disciplines and different roles. When you are in HR, you focus more on the people, right? And maybe a little more on the business, but you don’t really have that balance, about how can you think about the business without sacrificing something for the people and things like that. Mentorship was there, but I had to take on the role on my own. What I mean is that I had to learn it from the ropes, from scratch.
Also, even if you have all these achievements, like an MBA, a master’s degree, and all of that, one of the things that you should not forget is your common sense. Because sometimes the problems that you encounter, especially if you are in a leadership role, need a lot of common sense.
Because if you always focus on the technical side or what you’ve learned from your degree and all of that, sometimes it doesn’t really fit the problem you want to solve. So I always go back to the basics when I have problems to solve. And of course, I also collaborate with the team, because decisions should, most of the time, come from the team.
I always take a step back and think about going back to the basics, how to simplify things. Because the more you simplify, the more it opens up. That’s how I face challenges in front of me when it comes to work: by always going back to the basics.
Q4. What role does emotional intelligence play in your leadership? Can you share an example of how this has impacted a decision around employee engagement or wellness?
A4. So emotional intelligence plays a big part, especially in times like this, when we are working in an AI space. Most of the time, we’re connected virtually; it’s technology-driven. Sometimes, because of all this technology, we put emotional intelligence aside.
We always emphasize, especially with our engagement team, that we should encourage our people. We should always remember that emotional intelligence is very important, especially in this hybrid setup and in this age of AI. So we provide sessions, especially now, when mental health is a big thing already in the organization.
We’re providing mental health sessions and even a platform or a third party where they can reach out in case they need to talk to somebody, without telling their colleagues or their managers ,and things like that. And when it comes to our training and development, we, on a regular basis, make sure that we have a refresher course or short courses about emotional intelligence, especially for our people managers.
So it plays a very important role, especially now that everybody is relying on technology. So, for me, emotional intelligence should always be part of our operations, of our daily routines, and especially in the corporate setup.
Q5. What is one legacy you hope to leave, and how do you plan to build a sustainable future for both employees and the organization?
A5. So it’s a very good question. So I keep on telling my direct reports and even our senior management team that, a few years from now, I will be retiring, of course, because of my age. And I always share with them that even if I’m not with Innodata anymore, even if I don’t have a replacement yet, what I really would like to leave as a legacy is that all of them can still function as they are right now.
That’s why when we have our strategic planning year on year, I always encourage them to think about their initiative or your goal that you will be able to sustain in two or three years or five years. I really would like them to own it. Because once they own it, it would be very easy for them to continue working on that, and even maybe with less support.
So empowerment actually is really the key for me, so that even if I am not here, I know that all of them are still functioning effectively and efficiently.
I always encourage and push them to the limits, so that they can do it, and they should do it. The accountability, the ownership, and the sustainability of doing what they have been doing will have a significant impact on the organization.
Conclusion
As AI continues to dominate the workplace, Jemima Villa’s leadership highlights how empathy, strategic vision, and a people-first mindset can be a game-changer. From managing a hybrid workforce to integrating emotional intelligence in daily operations, Jemima’s approach strikes a balance between business goals and employee well-being, which serves as a guiding principle for creating a culture where both individuals and the organization thrive.
We have many more such interesting conversations lined up for you. Stay tuned!
