He is on a mission to reverse the “brain drain” in the country, not so much by discouraging the youth from travel—as he himself is a product of international education and experience—but in enriching the opportunities that allow the normal Filipino to have a global mindset. Gigi Montinola is the chairman of Far Eastern University, which has a student body of 40,000 young people. Besides that, he is an alumnus of the IES Abroad programme, for which he and his siblings have created the Aurelio Javellana Montinola, Jr IES Abroad Scholarship in honour of his father.

He is the outgoing president of the Management Association of the Philippines, chairman of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, a director of Bank of the Philippine Islands, chairman of the National Advisory Council of WWF Philippines, chairman of the National Golf Association of the Philippines, and Maitre of the Commanderie de Bordeaux Manila. In his many leadership roles, he always campaigns for the recovery of the economy and the systemic solutions towards the country’s learning crisis during the pandemic.

He lends an unglamourous but essential piece of advice for these times: survive. Montinola is of the mindset that movement and progress, no matter how slow, should continue throughout the various sectors of the society.