About

Formerly a public sector lawyer, Lope Del Rosario Manuel played a significant role in the design and execution of landmark public policy agendas in the Philippines’ IP community. Moving to a private sector in-house legal role in 2013 with fashion company Golden ABC, Manuel became one of the youngest chief legal counsel in the industry, and followed this by becoming head of corporate relations for Diageo Philippines, finally joining Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines in 2016. He has expanded his role significantly since this time, now taking on legal, labour relations, corporate affairs, compliance and governance responsibilities at the company. This ranks among his favourite parts of his career. ‘Transitioning from being a general counsel to an overall business partner of the company with Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines has been one of my top career highlights. Understanding the business of the company I work with not just on its legal needs but also on matters relating to business goals and our overall strategic agenda’, Manuel says. He has managed to create an extremely effective cross-functional framework for dealing with his demanding set of tasks. ‘With the four functions currently under my wing, I was able to achieve a strategic alignment of the various agendas. Each team works with the other in order to provide the optimal output and I continue to build the team’s capability through various trainings and stretched projects’, he says.