Out of 100 women named by Fortune to its 2026 Most Powerful Women Asia list, only four come from the Philippines.
They are Martha Sazon, president and CEO of Mynt, the company behind GCash, at No. 35; Lynette V. Ortiz, president and CEO of Land Bank of the Philippines, at No. 77; Lourdes Gutierrez-Alfonso, president and CEO of Megaworld, at No. 87; and Ana Maria Aboitiz Delgado, president and CEO of UnionBank, at No. 98.
Four out of 100 may seem like a small number. But their presence offers an interesting picture of where female corporate power has emerged in the Philippines.
Three of the four lead businesses or institutions whose core activity revolves around money. The fourth runs one of the country’s largest property developers.
The pattern suggests that the Filipinas who have reached Fortune’s regional ranking are not simply occupying prominent corporate positions. They have reached positions where their decisions affect how capital is moved, lent, invested and deployed across the Philippine economy.
Financial services dominate the Philippine four
Fortune’s list spans 14 markets and includes executives from technology, banking, manufacturing, retail, health care and other industries. Technology has the largest representation with 16 women, followed by banking with 14.
The Philippine contingent is even more concentrated around finance.
At No. 35, Sazon is the highest-ranked Filipina on the list. Under her leadership, GCash has evolved from a payments platform into a broader financial ecosystem that includes savings, credit, insurance and investments.
Fortune says about 90 million Filipinos have used GCash, while 41.5 million use the platform each month. Mynt is also preparing for an October 20 listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange, with an IPO that Fortune says could raise about ₱61 billion.
The scale helps explain why Sazon ranks well above the other Filipinas.
Power in business is not determined simply by the size of a person’s title. Fortune considers the scale and performance of the business, innovation, influence, career trajectory and broader impact.
A platform used by tens of millions of people can therefore create a different kind of corporate influence. Decisions about credit, savings or payments can affect how ordinary Filipinos interact with the financial system.
From digital finance to development finance
Ortiz represents another form of financial power.
LandBank is the country’s largest government financial institution, with a mandate that extends beyond conventional commercial banking to farmers, fishers, small businesses and other priority sectors.
Under Ortiz, LandBank reported record net income of ₱43.98 billion in 2025, up 24 percent from the previous year. The bank also said it had cumulatively assisted 4.26 million small farmers and fishers.
Ortiz’s career also illustrates another characteristic shared by much of the Philippine group: long experience before reaching the top.
She had spent more than three decades in banking and finance before she became LandBank president and CEO in 2023. She previously became the first Filipino CEO of Standard Chartered Philippines and had worked across risk management, treasury, corporate finance and capital markets.
That background matters because corporate power is often the result of accumulated expertise rather than a sudden appointment to the chief executive’s office.
Property is another form of capital allocation
Gutierrez-Alfonso is the only Filipina on the list who does not lead a financial institution, but her business is still fundamentally about capital.
Megaworld develops large real estate projects that require decisions on land, construction, financing and long-term investment. Fortune describes it as the Philippines’ largest office developer.
Gutierrez-Alfonso became president in 2024 after more than three decades with the company. She joined Megaworld in 1990, only months after its establishment, and rose through the organization before becoming its chief executive.
Megaworld reported record net income of ₱24 billion on revenue of ₱86 billion in 2025, although Fortune notes that its growth has since moderated.
Her inclusion highlights a different route to corporate leadership.
Rather than moving between several companies before becoming CEO, Gutierrez-Alfonso spent most of her career inside one organization. Her rise suggests that institutional knowledge accumulated over decades can be another path to the top.
A new generation takes over a major bank
At No. 98, Delgado represents both continuity and change.
She is a fifth-generation member of the Aboitiz family, but her career was built largely within banking. She joined UnionBank in 2003 after a stint at Citibank and became president and CEO in January 2025.
In March 2026, she also became the first woman to lead the Bankers Association of the Philippines in the organization’s nearly 80-year history.
Her position is particularly interesting because banking itself is changing. The traditional advantages of branches and balance-sheet size now coexist with digital platforms, artificial intelligence and increasingly technology-driven customer relationships.
Delgado has advocated the use of artificial intelligence in banking and has compared its development with the early years of internet banking.
What do the four have in common?
There is no single formula that explains why these four Filipinas made Fortune’s list.
Their backgrounds are quite different. Sazon leads a fintech platform. Ortiz heads a state-owned bank. Gutierrez-Alfonso spent decades at a property developer. Delgado comes from one of the country’s established business families and now runs a major private bank.
Yet there are several common threads.
First is scale. Each leads an organization whose decisions reach far beyond its own employees.
Second is capital allocation. Three directly oversee financial institutions, while the fourth directs billions of pesos toward property development. Their jobs ultimately involve decisions about where money goes and how it creates economic value.
Third is experience. None reached the CEO position at the beginning of her career. Ortiz accumulated more than 30 years in banking. Gutierrez-Alfonso spent more than three decades at Megaworld. Delgado joined UnionBank more than two decades before becoming CEO. Sazon herself held senior positions across major Philippine companies before taking the top post at Mynt.
There is also a fourth characteristic that may become increasingly important: transformation.
The businesses these women lead are not static. GCash is changing how Filipinos use financial services. LandBank must combine a development mandate with financial performance. Megaworld must navigate changes in property demand. UnionBank has made digital banking a central part of its strategy.
Corporate power, therefore, is not simply about controlling a large organization. Increasingly, it is about the ability to change that organization while protecting its economic value.
Why only four?
The number itself deserves attention.
Four Filipinas out of 100 means the Philippines accounts for just 4 percent of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Asia list. That does not necessarily mean Filipino women have less influence than women elsewhere because Fortune’s ranking is selective rather than a census of corporate leadership.
But it does raise a useful question about the leadership pipeline.
If the four women at the top have spent years or even decades accumulating expertise before becoming chief executives, then increasing the number of Filipinas who eventually reach these positions requires more than appointing women to senior titles.
Companies need a deeper pipeline of women with responsibility for profit, capital, operations and major strategic decisions. Those are the roles from which future CEOs are most likely to emerge.
The four Filipinas on Fortune’s list reached corporate power through different routes. What connects them is not merely that they became CEOs.
They reached positions where the decisions they make can influence how millions of people pay, borrow and save, how businesses obtain financing, and where billions of pesos of capital are invested.
Perhaps that is the more important lesson behind the four out of 100.
In business, power ultimately comes not from the title on a calling card, but from the scale of the decisions a leader is trusted to make.
