Brief Professional Background

REY ELBO is a book author, business journalist, HR coach, and Kaizen consultant. He writes two newspaper columns in BusinessWorld (since 1993) and The Manila Times (since 2002). His consultancy firm – Kairos Management Technologies (est. 1997) specializes in HR and TQM work under the principle that "any quality and productivity program could be done with the active help of problem workers." He is the former Country Director of Kaizen Institute Consulting Group (Philippines) and was head of HR and TQM departments of five major corporations. Rey studied in Tokyo under a scholarship grant by then Nippon International Cooperation Center, now merged with Japan Business Federation. Since 1993, he has attended more than 50 Japan-based, short-term, all-expenses paid programs by the Asian Productivity Organization, Asian Overseas Technical Scholarship, Japan Institute for Social and Economic Affairs, Japan Institute of Labor, and Ministry of Labor, Health and Welfare. Every year, he organizes the Kaizen Study Mission to Toyota City, Nagoya for Filipino executives. He wrote four books – “Problem Workers are Created by Problem Managers” (2019), “Total Quality by Maximization” (2016), “Lessons to Learn before They Kick you Out of Your Job” (2010), and “The Buzzword-Centric Workplace” (2007). He pursued a post-graduate program on Strategic Business Economics from University of Asia & the Pacific and an M.A. in Japan Studies at De La Salle University – Manila. He is a Fellow in People Management by People Management Association of the Philippines, one of few private professionals with a Career Executive Service Officer eligibility and one of only two Filipino professionals certified as a Toyota Management System specialist by TMS & TPS Certificate Institution of Nagoya, Japan. In March 23, 2022, Rey Elbo was awarded as the first and only Filipino to have won the Economic Journalism Award in Asia by Spain's IE University.