Our Way Forward

Innovating Models for Business Continuity

With the pandemic’s new normal challenging our local entrepreneurship scene, emerging business models become necessary moving forward.

RJ Ledesma

Mr. Ledesma is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of all. For SME entrepreneurship, he is an Agora Awardee for Excellence in Entrepreneurship and an Accredited GoNegosyo Mentor for his work in Mercato Centrale (a food business incubator), where he recently won the 2019 SME Company of the Year at Asia CEO Awards and the 2019 SME Excellence in Innovation Philippine Winner at the Asean Business Awards. He is also co-founder of EnterPH (a market entry consulting firm), and Easy Franchise (a franchise marketplace that connects franchisors & franchisees). For solo entrepreneurship, he is a 3-time Best Male Emcee Aliw awardee and a 3-time National Book Awards finalist. And for the academe, he holds a double degree in Applied Economics and Business Management from De La Salle University (1995) where he graduated with a Student Leadership Award and a Masters Degree in Real Estate Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2001). He was the first Asian to deliver the valedictory speech at MIT Center for Real Estate. He currently hosts the Bright Ideas on Bloomberg Philippines/One News, a show that focuses on the local tech start up scene, and Philippine Realty TV on CNN Philippines.

With the pandemic’s new normal challenging our local entrepreneurship scene, emerging business models become necessary moving forward. RJ Ledesma, host of Bright Ideas on Bloomberg Philippines/One News and Philippine Realty TV on CNN Philippines, underscores the importance of technological innovation and community-based marketing.

The essay is part of our new series entitled Our Way Forward, a series of analysis, speculations, and projections on the ways that the COVID crisis will shape our future, and the resilient systems we should build in its aftermath.