FORMER KAPAMILYA NOW GMA'S EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT!

"GMA Network, Inc. has appointed Felipe S. Yalong as the Company's new Executive Vice President effective December 1, 2011.

"The new GMA EVP will remain the Company's Chief Financial Officer and Group Head of its Corporate Services Group."Yalong is a key figure behind GMA Network's IPO in 2007. He has played a crucial role in the Network's phenomenal rise in revenues and profit since GMA Network Chairman and CEO Felipe L. Gozon and President and COO Gilberto R. Duavit, Jr. took over the Company's management a decade ago.

"Prior to his new post, Yalong was GMA Network's Senior Vice President for Corporate Services Group. He has been a member of the Company's Board of Directors since 2002.

"Yalong also serves as Director and Corporate Treasurer of GMA Holdings, Inc., Scenarios, Inc., and GMA Network Films, Inc. He is also a Director of Unicapital, Inc., Majalco Finance and Investments, Inc., and GMA Marketing and Productions, Inc.

"Yalong is likewise the Corporate Treasurer of RGMA Network, Inc. and Mediamerge Corp. He is the Executive Vice President of RGMA Marketing and Productions, Inc. and the Corporate Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of GMA Kapuso Foundation, Inc.

"He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration Major in Accounting from the Philippine School of Business Administration and completed the Management Development Program at the Asian Institute of Management.

"Yalong is a Certified Public Accountant."

INQUIRER ARTICLE
http://business.inquirer.net/22373/the-man-who-makes-sure-gma-stays-afloat

From the rival

He has been with the company since 2002 and aside from being in charge of finances, he also sits on the company’s board of directors. In 2010, GMA 7 posted a net profit of about P3 billion, so Yalong and the rest of the management team must be doing something right.

But before helping steer GMA into the behemoth that it is today, Yalong, like many in the industry, started out with the rival company, ABS-CBN.

“I got an invitation from Geny Lopez to join ABS-CBN. I started out as comptroller, and my boss at the time was Gaby Lopez, who was finance director,” Yalong says in a recent interview with the Inquirer.

“I saw how ABS-CBN grew. I was there when they became number 1,” he says. His apprentice at the time was, not surprisingly, Rolando Valdehueza, ABS-CBN’s current CFO.

He recounts how ABS-CBN reaped the benefits of the end of Martial Law in more ways than most people at the time.

When leading networks’ IBC 13 and RPN 9 were sequestered, the leading TV programs at the time had but one place to move to: ABS-CBN.

This, together with a sparkling initial public offering (IPO), gave ABS-CBN the content and resources it needed to climb to the top of the country’s television industry.

“For some time, ABS-CBN monopolized the industry. They controlled close to 70 percent of the market,” Yalong says.

Like all good things though, his stint with ABS-CBN had to end. He left the company after a decade and, as a courtesy to his boss the late Geny Lopez, Yalong refused to take a job at other broadcast companies, despite several requests.

“I started a trading company with my brother and we did that for a while,” he says.

Then, Geny Lopez passed away, shaking the foundations of the country’s television industry. Some would even say that Geny Lopez was the industry’s foundation.

His passing marked the end of an era for the country’s broadcast scene, but this also opened the door for Yalong to return to the industry.

SOURCE