PLENARY SPEAKERS
Opening Plenary Session
HON. ASEC. JUNEVER MAHILUM-WEST
Assistant Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippines
Asec. Junever Mahilum West finished with a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Service at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. She previously worked as a Researcher prior to leading the Audio-Visual Section of the Foreign Service Institute. She joined the Philippine Foreign Service Corps in 1991 after passing the Foreign Service Officers Exam (FSOE). Asec. Mahilum-West obtained the Oxford University Foreign Service Programme Certificate for Young Diplomats in 1994. From 1995-2001, she served as the Third Secretary and Vice-Consul to the Philippine Embassy in Paris before she became its Economic Officer. Asec. Mahilum-West was as the Consul General in Toronto from 2012-2014 before serving as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. She is the Assistant Secretary and Chief of Mission of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
HON. ASEC. LEAH BUENDIA
Assistant Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Philippines
Asec. Leah Buendia, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), focuses on strategic planning, international cooperation, resource generation, management of innovations and change, and project management development. She has held and is proactive in various board memberships such as in the Policy Advisory Council of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and as an Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine-Korea Rural Development Administrative Alumni Association. She used to be the Director of the Planning and Development Division of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD). She is an alumna of the University of the Philippines Los Banos. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture and Master of Science in Agronomy. She took her Doctor of Philosophy in Community Development minor in Environmental Science in UPLB.
ED ELAINE TAN
Executive Director, ASEAN Foundation, Indonesia
Elaine Tan is a development professional with more than two decades of international experience. Her career has spanned work both in inter-governmental and in the non-government sectors. Ms. Tan has designed, managed and evaluated development programs in Asia. She brings with her, valued experiences in partnership development, resource mobilization, program and organizational development. Elaine also worked at Yayasan Sejahtera in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as their Programme Director. Prior to that, she was the Country Programme Manager of UNIFEM (now UN Women) in Cambodia as well as at Timos-Leste. She has also worked at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia. a graduate in Development Studies from the University of Leeds, UK, has possessed over 15 years of progressive experience in management and coordination functions in the areas of social development. She is currently the Executive Director of ASEAN Foundation.
CEO RIA PERSAD
Founder and CEO, Statweather, United States of America
Ria Persad studied mathematics and physics at Harvard, Princeton, and Cambridge Universities. Persad performed earth and solar system modeling at NASA and went on to model geophysical systems at Bell Geospace. She worked on the trading floors of Lehman Brothers and was a consultant to Goldman Sachs. She is the climatologist at Enron and Duke Energy and later went on to develop state-of-the-art long-range weather prediction systems, which were peer-reviewed by the U.S. Department of Defense scientists. She models complex systems for the U.S. Space Program and is an innovative Subject Matter Expert. Persad has been collaborating with NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information and their academic research partner, CICS-NC on numerous climate and energy engagement activities. Persad is the Founding CEO of StatWeather, which received the 2017 International Climate Business Achievement Award. Persad received the Highest Honor from the Society of Women Engineers and Citations from the U.S. Secretary of Energy and the U.S. Senate on Scientific Achievement on her original contributions to computational and applied mathematics. Persad has been recently recognized by Platts Global Energy Awards as one of the top 7 global leaders for Lifetime Achievement and as the International Power-Gen and Renewable Energy Woman of the Year.