Executive Profile: Elvira C. Ablaza

Ms. Ablaza is a senior planning and development specialist with experience in the identification, planning, design and formulation, implementation, and evaluation of projects in fisheries, coastal resource management, and integrated rural development. She is also a highly skilled manager, technical writer and editor, and conference organizer. Beginning in the early 1980s, she has written numerous technical papers and edited a large number of published and unpublished papers, reports, conference proceedings for various clients, including international organizations such as FAO and ADB.

Since August 1989, when she founded PRIMEX, she has been fully involved in steering the Company’s evolution into being a premier international consulting firm that it is today. Not only does she supervise PRIMEX's day-to-day operations, including business development and financial management, she also ensures the high quality of the Company's performance and the timely and satisfactory delivery of its outputs. To this day, she writes all the Company’s proposals for submission to prospective clients, identifies consultants for inclusion in project teams, and leads the PRIMEX managers in putting financial proposals together. She has been directly and fully involved in most of the Company's projects, either as Project Director, Co-Director, Coordinator, or Team Leader, but in all cases, with responsibility for ensuring the highly satisfactory performance of the Consultant Team, the excellent quality of the services, and the timely completion of the expected outputs. She has directed or co-directed a long list of foreign-assisted projects in the Philippines and overseas and has served as Consultant to ADB, FAO, and CIDA projects in the fisheries sector for over two decades, including those in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. Not only does she have the management and administrative skills of a Project Director/Co-Director, she also has the appropriate technical expertise and experience required by projects. Examples of her recent assignments of a technical nature include the following:

Aquaculture Environment Specialist, ADB Project Preparatory Technical Assistance (PPTA) for Sustainable Aquaculture Development for Food Security and Poverty Reduction, Indonesia, March – August 2004
Marine and Fisheries Specialist/Staff Consultant, ADB-funded Preparation of a Profile of the Marine and Fisheries Sector of Indonesia, 10 November – 19 December 2003
Coastal Resource Management (CRM) Specialist, ADB Loan Appraisal Mission, Coral Reef Management and Rehabilitation Project, Phase II (COREMAP-II), Indonesia, 6 May – 20 June 2002
CRM Specialist, ADB Loan Fact-finding Mission, COREMAP-II, Indonesia, 6 May – 20 June 2002
Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Specialist, ADB Loan Fact-finding Mission, Aquatic Resources Development and Quality Improvement Project (ARDQIP), Sri Lanka, March – April 2002
Workshop Coordinator, ADB Regional Biodiversity Conservation Workshop, Manila, February 2001
Environment Specialist, Revision of ADB Environmental Assessment Guidelines, December 1999 – November 2000 (intermittent).

In addition to her corporate responsibilities, Ms. Ablaza is actively involved in professional organizations like the Institute of Management Consultants of the Philippines (IMPHIL) and the Confederation of Filipino Consulting Organizations (COFILCO), and was the first woman President of both organizations.

Ms. Ablaza holds an MS in Biology (meritissimus) from the University of Santo Tomas (UST), Manila and a BS in Biology (magna cum laude) from the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila. In 1980, she was selected by FAO from a field of 200 nominees from all over the world as the first recipient of an FAO Professional Fellowship on the Fisheries Aspects of Integrated River Basin Development in Rome, Italy.