Pedrosa named PNB president

MANILA, Philippines—Tycoon Lucio Tan-led Philippine National Bank has named veteran banker Carlos Pedrosa as its new president and chief executive effective August 1, replacing Eugene Acevedo who quit his post after 13 months.

In a statement Friday, PNB said Acevedo had tendered his resignation to focus on several promising business endeavors that would require his immediate and hands-on participation.

“In his brief stint as president of PNB, Mr. Acevedo was instrumental in implementing infrastructure changes as part of the bank’s rebranding initiatives, opening up of new branches as well as in improving service delivery to boost business generation,” PNB told the Philippine Stock Exchange.

“He also revitalized PNB’s management training program to beef up the bank’s pool of officers in line with its aggressive growth strategies,” the bank added.

The incoming CEO, Pedrosa, has more than 30 years of banking experience that started in 1964 in a foreign bank in Barcelona, Spain, where he was a foreign exchange trader and eventually headed the private banking department.

After a four-year stint overseas, he joined Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. where he rose from the ranks and headed various units such as domestic and international operations, treasury, credit, domestic subsidiaries, overseas branches and merchant banking.

Pedrosa was later named by Bank of Tokyo as its nominee to the board of Pilipinas Bank and subsequently appointed as the local bank’s CEO from 1993 to 1997. He also became president of First e-Bank from 2000 to 2003 and later served as director of United Coconut Planters Bank (2004-2006) and Metrobank (2008-2009).

The banker had also served in different corporations in various capacities over the years: Toyota Motor Philippines (vice chair), Philippine AXA Life Insurance Corp. (chair); Global Power Corp. (executive director); QSpan Technologies (executive director) and Pilipino Telephone Corp. (director).

PNB noted that Pedrosa, who joined the bank as independent director last May, was not new to the PNB family. “His father, Mr. Pio Pedrosa, served as PNB president in 1952 and was credited for making PNB the lead financing institution for new industries with economic and social significance,” the disclosure said.