2018 radio & audio Jury

Merlee is the first Filipino to be awarded: The Creative of the Year for Southeast Asia in the Campaign Asia Pacific Agency of the Year.

She is "Chairmom" and Chief Creative Officer of Dentsu Jayme Syfu and the only woman in the 20 top creative directors in ASIA as reported by Campaign Brief Asia.

A business-minded and award-winning creative, she has been recognized with the CEO of the Year 2016 by the IABC Philippines and the St. Hildegard Most Influential Woman in Communications 2017.

Under her leadership, her two-year old integrated agency Dentsu Jayme Syfu has already been named the 2016 Creative Agency of the Year for the Philippines by Campaign Asia and the inaugural SPIKES ASIA Country Agency of the Year 2017 for the Philippines.

She is the first Filipino to be invited by the prestigious D&AD Awards 2017in London as a Jury Forewoman.  She has won major awards that include a Cannes Lion Grand Prix for Mobile, Grand CLIO, D&AD yellow pencil, LIA Gold statues and many more.

Besides global jury duties, Merlee is a sought after international speaker. She has shared valuable learnings and insights that include “Changing the World through Media” at the IAA Global Leadership Forum in London, “Hard Sell and Heart Sell” at the AdStars Festivals in Busan, Korea and “Gender Equality” in advertising at the SPIKES ASIA in Singapore, “The World’s Favorite Target Market” in Cannes, France and on “A Woman’s Journey to Judging” at last year’s LIAisons in Las Vegas.

One of CNN’s Leading Women, she’s a member of Gabriela-a feminist group to help stop Violence against women and children.To push women leadership, she initiated the #sistergood project to promote better benefits for working mothers and to inspire women support other women at work.

She also wrote and illustrated her first book “Everyone Can Be Creative”. This is an inspiring handbook to discover everybody’s creative side. She launched this in major news networks, radio shows and in the biggest bookstore in the country. Advertising schools are currently including this as a course requirement.

Merlee is also a mom to 4 beautiful girls, and an inspiration in breaking the glass ceiling in this mad men’s world.