Two Filipina executives have secured spots on the Forbes Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2025 roster, joining a select group of 20 women driving major shifts in Asia’s corporate and economic landscape.
The annual list, announced on November 3, highlights leaders shaping sectors such as banking, transportation, advanced technology, and large-scale consumer industries. Forbes said, “More than half of the women are high-performing professional managers with proven track records in fields such as banking, consumer goods and transportation. Three are first-generation entrepreneurs, including one who has launched two profitable unicorns.”
Among this year’s honorees is Mybelle Aragon-GoBio, president and CEO of Robinsons Land, under JG Summit Holdings. The seasoned executive, who started as an administrative assistant in 1993, became the first woman and first non-family chief of the property developer founded by the late John Gokongwei. She received strong backing from leadership, with executive chairman Lance Gokongwei calling her “the best (hu)man for the job.”
Now at the helm, Aragon-GoBio is pushing a long-term growth strategy. She crafted a P125-billion expansion blueprint and aims to double Robinsons Land’s net income to P25 billion by 2030. Her plans include increasing the developer’s mall network to 69, expanding office space to 1.2 million square meters, growing its hotel portfolio to 5,300 rooms, boosting logistics capability, and developing new mixed-use estates.
She earned degrees in management engineering and international business from the University of Antwerp.
Also recognized is Ayala executive Mariana Zobel de Ayala, who leads the leasing and hospitality arm of Ayala Land, part of one of the Philippines’ oldest and most diversified corporate groups. Under her guidance, the company is redeveloping eight malls and building new ones, a move expected to grow gross leasable space to 2.9 million square meters by 2028. She is also executing a $500-million hospitality investment to nearly double hotel capacity to 8,000 rooms by 2030.
The hospitality expansion includes the 578-room New World Makati, acquired in June, along with upcoming properties under the Mandarin Oriental, Moxy, and Canopy brands in Makati’s central business district.
Forbes noted that Zobel de Ayala was appointed managing director of Ayala Corp. in March, “12 years after she left her job as an investment analyst at JPMorgan in New York to join her family’s 191-year-old, banking-to-property group.” The publication also reported that her division generated a record P23.2 billion in sales during the first half of 2025, more than a quarter of Ayala Land’s revenue.
She completed her undergraduate degree in Social Studies at Harvard and earned her MBA from INSEAD in 2020.
Last year, Lourdes Gutierrez-Alfonso of Megaworld was the only Filipina included in the Forbes Asia list.
