Gokongwei, Salazar receive top MAP award
Top Philippine conglomerate executives Lance Gokongwei and Chito Salazar have been named this year’s recipients of the prestigious “Management Person of the Year” award conferred by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).
Gokongwei, president and CEO of JG Summit Holdings Inc., was cited chiefly for his role in transforming the Gokongwei Group into one of the Philippines’ largest and most diversified conglomerates, and a professionally managed institution “built to endure across generations,” MAP said.
Meanwhile, the association recognized Salazar, president and COO of Phinma Corp., for advancing access to affordable, quality higher education through Phinma Education, particularly among students from low-income families.
In selecting the two executives, MAP placed them among the ranks of former recipients “who have attained unquestioned distinction in the practice of management, and have made valuable contributions to the progress of the country and in re-shaping national values.”
Their joint selection marks only the eighth time that MAP has named two Management Persons of the Year in the award’s six-decade history. The distinction has been conferred only 51 times since its inception.
Gokongwei’s father, the late John Gokongwei Jr., was the recipient of the award in 2017.
MAP also cited the younger Gokongwei’s leadership across the group’s portfolio of businesses, including Universal Robina Corp. (URC), Cebu Pacific and GoTyme Bank.
In particular, the association recognized his role in building URC into a major Southeast Asian consumer goods company and expanding access to affordable air travel through Cebu Pacific, which placed the largest aircraft order in Philippine aviation history.
The budget carrier has cemented its position as the country’s largest airline, carrying 26.88 million passengers in 2025.
GoTyme, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the country’s fastest-growing digital banks, with 10 million users and more than P53 billion in deposits as of the first half of 2026.
MAP also recognized Gokongwei’s contributions to education, financial inclusion and healthcare through the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation and the conglomerate’s banking, drugstore and health maintenance businesses.
Salazar, for his part, was cited for “his active involvement in nation-building, particularly in pioneering a student-centered, financially sustainable business model that provides quality and affordable higher education to young people from low-income families.”
He is also the only Filipino to have received the London-based Education Leaders Forum Fellowship, which recognizes pioneers whose contributions have transformed education in their respective countries.
Under Salazar’s leadership, Phinma Education has produced more than 104,000 college graduates and grown into Southeast Asia’s largest private education network dedicated to serving underserved learners.
Across the Philippines and Indonesia, Phinma Education currently operates 14 schools offering more than 110 academic programs. Its network has also produced more than 48,000 licensed professionals.
MAP conferred the honors on Gokongwei and Salazar following a “thorough, stringent selection process,” which considered their integrity, leadership, and management qualities; contribution to nation-building and values formation; effective stewardship; among others.
It has yet to announce when it will formally confer the 2026 Management Person of the Year awards on Gokongwei and Salazar.
Recent recipients include SM Prime Holdings Inc. chair Hans Sy (2025), former Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio Singson (2024), Jollibee Foods Corp. CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong (2023), and DMCI Holdings Inc. chair and president Isidro Consunji (2022).
