Priya came to Manila in 2017 to set up Villgro Philippines and has since powered on building the incubator from the ground up. Her role as CEO at Villgro PH keeps her engaged in formulating the organization’s strategy and long – term direction. This entails mentoring and inspiring her team, building partnerships, designing incubation programs and ultimately carving out Villgro’s path in helping create successful Impact Enterprises in the Philippines.

A strong-willed collaborator, Priya believes in the power of simple ideas that can solve big challenges. She made Villgro her life’s mission and hopes one day to be an investor for impact-driven startups all over Asia. Priya’s ability to spot talent, focus to build coalitions, her penchant to stay positive even in the worst times, and passion to improve people’s lives, make her good at what she does at Villgro Philippines.

A voracious reader and avid traveller with a passion for learning, Priya is an energetic, people’s person who is either exploring the pristine beaches of Philippines or having deep political discussions with friends and new acquaintances alike.

Prabh’s role is to challenge entrepreneurs to think through their business model and develop focused strategies for growth. This includes working with them on tactical customer acquisition, creating detailed and robust financial models and implementing scalable operational processes to support growth.

Prabh is inspired by the energy and resilience of impact entrepreneurs. He is passionate about helping businesses articulate and execute their growth strategy. Be it in the early stages of achieving product-market fit or in a turnaround where rapid, decisive action with limited information is called for. Prabh has led diverse teams in multiple locations and is a firm believer in leveraging technology solutions to support rapid organizational growth.

Exploring new places and learning about the culture and history of his destinations is what keeps Prabh dreaming of time off work. He is also a Technologist (early-adopter) and spends time scouring for the next big thing. Prabh brings to the table clarity of thought and precise direction, especially to strategy games.

Kath currently dons an advisory role with Villgro Philippines. She is deeply committed to growing and nurturing the Impact ecosystem in the Philippines and continues to Mentor and Support ventures to grow their business and scale their impact.

Kath’s strength lies in her ability to build lasting relationships with individuals and partners. She is passionate about innovation and its power to transform communities and impact the base of the pyramid. Kath’s can-do attitude and knack for connecting people is what makes her great at supporting impact entrepreneurs to deliver more value to their customers and amplify their impact.

If she’s not reading on her Kindle or watching a new indie film, Kath is probably whipping up delicious things in the kitchen. Kath loves learning about what makes people tick and is usually out chatting up friends, old and new alike, over a good cup of coffee and thinking of new ways to create change in whatever way she can.

AC is the brains and the brawn behind our climate action initiatives at Villgro Philippines. She manages end-to-end incubation and acceleration programs for SUP Challenge (Plastic-Free Philippines) and Ways4Waste (in partnership with The Incubation Network). AC also serves as a portfolio manager and supports the climate space and the cohorts in the programs through linkages, mentorship, and tailored assistance.

AC is the young blood that fires up her programs with passion and dedication. She brings a rare maturity to her duties and aspires to be on the frontier of making an impact in addressing climate change and gender inequality. She strongly believes that she has what it takes to make a change, one small ripple at a time.

AC is an animal person. Her love for animals has led her to keep and adopt several birds, dogs, cats, rabbits, hedgehogs, geckos, and even ants! When she’s not at work, you can find her amongst her furry and not-so-furry friends. She claims to hate dolls and finds them creepy but…has a collection of around 50 Precious Moments figurines, go figure!

Alyanna assists in end-to-end management and delivery of all gender smart programs, incubators, and events. She works with social entrepreneurs, mostly women, to provide them access to tailored mentorship and coaching for investment readiness and a community to thrive in, she skilfully manages multiple communities such as Villgro Philippines’ WE Rise Community and Unlock Impact’s Nushu Network. Alyanna also coordinates with gender lens investors, entrepreneur support organizations, and other key players in the ecosystem to help build a level playing field for women entrepreneurs and to bridge the gender financing gap.

Alyanna is an educator at heart, and a fierce advocate for gender justice and people-centered healthcare. Her work at Villgro Philippines resonates with her advocacies and she executes each task with enthusiasm fuelled by purpose and responsibility. Alyanna’s drive to help create a more equitable society stems from her ambition to join women and the youth in attaining what ‘freedom’ means for them.

A bibliophile, like so many of us, Alyaan loves to read both fiction and non-fiction and her current reading list centers on interiority and identity, womanhood, and LGBTQIA+. She pursues her education advocacy by teaching in her free time. Alyanna is a STEAM educator for children! To destress she spends time watching anime and fangirling over KPOP girl groups. Fun fact: All her dogs are named after the food that she and her family love: bacon, mochi, nori, nacho, and the newest one, tofu!

Amina is the Comms Manager at Villgro PH and basically the eyes, ears and mouthpiece of the organisation. With a penchant for crafting communications strategies, social media content creation, and a flair for words, Amina is our storyteller who pushes the boundaries of communications for Villgro Philippines. From spamming your inboxes with mailers and newsletters, to flooding timelines with stories and posts, if we have an opinion, an event, or a program, Amina makes sure everyone knows about it and is engaged with it.

A curious extrovert, Amina is an adventurer at heart who likes to explore and learn something new each time she takes up an assignment. A proud non-conformist, feminist, and humanist, she feels deeply about issues such as gender disparity and poverty. Words are her weapons of choice and stories are her forte. She loves a good edit challenge and hones her skills following and studying the latest trends on social media.

A professional binge-watcher of any new series on Netflix, Amina loves to meet people and go out with friends. If she’s not furiously typing out status updates and posting stories, then she is most likely catching up on world affairs on Twitter or exploring quaint bars and hole-in-the-wall eateries around the world.

Denise is responsible for the end-to-end program management and delivery of Villgro’s gender programs such as the WE Rise Accelerator. She handles community management of women entrepreneurs, gender lens investing-focused investors and funders, technical and sector experts in the network. Denise also manages Villgro’s relationships with grantors, funders, and program partners.

With her penchant to learn and being open to new experiences, Denise enjoys tackling work in different industries. Her advocacies include gender equality, good governance, and community health and she volunteers for NGOs Make-A-Wish Philippines and Ladies Wine & Design Manila. A budding entrepreneur herself, she launched two small fashion businesses during the pandemic.

Carbs are Denise’s best friend! She claims that she ‘eats (not bakes) bread’. Also, she is a budding mixologist who tries (and often fails at, but refuses to stop) making cocktails. Denise enjoys reading about fashion history and is a big advocate of secondhand, vintage clothing.

Korina is the go-to person handling the End-to-end program management for the Innovation for Social Entrepreneurship’s Social Impact Accelerator program that is being co-led by Villgro Philippines and ACTED. Her insights into the regional dynamics provide an invaluable perspective to the design and delivery of the program that is aimed at women-led, and underserved impact entrepreneur communities of Mindanao, and the BARMM.

Korina has always been active in community activities initiated by the UPLB alumni association for enterprise development and networking. She is passionate about financial literacy, and as Financial Consultant, she dabbles in insurance and investments.

Korina believes in traveling to be immersed in the diverse cultures of different communities and has traveled to 38 out of 81 provinces in the Philippines. Like most of us at Villgro Philippines Korina also enjoys taking care of her fur babies, good food, and great company.

Luan is responsible for the end-to-end daily finance operations, people operations, legal support, and office management and administration at Villgro Philippines. She runs this joint!

A finance professional all her life, Luan has a penchant for keeping things in order. Some call it OCD, we call it lifesaving talent. A stickler for detail and a thorough person, Luan is the one who makes sure our accounts, operations, and general admin is smooth sailing.

Luan is a curious and adventurous lifelong learner who loves to explore new ideas and experiences. She is always seeking to challenge herself, whether it’s through studying languages, taking up random courses, or immersing herself in a good book. During her brain breaks, she is either gaming or spending quality time with her dog.

Maroushka assists in end-to-end management and leading virtual events under several innovation acceleration programs. She is the force behind the incubation support to teams from the ReachHealth Innovation Accelerator. She also supports climate projects such as the Ways4Waste Post-Program Support and the SUP Challenge in partnership with The Incubation Network. Maroushka also leads our Fellows Program where she manages young guns and trains them to take on the challenges of working with an ever-evolving, dynamic organization such as Villgro Philippines.

Her diligence is legendary and so is her commitment to diving into the deep end of the ocean. In short, Maroushka enjoys a good challenge thrown at her and her easy breezy style of making things happen is an inspiration to us all. She is deeply passionate about her advocacies – Climate action, Education, and Healthcare and aspires to be a teacher and become a beacon of viral impact in more ways than one. She hopes to one day create a learning hub to share her passions and learn from a community of like-minded individuals.

She plays 8 instruments! But her favorites are the piano, violin, and most especially her bass guitar. Maroushka is a self-taught artist that dabbles in traditional and digital mediums but uses acrylic on canvas or occasional murals. She believes that ‘Learning is a gift and curiosity fuels the soul’ – so she is always up to learn about and from anything she encounters, be it from a book, a movie, random genres of music, or having the most amazing conversations with people.

Nicole assists the Head of Impact Investments in outreach and recruitment of all ventures in pipeline building efforts for the organization’s programs and work proactively on scouting and selection of ventures: search, review of applications, interviews, due diligence, etc. She also manages and maintains back-end systems that track program outcomes and relationships, including the Artha Platform for the Impact Pioneers Network.

Nicole is passionate about supporting MSMEs in the Philippines. Her natural curiosity and open-mindedness add a fresh perspective to her endeavors. She thrives in new and difficult situations and her determination to succeed has earned her the title of a go-getter.

Nicole enjoys cooking and baking, and eating! Fit as a fiddle, Nicole is seen at random fitness classes, strength training at the gym, or walking her dog – Olaf. She’s also a serial binge-watcher, so sprawling on the couch and endless scrolling through Tik Tok is another one of her many talents.

Nicole leads the Impact Investment work for Villgro that involves deal sourcing, curating, and due diligence, and works with the Steering Committee to ensure the investment readiness of ventures. This is alongside networking, educating, and expanding the pool of angel investors for the Impact Pioneers Network.

Nicole believes she embodies the term jill-of-all-trades. Being a mother packs an extra punch into her professional skill sets and she embraces a growth mindset like a pro. She is a big fan of education and loves to teach and learn. Disruptive in nature, Nicole finds herself in breaking-the-glass-ceiling situations pretty often.

Nicole is a mama with many talents. Whether it be accompanying Mio to his activities or teaching coding to kids or even doing tutorials in Math, Science, English, and Filipino for The Coding School, she does it all. She loves to explore places, taste and cook different food, immerse herself in different cultures, and strike up random conversations with people. Always on the move literally and figuratively. For Nicole dancing is in her blood.