2 Filipinos named 2020 Young Global Leaders

Two millennial Filipino chief executive officers (CEOs) —agricultural entrepreneurship champion Cherrie Atilano and edukasyon.ph founder Henry Motte-Muñoz —were handpicked by Switzerland-based World Economic Forum (WEF) to be part of the “Young Global Leaders (YGL)” global community of “exceptional young people with the vision, courage and influence to drive positive change in the world.”

They are among the 115 members of the YGL Class of 2020, which also includes: Sanna Marin, the first female Prime Minister of Finland and the youngest head of state in the world; Megan Rapinoe, decorated Olympian and co-captain of the US women soccer team that won the 2019 FIFA World Cup; Larry Madowo, BBC Africa Business Editor, an accomplished and pioneering digital journalist in Africa; and, Alicia Garza, United States civil rights activist and editorial writer.

“Each year, the Forum of Young Global Leaders identifies the world’s most promising leaders under the age of 40— people driving innovation for positive change across civil society, arts, culture, government and business. By connecting them to a community of remarkable peers and investing further in their leadership abilities, the aim is to create a ripple effect over five years that benefits their organizations and the world,” said Mariah Levin, head of the Forum of YGLs at the WEF.

It is the first time since 2015 that Filipinos passed the WEF’s stringent global screening for the YGL community.

Atilano, founder and CEO of Marinduque-based Agrea Agricultural Systems International Inc., has had 21 years of experience in sustainable food systems and inclusive agribusiness as an advocate of women and youth in agriculture, agri-technology, malnutrition eradication and the responsible production and consumption for the future of food.

She is a multiawarded entrepreneur and high-level ambassador of the United Nations Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. She is an honoree of The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) Class of 2018 and was also awarded one of The Outstanding Women in the Nations Service (TOWNS) in 2016. She is also part of Asia Society’s Asia21 Young Leaders Class of 2017.

Henry Motte-Muñoz

Edukasyon.ph

Motte-Muñoz is the founder and CEO of Edukasyon.ph, the largest youth platform in the Philippines empowering more than 10 million student visitors each year to find and take their path from education to career.

His work in education technology and social entrepreneurship has been recognized by global and regional organizations including the Asia CEO Awards (Young Leader of the Year 2019), Financial Times and International Finance Corporation (Transformational Business Award 2017), Forbes (30 Under 30 Asia 2016) and Asia Society (21 Young Leaders 2015).

Motte-Muñoz is also co-founder and director of anti-corruption NGO bantay.ph.

“I’m humbled and honored to be joining far more impressive folks in this year’s batch of Young Global Leaders, alongside Cherrie Atilano,” Motte-Muñoz said in an email.

“The goal of this forum is to create a world where leaders take responsibility for a sustainable future. Being part of this leadership program is especially meaningful for me because, by nature of what we do at Edukasyon.ph, I represent not just myself or my team, but 20 million young Filipinos who are finding their place in the world and their role in building our future. So, I’m grateful for this opportunity to learn from and exchange ideas with such a diverse group of individuals, but also take pride in leveraging this global platform to share and help develop the great things that young Filipinos are capable of,” he said.

“Being a YGL means an opportunity to collaborate, co-create and co-impact with other young leaders all over the world,” Atilano said.

The Forum of Young Global Leaders has more than 1,300 members and alumni representing more than 100 nationalities, including public officials, business innovators, artists, educators, technology developers, journalists and activists. Aligned with the WEF’s mission, this community seek to spur public-private cooperation among these unique actors to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest.

Cherrie Atilano

One-island economy

Atilano—who was raised by her widowed mother together with four siblings in a humble sugarcane farm in Silay City, Negros Occidental—has made it her lifelong mission to uplift Filipino farmers. She started teaching sugarcane farmers how to grow vegetables around their houses to save 70 percent of their food expense from age 12.

She went to the Visayas State University to study Agriculture, supported by the Negros Occidental Scholarship Program —PAGKAON, where she graduated magna cum laude. She was immediately hired by a big real estate firm, but she gave up her corporate job to help Gawad Kalinga (GK) put up its food sufficiency program and build the GK Enchanted Farm. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship but withdrew from the program to continue working at the GK Enchanted Farm. She had also worked as executive assistant for Gawad Kalinga founder Tony Meloto and as a consultant to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to help establish the Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity for Economic Support Services from 2011 to 2015.

In 2014, she set up her own social enterprise, Agrea, which is based in Marinduque Island and is now expanding in Siargao Island. She also founded the non-profit organization called Agrea Agricultural Communities International Foundation Inc. to run the Farm School, the first to be accredited by the Department of Agriculture- Agricultural Training Institute (DA-ATI) and the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (Tesda) to amplify the work in educating farmers, non-farmers, out- of-school youth and women to learn about sustainable agriculture and entrepreneurship.

Agrea has since then helped around 600 farmers and households tilling around 1,200 hectares of land and educated about 1,900 people in its Farm School.

Agrea believes in a “holistic” approach: not only help farmers gain access to finance, technology and information but ensure that farmlands are available for future use through collaborative activities with local partners. Atilano envisions transforming Marinduque into a developed one-island economy: self-reliant on indigenous produce and with three main goals of zero hunger, zero waste, and zero insufficiency, or self-sufficiency in every aspect of the economy.

For the next five to 10 years, Atilano seeks to improve her knowledge on global issues related or indirectly related to food security that threaten the food systems of the world, such as during challenging times such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. She seeks to learn more on how to create holistic solutions.

“I like to gain more network that can make me a better individual by also increasing my impact globally not only in the Philippines,” Atilano said.

Atilano also aims to scale up the impact of Agrea’s farm schools.

“Agrea will have five more Farm Schools all over the country that will educate more farming families on sustainable food systems and agripreneurship. We will replicate the model of a one-island economy to three more islands in the Philippines that are threatened by food insecurity due to climate change, tourism and broken agricultural economic system,” she said.

One-stop shop for education

Motte-Muñoz’s advocacy for education in the Philippines started when he observed how much information asymmetry there was in terms of school applications, unlike in other countries where there were centralized information systems to understand what, where, and how students can pursue higher education.

“Digging deeper, I realized that this was rooted in lack of access to information and affected the education system beyond school applications. There is an information gap across all educational resources—from courses to colleges to scholarships and financial aid, to career exploration and employability training—contributing to negative outcomes for the Filipino youth,” he said.

Fresh from Harvard Business School where he got his MBA degree in 2013, he started laying the groundwork for edukasyon.ph, which was launched in 2015 to become the one-stop resource from education to career. The platform has since then partnered with more than 500 schools and 50 corporations and foundations who want to reach, engage and support our community of more than 10 million annual visitors.

Since inception, Edukasyon has raised over $3 million from European and Asian investors.Motte-Muñoz is familiar with corporate finance, having previously worked at private equity firm Bain Capital and investment bank Goldman Sachs in London after obtaining his Economics degree from the London School of Economics.

Student reach

The platform seeks to grow by increasing its student reach along with each new class of graduating high school students, while building more engagement tools, value and measurable impact across its ecosystem of students and partners.

Over the coming years, Motte-Muñoz intends to build up his leadership team through sustainable training and professional development, as well as to enable complete pathways for students, from junior high school all the way to their first job.

“Our platform has continuously built resources for multiple touch points across the journey, and our goal is to make sure we fill in all the gaps together with partners, so that students can be guided in a more structured, meaningful way that optimizes impact and outcomes,” he said.

In the future, Motte-Muñoz hopes to replicate the edukasyon.ph model in regional markets.

“Right now Edukasyon.ph is focused on getting it right for the Filipino youth. Once we are confident in our ability to do that, we hope to expand our platform to create the same value for other countries across Asean,” he said.