Ayala Corporation's Board of Directors has appointed Cezar Consing as the company's President & CEO, following his appointment as interim chief last August 15 after the Fernando Zobel de Ayala took a medical leave and eventually resigned.
Consing, one of Asia’s most respected figures in the banking sector, has over 30 years of experience in international finance.
He started his career in Ayala as a management trainee in BPI, where he eventually became the youngest Assistant Vice-President in the bank's history.
Consing then worked with J.P. Morgan & Co. in Hong Kong and Singapore from 1985 to 2004 and headed the firm’s investment banking business in Asia Pacific from 1997 to 2004.
He became a Partner at the Rohatyn Group from 2004 to 2013 and headed its Hong Kong office and its private investing business in Asia and was a board director of its real estate and energy and infrastructure private equity investing subsidiaries.
In 2013, Consing was appointed President & CEO of BPI – a position he held until his retirement in 2021. Currently, Consing is also a director of Ayala Corporation, BPI, Globe, and ACEN, hence his deep understanding of the Ayala ecosystem.
Consing received an A.B. Economics degree (Accelerated Program), magna cum laude, from De La Salle University in 1979. He obtained an M.A. in Applied Economics from the University of Michigan in 1980.
Meanwhile, legal luminary Mercedita S. Nolledo has been elected to Ayala Corporation's Board as a non-executive director to serve the unexpired term of Zobel who was appointed Special Advisor to the Board.
Previously, Nolledo served as Board Director of Ayala and BPI from 2004 to 2010 and 1991 to 2021, respectively.
She is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Ayala Foundation, Inc., BPI Foundation, Inc., Advisory Board of Ayala Land, Inc., and the BPI Advisory Council.
Nolledo started her career in Ayala as an investment analyst in 1965. At age 31, she became the highest-ranking female executive in the Ayala Group of Companies as Assistant Vice President of the Corporate Finance Division of CCP Securities.
She eventually became a senior managing director, a senior counsel, and a corporate secretary at Ayala Corporation.
With Nolledo's appointment, Ayala Corporation has surpassed its diversity target of having female directors comprise 30 percent of its Board of Directors by 2025.
Currently, female directors – Nolledo, former Singtel Group CEO Chua Sock Koong, and former Sun Life Financial (Philippines) CEO Rizalina Mantaring – represent 42.86 percent of Ayala Corporation’s seven-seat Board.
Nolledo received a B.S. in Business Administration major in Accounting (Class Valedictorian and Magna Cum Laude) degree from the University of the Philippines in 1960 and placed second at the Certified Public Accountant Licensure Board Examination administered in the same year.
In 1965, she obtained her Bachelor of Laws degree (Class Valedictorian and Cum Laude) also from the University of the Philippines, where she also placed second at the Bar Examination held in the same year.