Elaine leads Vriens & Partners’ Philippines-focused work, providing insights on political dynamics in the Philippines and developing government affairs strategies to advance the market entry, operation, and expansion goals of Vriens & Partners’ clients. She has over 16 years of experience in the field, leading high-level consultations with senior government officials, business leaders, foreign business chambers, and NGOs on a broad range of public policy issues, including those related to internet technology and regulation, e-commerce and fast-moving consumer goods, investment liberalization, public-private partnerships, constitutional change, and governance reform.

Prior to working with Vriens & Partners, Elaine served as Executive Director for the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Absentee Voting, Director for Legislative Affairs to a Senator of the Philippines, and Chief of Staff to a Member of the House of Representatives. She helmed the development of landmark legislation that established an automated voting system in the Philippine elections and has advised principals during Congressional sessions and Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meetings at the Office of the President.

Elaine was also Senior Competition Policy Specialist and Team Leader for trade- and infrastructure-related development projects under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

Before joining the public sector, Elaine practiced corporate law, specializing on mergers and acquisitions, project finance, and civil litigation in the law offices of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan.

She earned her undergraduate degree from Ateneo de Manila University and her law degree from the University of the Philippines. Her research on constitutional law has been published in the Philippine Law Journal, and she has been a member of the Philippine Bar since 2002.

Jon brings 10 years of working to build coalitions with government, private sector, and civil society pursuing market and urban service reforms in Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Vriens & Partners, Jon worked as program manager for the Asia Foundation’s Urban Services program in Cambodia. The program was run under the Foundation’s Program Strategy, Innovation, and Learning unit that focused on “doing development differently”, “thinking and working politically”, and iterative, adaptive program design using a dynamic theory of change. The program strived to find solutions to complex, nuanced development problems that were technically sound and politically possible.

Before moving to Cambodia to initiate the Urban Services program Jon spent 4 years in the Philippines as part of the Asia Foundation’s Economic Reform and Development Entrepreneurship team working on strategy development, recruitment, team building, and policy analysis. The team participated or initiated several successful major economic and public service reforms during his time there including implementing the Residential Free Patent law to increase land titling in the Philippines, the Sin Tax reform to increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol and fund universal healthcare, air liberalization and the Secondary International Gateways policy, and tourism road infrastructure.

Jon is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a bachelor’s degree in economics.