Rong Qian is a Senior Economist at the World Bank in the Philippines. She leads a team that develops programs to help improve the country’s global competitiveness and resilience to natural disasters. She is also the macroeconomics and fiscal management expert behind the Growth and Productivity Report and the Philippines Economic Update, which reviews salient socioeconomic issues and provides growth forecasts twice a year.

Prior to joining the Philippine team, Rong was the country economist for Chile and Nicaragua based in Washington, DC. She specializes in fiscal policy, productivity, and growth—including green growth and its careful regard for the environment.
Rong joined the bank in September 2011. Earlier in her career at the Bank, Rong was doing research on sovereign defaults and financial crises. She was also an intern at the United States Congressional Budget Office and the International Monetary Fund while completing her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland.

In addition to Chinese, Rong speaks English and Spanish.

Aftab Ahmed is the Citi Country Officer (CCO) for the Philippines. Prior to this, he was the CCO/CEO for Hungary and Region Head for Hungary and the Balkan and Baltic Regions in Central & Eastern Europe. He started his career with Citi as an Executive Trainee after getting an MBA. He has the extensive US and International experience. His career with the Bank spans 11 countries – the USA, Pakistan, Greece, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Germany, Taiwan, Singapore, Egypt, Hungary, and now the Philippines. He has also been involved with Citi Franchises in a number of other countries through cluster management leadership positions.

His broad breadth of experience covers multiple disciplines including Business Banking, Corporate Banking, Correspondent Banking, Consumer Banking, Consumer Finance, Distribution, Operations & Technology (O&T), Treasury, and Country Management. Aftab has held a number of senior roles at Citi at the country level including CCO/CEO for Egypt, Consumer Country Business Manager for Pakistan, Corporate Bank Head in New Zealand, and O&T head for Citi in both Taiwan and Germany. He has also held senior cluster and regional roles including Director of Retail Branch Expansion & Operations for Citibank North America, Consumer Finance Head for the Asia Pacific, and Consumer Cluster Head for Pakistan, Middle East, and Egypt.
In his different business and leadership roles across multiple geographies, Aftab has been extensively involved in and has successfully contributed towards Country and Regional initiatives to grow franchises; expand the branch footprint; increase the customer base and deepen relationships, and protect as well as grow portfolios.

Aftab believes that leadership is not just about leading people to achieve goals and deliver results, it is also about mentoring and contributing towards the growth and development of his team. Giving back to less fortunate communities is advocacy that Ahmed personally shares with Citi, which is an exceptional global corporate citizen. Through the support of the Citi Foundation, the company provides grants to approximately seven Financial Inclusion initiatives on an annual basis in the Philippines.

Jonathan Ravelas is the first vice president and chief market strategist of BDO Unibank Inc., was cited as the No. 1 Exchange Rate Forecaster in the Philippines by FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast, a leading provider of economic analysis and forecasts for 130 countries and 30 commodities.

He was also selected based on the accuracy of his monthly economic forecasts in 2018 during the 2019 Analyst Forecast Awards.

FocusEconomics first counted Ravelas among the world’s “most accurate forecasters” in 2016 when he was awarded as the top forecaster in the current account category in the Philippines. The current account is a crucial indicator of an economy’s condition that is influenced by key factors such as trade policies, foreign exchange rate, and inflation, among others.

He has been BDO’s chief market strategist since 2002. Over 20 years, he has contributed his insight and deep understanding of the local and global market to provide the bank’s clients with timely and relevant forecasts to help them with their financial decisions and goals.