Leadership from the ground up
One of Ana Aluyen’s first lessons as Chowking’s president was about a bowl of soup.
While she had ordered wonton mami countless times before joining the beloved Chinese-Filipino brand, it was only after taking the top job that she learned how the dish earned its place on Filipino tables: the beef broth has to boil for six continuous hours.
“That’s when it became more delicious to me,” Aluyen tells the Inquirer in an interview less than 100 days after she was named Chowking’s first female president in December. “It was about having a deeper appreciation of the work that they do.”
It was this curiosity and instinct to go back to the ground, to understand the work behind the product, that defined how Aluyen has approached the many leadership roles she has held across the Jollibee Group.
Even after three decades in the quick-service restaurant industry, she still approaches the business by returning to where it matters—to the kitchens, the stores and the people who make the food.
“I feel that you can make better decisions,” she says. “There are always stories behind numbers.”
From the stores
Returning to the basics of operations, after all, is not unfamiliar territory for Aluyen.
She first joined Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) as an assistant store manager in Mindanao, at the company’s first branch in the region. At the time, she had no long-term plan to climb the corporate ladder. Her focus was simple: master the job at hand.
“I had to understand standards. I had to know deeply how to operate a store effectively,” she says. “And then as I grew in the organization, more and more I realized that I have to deal with people.”
Over the 30 years she spent with Jollibee, Aluyen steadily rose from the ranks—from area manager for Cebu to operations director and later regional business unit head for the entire Mindanao.
Looking back, she describes those years as preparation.
“The 30 years that I have been with the Jollibee Group prepared me to be where I am today,” she says.
‘Consumer-obsessed’
Yet one of the most defining chapters in Aluyen’s career came when she was asked to lead Panda Express in the Philippines.
It was in 2019 when Tony Tan Caktiong-led JFC brought the Chinese food chain to the country. The brand was already well-established in the United States, with more than 2,000 restaurants at the time.
Aluyen’s job was to ensure Panda Express’ strong reputation would translate to robust business in the Philippines.
But during her regular store visits, she noticed something unusual: Filipino customers frequently asked for takeout boxes, not because they disliked the food, but because the portions were simply too large.
“That’s when I asked myself: is this the right portion for our consumers?” she recalls.
This observation led to the creation of the Everyday Bowl, a smaller portion designed around Filipino appetites and price sensitivity. After presenting a business case to US partners, Panda Express allowed the Philippine team to pilot the concept.
Today, Aluyen says the Everyday Bowl accounts for more than half of the brand’s sales mix in the Philippines, boosting customer frequency and later becoming a benchmark for other international markets.
For her, the experience reinforced a principle she continues to follow.
“When you are truly consumer-obsessed,” she says, “your consumers will always reward you.”
“It’s important to be grounded with the realities by being out there,” she adds.
No glass ceiling
Aluyen is the first female president of Chowking, founded in 1985 and acquired by the Jollibee Group in 2000. Today, it remains one of the group’s three largest brands in the Philippines.
Across her three decades with the group, Aluyen says she has seen a culture that rewards merit over gender. Jollibee has been recognized by Forbes as one of the world’s most female-friendly workplaces.
“The fact that I am now the president of Chowking is a manifestation of that,” she says.
Still, Aluyen—a mother of three daughters—believes that women leaders bring a distinct perspective to the table.
“It’s the ability to zoom in and out,” she says. “You can go down as deep into being surrounded, understanding the real business, having the empathy to understand the people who work for you and then zooming out, looking at the bigger picture.”
Today, JFC has grown into one of the world’s top five strongest restaurant companies, rising from the ninth rank in the Brand Finance Restaurants 25 list.
For Aluyen, the ambition for Chowking is similar: to become one of the most-loved quick-service restaurant brands in the world.
Achieving that goal will not be easy. Chowking already operates more than 560 stores, with systemwide sales continuing to grow, expanding by 5.4 percent in 2025 and contributing to nearly 10 percent growth in Jollibee’s Philippine business.
Still less than 100 days into the role, Aluyen says her vision goes beyond her own tenure.
“It’s not about the duration of my time as I lead the organization, but more importantly, it is how you leave behind that organization, that it continues growing, thriving beyond your time,” she says.
“When the time comes for new leaders to come in, I will leave Chowking in a better place.”
