Centennial Group Principals

Biography: Roberto de Ocampo, Partner and Director

Mr. Roberto F. de Ocampo is a Director and Founding Partner of the Centennial Group. He was recently retired as the President of the Asian Institute of Management. Earlier he was a Senior Financial Adviser to SGV & Co. Mr. de Ocampo has 30 years' experience in development finance in various capacities with Philippine Government agencies and with multilateral development financing institutions.

Mr. de Ocampo is Chairman or Member of the Board of numerous private companies based in Asia. He was Secretary of Finance of the Republic of the Philippines from February 1994 to January 1998. He has also served as a member of the Board of Governors of both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank; as Alternate Governor of the International Monetary Fund; as Chairman of the APEC Finance Ministers and of the ASEAN Finance Ministers (1997); and as Chairman of various Philippine Government financial institutions and high-level councils and committees, including the Committee on Privatization, the Fiscal Incentives Review Board, the Investment Coordinating Committee, the Joint Legislative-Executive Foreign Debt Council, and the Task Force on Tax Reforms.

Mr. de Ocampo is widely credited with helping to achieve the Philippines' economic turnaround in 1995, and was named World's Best Finance Minister of the Year by Euromoney magazine in 1995, Asia's Best Finance Minister of the Year by Euromoney in 1996, and Asian Finance Minister of the Year by Asiamoney magazine in 1997.

Before his appointment as Finance Secretary, Mr. de Ocampo was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Development Bank of the Philippines. During his term (1989 to 1994), the Bank was adjudged by the internationally recognized publication The Banker to be the World's Second Soundest and Third Best Performing Bank in 1991. While at DBP, Mr. de Ocampo established new initiatives like introducing the Private Sector Infrastructure Development Fund in 1993 to finance Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) projects and variants; successfully opening up the international capital market to Philippine corporate issuers by issuing DBP's own Eurobonds (US$175 million) without a National Government guarantee and by expanding the market for Philippine issues by tapping institutional investors; issuing the country's first municipal bonds, for the Province of Cebu; and launching a first-of-its-kind Philippine equity fund (Philippines Strategic Holdings, Inc.).

Mr. de Ocampo holds an MBA from the University of Michigan (USA), a Fellowship in Developmental Administration from the London School of Economics, and honorary doctorate degrees in Business Administration, Public Administration, and Law from several Philippine universities.