Vicente Santiago Pérez

Vince also served as Philippine Energy Minister from 2001 to 2005. He boosted energy self-sufficiency, promoted clean indigenous energy, and crafted an ambitious renewable policy framework.

Prior to 2001, Vince had 17 years’ experience first in Latin American debt restructuring at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, and later in debt trading and capital markets in emerging countries at Lazard in London, New York, and Singapore. At age 35, he became a General Partner at New York investment bank Lazard Frères as head of its Emerging Markets Group.

Vince obtained an MBA from the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 and a Bachelor's Degree in Business Economics from the University of the Philippines in 1980.  After his participation in the World Fellows Program, he briefly taught an MBA class on renewable power investing at the Yale School of Management. He is also a published author and poet.

Vince resides in Manila and Melbourne with his wife Maria and daughter Siena, and enjoys diving, yoga, Filipino martial art “stick-fighting,” and zen meditation.