Filipina achievers Maria Ressa and Maria Grace Uy have been honored in Forbes Asia’s 50 Over 50 list of women leaders who are defying age and gender norms in Asia.
The first Filipino Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maria Ressa, and Converge ICT Solutions president Maria Grace Y. Uy join this year’s 50 honorees aged 50 and above who are female founders, scientists, vanguard, and business and political leaders in the Asia-Pacific region.
Ressa and Uy are the only Filipinos named on the Forbes Asia 2022 best-of-list released on January 11, 2022, by Forbes Magazine.
Maria Ressa
The 58-year-old Ressa, CEO and Co-Founder of local news website Rappler, was lauded for her work to protect press freedom in the Philippines, which has received support and recognition worldwide.
The Filipino journalist was named co-winner of the 2021 edition of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”.
“A veteran journalist, Ressa worked as a bureau chief and investigative reporter for CNN for two decades before founding Rappler, an independent multimedia news organization in the Philippines, in 2012,” reads the Forbes Asia list about Maria Ressa.
“Her sharp coverage of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war has been met with consistent threats from the Philippine government, which has filed 10 arrest warrants for cyber libel and other complaints against her. She faces jail time of up to 100 years, but she is insistent in her urge that all journalists use truth to hold power accountable,” the list adds.
Ressa delivered her historic lecture as she received the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway and was honored with a photo exhibition by Filipina photojournalist Hannah Reyes Morales.
Maria Grace Yao Uy
The 53-year-old Filipina businesswoman Maria Grace Yao Uy, Converge ICT Solutions‘ co-founder and president, was named an honoree in the Asia edition of the list for co-founding one of the largest fixed broadband operators in the Philippines.
Uy was also hailed among Forbes Asia’s Power Businesswomen, the only Filipina to make it in last year’s edition of the list.
“In 2007, Uy cofounded one of the largest fixed broadband operators in the Philippines. In 2019, at age 50, Uy led negotiations for a $250 million investment from Warburg Pincus that bolstered the company’s fiber network to cover 25% of Filipino households,” the list said about Maria Grace Yao Uy.
“Converge went public in late 2020 in one of the country’s largest-ever IPOs, raising $522 million. Shares have since risen 70,% pushing Converge’s market cap to 233 billion pesos ($4.6 billion),” the Forbes Asia 50 Over 50 list added.
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