Advisory board

Apl de Ap / Allan Pineda, Allan Pineda Lindo, known professionally as Apl.de.Ap, is an American-Filipino musician, rapper, singer, and record producer, best known as a member of the Grammy Award-winning hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas. 

Apl.de.ap was honoured in America by the prestigious This Time Foundation for his charity works. On November 18, 2008, he founded the Apl.de.Ap Foundation to help various communities and children in the Philippines and throughout Asia. In 2011, after expressing his desire to help improve the education situation in the Philippines, his foundation formed a partnership with the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation (NCAF) to create the "We Can Be Anything" advocacy campaign where Apl.de.ap and NCAF planned to build 10,000 classrooms in two years or less through the advocacy.

Malaya is an art manager specialising in cultural programming and strategy development. She currently heads British Council's Arts and Creative Industries work in the Philippines, focusing on making creative hubs become more sustainable and impact-led. She has over 10 years' worth of experience in exhibition and project management. Currently she works with several private and public institutions in the areas of sustainability, capacity building, and creative economy policy development. 

She has an MBA in Arts and Cultural Management, specialising in Art Market and Exhibition Management, from the Institut d'études supérieures des arts (IESA) and Paris School of Business, France. In 2018 she was selected to represent the Philippines in UNESCO’s expert training on the 2005 Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Under Ms. Matute’s leadership, Design Center continues to promote the use and appreciation of good design by strengthening the Filipino design industry and improving the range, quality, and competitiveness of the Philippines’ services and products. She also leads the ASEAN Creative Cities Forum and Exhibition, an initiative by the DTI through Design Center that nurtures and explores the potential of developing creative cities and hubs in the Philippines, with Baguio City as its front-runner.

Joel’s experience spans 25 years predominantly in marketing, business development, impact investing, and entrepreneurial management in Southeast Asia. He held various corporate positions in several companies such as Procter and Gamble, Philippine Airlines, before culminating his career as CEO of Franklin Baker.

Joel is currently President of Thames International Business School and its college, Entrepreneur School of Asia. He also serves as a Board of Trustee in the Apl.de.Ap Foundation of the Pop Group Black Eyed Peas and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) based out of NYC. Joel holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Legal Management from the Ateneo de Manila University (Phils) and a Masters in Responsible Business Practice from the University of Bath (UK).

Gil Zaire “Butch” Carungay is Managing Director of ZAI Design Hive and Chief Reinvention Officer of district 32 at mactan|cebu. He also serves as Chair of the Cebu Business Council of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, was Creative Director of the first Cebu Design Week and the lead product development specialist of the DTI’s Travel Retail Immersion Program (TRIP). 

A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Marketing and Finance, Butch worked as an analyst at the Strategic Planning Division of American Express in New York before returning to the Philippines. 

Matt Morrison is the big guy behind the ASPACE adventure, Manila’s cowork central for the innovation community, a global tribe of awesome.  A former digital nomad (20 countries and counting), Matt traded a successful career in London’s media industry (working for innovators such as the BBC and Grey Advertising), to pursue intellectual independence as a non-corporate business backer and advocate for ethical, value creating start-ups.

Ranked by the Financial Times at #53 of Asia-Pacific Top 1000 High Growth companies, ASPACE is the first-mover and definitive brand in Philippines for collaboration, co-working and workstyle hubs; a completely re-imagined office environment, a dynamic and supported community of innovators.

Glorypearl Dy is the CEO and co-founder of Swito Corporation, a social innovation hub focused on giving art and architecture businesses the resources to make their ideas sustainable. It holds art and architecture businesses that cater to products and services with a mission to lift local economy, culture and heritage. Under her leadership, Swito Corporation has won various recognition for its initiatives including the Smart PayItforward, British Council Ideation Camp, and Our Better World. 

She was awarded Most Distinguished Alumnus for Media Innovation and Social Enterprise by the University of the Philippines in Mindanao. She is manager of the Google Business Group-Davao and mentors in several start-up competitions.

An advocate and supporter of Filipino creativity, Angel Guerrero found her voice in adobo magazine, which has become one of Asia’s most influential advertising, marketing, media, design, art and culture publications. To uplift the communication design industry, she organises the annual adobo Design Awards Asia since 2008. In 2016, Angel was conferred the first-ever Asia Pacific Tambuli Crimson Award award. In 2017, Angel was awarded with the AD STARS Lifetime Achievement Award in Busan, Korea. 

She recently co-founded Creative Economy Development Council of the Philippines, and the Communication Design Association of the Philippines. Angel was born in Thailand to Filipino parents, and has lived in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Adelaida Mapua Lim is a writer, filmmaker, restaurateur and traditional textile advocate. Her business ventures include Ruins, Inc. the mother company of Café by the Ruins and Café by the Ruins in  Baguio City; Ancestral Crafts, a social enterprise producing and marketing handwoven, 100% Philippine Cotton cloth and apparel; and Ancestral Crafts, a social enterprise producing and marketing handwoven, 100% Philippine Cotton cloth and apparel.

Adelaida is President of HABI, Philippine Textile Council, which hosts the annual Likhang HABI Market Fair in Makati City. As Chairperson of Baguio Creative Council, she was one of the proponents of the city’s proposal to become the first Philippine city to join the UNESCO Creative City Network. 

Paolo Mercado is the Founder and President of the Creative Economy Council of the Philippines (CECP) a non-stock, non-profit organization dedicated to helping the Philippines become a globally competitive Creative Economy. 

Paolo worked in advertising for more than twelve years in the Philippines and Paris. He served as Global Communication Manager for Nestle’s Dairy Strategic Business Unit in Switzerland, before moving to Nestlé China and later to Nestlé Philippines. With a background in Psychology, he is passionate about consumer insight and its applications in advertising and marketing effectiveness.