Chaye is an Executive Director and the Chief Finance, Risk and Sustainability Officer of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC). She is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of mWell, MPIC’s digital healthcare app.

Prior to joining MPIC, she held various executive leadership positions at the PLDT Group, the Philippines’ largest fully integrated telco company. She was the former Senior Vice President and Group Controller, and Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) of the PLDT Group and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Smart, PLDT-Smart Foundation, Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) and in a number of subsidiaries and affiliates of PLDT, Smart & ePLDT. She was instrumental in the success of the Group’s business transformation and in safeguarding the integrity of its financial position.

She is the Founding Chair of Gabay Guro, the Philippines’ biggest and longest-running education advocacy program for teachers. She was an awardee of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) in 2013 and the incumbent President of TOYM Foundation. She is an Appointed Member of the Financial Reporting Standards Council (FRSC) of the Philippines, the accounting standards-setter in the country.

Alicia del Prado, PhD is a licensed psychologist, consultant, author, and tenured faculty member at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. Dr. del Prado earned her PhD in counseling psychology from Washington State University, her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Santa Clara University, and completed her predoctoral and postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley.

Dr. del Prado specializes in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work and provides therapy to clients in her private practice. She created the first enculturation scale for Filipino Americans and has co-authored numerous publications on cross-cultural studies of personality, cultural competency in psychology, and multiracial identity. Her most recent publications include the storybook, “Proud of my Mommy” and “It’s Time to Talk (and Listen): How to Have Constructive Conversations About Race, Class, Sexuality, Ability & Gender in a Polarized World”. Dr. del Prado’s clinical expertise has been featured in a variety of news outlets, including NPR, the San Jose Mercury, Danville Living, and Better Homes and Gardens. Dr. del Prado is past-chair of the Division on Filipino Americans, chaired the first ever national Filipino American Psychology

Conference, and is the co-editor of a Special Issue on Filipino American Psychology.

Actress and filmmaker Giovannie Espiritu was nominated alongside
Academy Award Nominees Alfre Woodard and Amy Irving for Best Supporting Actress at MethodFest for the Mynah Films feature film Fiona’s Script.

Her primetime credits include a recurring role on ER, Bones, Gilmore Girls, Trauma, and Perfect Harmony. She can currently be seen as the lead in the Amazon series, “Dyke Central,” which was featured in After Ellen, BuzzFeed, Bust Magazine and Curve Magazine as a top LGBTQ series to watch. As a filmmaker, she was featured in Elizabeth Banks’ WhoHaHa Media for her parody song, “An Introvert’s World,” and her storytelling has been featured in Ms. Magazine.

Her short film, "Ultra-Feminist," was awarded Honorable Mention at Outfest. Her second short film, "Ally 3000," won Best Screenplay at the Culture and Diversity Film Festival (Los Angeles) and the Cyrus International Film Festival (Toronto), as well as several awards in the categories of Social Justice and Woman Filmmakers.

She coaches kids/teens online nationwide through HollywoodActorsWorkshop.com and was just named as one of the top 40 Audition Coaches in Los Angeles by the Hollywood Winners Circle founded by Wendy Alane Wright, a top talent manager.

Jessica Caloza is a Commissioner on the Board of Public Works, the governing and oversight body of more than 5,500 employees responsible for delivering critical services and infrastructure projects in the City of L.A. She was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti and confirmed by the City Council in 2019. She is the first Filipina to serve on the Board.

Previously, Jessica served as Mayor Garcetti’s Director of Scheduling. She came to the Mayor’s Executive Office from the Office of Immigrant Affairs. Prior to joining the L.A. Mayor's Office, Jessica served in the Obama Administration in the U.S. Department of Education.

She has also been a campaign aide to several members of Congress, including former Rep. Xavier Becerra of California and former Rep. Mike Honda of California.

In 2012, she was a community organizer for President Obama’s reelection campaign and helped lead various field offices in Virginia. Jessica is also passionate about giving back to the community and volunteers with various Asian American and Filipino American organizations.

Joanne Rico is about a story of an empowered Filipina who’s rising above adversity. From humble beginnings in Manila raised by a single mother and her grandparents, she has gone a long way from her first job of being a Sales Administrative Associate at Globe Telecom Philippines to now a truly inspiring global woman that eventually became the first Filipina holding a senior marketing role in the healthcare industry in the UAE.

Joanne has 16 solid years of work experience in Marketing and Brand Management under her belt.  She has managed brands in local and international markets including Qatar, UAE, Oman, and the Philippines. She is currently the Head of Marketing and Sales of NMC Healthcare Bareen Cluster, overseeing 8 medical facilities in Abu Dhabi. This is a major accomplishment as she is the first Filipina to be given a senior role in the largest private healthcare company in the country.

Over time, she has received numerous recognitions for her accomplishments. In 2017, Joanne was awarded as the Marketing and Advertising Professional of the Year by The Filipino Times, a glitterati red-carpet event held in honor of exemplary Filipinos overseas.  In 2018, Joanne became one of the nominees of the Search for Huwarang OFW by GMA 7’s 700 Club Asia.  In 2020, she is named as one of the Thought-Leaders in Illustrado’s 300 Most Influential Filipinos in the Gulf.

Joyce Rivera Javier, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP, Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles at the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine, earned her undergraduate degree at the University of California Los Angeles (1997), her medical degree at University of California Irvine (2001), and completed her pediatrics residency at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (2004).

Her research has focused on preventing and eradicating health disparities among minority and immigrant youth.  She was a General Academic Pediatrics fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, and completed a 3-year fellowship in Health Services Research that involved obtaining a MPH in Epidemiology at UC Berkeley (2006). During this time she conducted research examining the role of immigration status on health care access and utilization and outcomes for children with special health care needs and wrote the first review paper describing the health of Filipino children and adolescents in the U.S.  Dr. Javier has served as an NIH-funded Principal Investigator on two career development awards, one which funded a community-based randomized controlled trial.

With over 20 years of experience in public accounting, Ms. Lai has led the audits of some of the largest governments in California, including the State of California (Single Audit), City of Los Angeles, City of Santa Ana, City of Riverside, County of Los Angeles, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Los Angeles Unified School District and the California State University System.

Among 400,000 CPA’s nationwide, Ms. Lai had been appointed by the AICPA to serve on a select national 15-member State and Local Government Expert Panel. Through her participation with the AICPA, she has been accredited with contributions to authoring the AICPA State and Local Government Audit Guide, including the newest Pension Chapter to address the complex GASB pension standards, compiling AICPA comment letters to GASB on emerging standards and presenting webcasts for the AICPA Governmental Audit Quality Center.

Other examples of Ms. Lai’s thought leadership includes presenting to over 1,000 Californians on the complexities of the Uniform Guidance and emerging GASB pronouncements through her involvement with the California Society of Municipal Finance Officers (CSMFO), National Grants Management Association (NGMA) and tailored client trainings.

Natalie Garcia Lashinsky is a seasoned trial attorney aggressively advocating for her clients in all phases of commercial litigation in state and federal courts at the national AmLaw 100 firm, Husch Blackwell LLP. She has worked on winning trial teams representing manufacturers, contractors, retailers and insurance companies in complex product liability, business, construction defect, mass toxic tort, and other general liability matters. Natalie has worked with a diverse range of clients, including large Fortune 500 to non-profit organizations and small minority-owned businesses. 

When not in the courtroom, Natalie is dedicated to serving her community. A long-time board member of the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California (FBANC), Natalie served as FBANC Foundation Treasurer, where she raised scholarship funds to support Filipino law students and new attorneys. She has also spearheaded professional development opportunities, specifically focusing on Filipino in-house attorneys. As a “Mother-In-Law”, Natalie is a frequent speaker on the challenges of balancing motherhood and a successful career. Natalie was most recently recognized as a 2021 Super Lawyers Rising Star, an award that names no more than 2.5 percent of attorneys in each state. 

Ninez A. Ponce, PhD, MPP, is an expert on immigrant and global health, survey-based research, social determinants of health, and health disparities. She serves as director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and principal investigator of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). Ponce is a professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management.

She helped develop the first CHIS in 2001, and has led numerous pioneering efforts in multicultural survey research, including measures of racial/ethnic identity, acculturation, generational status, and discrimination.

For CHIS, she devised the rationale and implementation of Asian ethnic oversamples and the cultural and linguistic adaptation of the survey in Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog. CHIS is the largest state survey in the United States.

She was deputy director of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, a national advocacy organization promoting the health of Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in the United States and U.S. territories.

Rowena Romulo is the owner of Romulo Café, the first international outpost of a family-owned food business established in 2009 in Manila. The restaurant draws upon the family legacy of one of the Philippines’ international diplomatic figures, Carlos P. Romulo, offering food lovers a taste of the Philippines in the heart of Kensington, London. 

Rowena’s vision was to create a famiy restaurant and dining experience that could hold its own and compete in London, one of the gastronomic capitals of the world. It was also meant to be, in its own small way, a showcase for the Philippines, its food, culture and people. 

In less than a year since its opening in March 2016, Rowena has put Filipino cuisine firmly on London’s foodie map winning the Time Out Love London award for most loved restaurant in Kensington, a four-star out of five review from Timeout critics, Opentable Diner’s Choice Award in March 2017 and inclusion in Harden’s Best UK Restaurants 2017.

Before devoting her work full-time to Romulo Café, Rowena was an accomplished Senior Banker with over 30 years experience in the financial services industry having worked at Citibank and JP Morgan with international assignments in New York, Milan and London. Her last role was as Managing Director of a Global business. She has held various positions in operations, product management, business management, strategy, product development, sales, marketing and communications. 

She has built a successful career around managing businesses, market expansion, motivating a diverse team of professionals around the globe, leading start-up projects and handling complex transactions.

During her stint at JP Morgan, she was an active member of the Bank’s Mentoring Program, Analyst and Associate Development program, Recruitment and Summer Internship Program, Women’s Diversity Program and the Learning and Development Committee. 

Rowena is a prime example that it is never too late to start a new career.

Order the first book on Filipina women leadership: DISRUPT. Filipina Women: Proud. Loud. Leading Without A Doubt.

on.ffwn.org/DISRUPT — download Kindle edition
on.ffwn.org/DISRUPT — Amazon print edition

37 authors are FWN's 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World awardees from the U.S., Philippines, Singapore, Brazil, Japan, U.A.E., Canada, Poland. Moving stories about:

• Leader Identity, Power and Influence

• Cultural Adjustments to Success

• Victories over domestic violence, incarceration, poverty, discrimination, and harassment
  

Filipina Women's Network's second book on Filipina leadership examines: 

• Life disruptions

• Workplace disruptions initiated

• Leadership competencies developed for oneself, for leading others, for leading organizations

• Legacy building for next generation leaders

The 37 authors are Filipina Women's Network's U.S. and Global FWN100™ Awardees (2007-2016) representing Canada, China (Hong Kong), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States.