OUR TEAM

Our team is comprised of investment and operating professionals with world-class value creation capabilities. 

Grace Vera Cruz

Managing Director

Grace Vera Cruz is Managing Director and founder of Seawood Resources, Inc. In her role in Seawood, she oversees all transactions and subsidiaries. Prior to joining Seawood, Grace was an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company. While with McKinsey, she was involved in projects in both Asia and Europe that include post-merger integration, growth strategy, regulatory strategy, lifecycle management, organizational effectiveness and governance. Her sectors include telecoms, oil and gas, and media.

Grace was also a senior analyst for Corporate Finance with CLSA and a Retail Territory Manager for Shell in the Philippines.

Grace holds an MBA from London Business School, where she concentrated in Finance and was a Citigroup Foundation scholar. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Economics from the University of the Philippines, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Best Student Leader in 2002.

Rena Pamfilo

Chief Legal Counsel

Rena M. Rico-Pamfilo is admitted to the Philippine Bar (2001) and the New York Bar (2009).

Rena graduated with honors from the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law (Philippines) in 2000 and obtained her Master of Laws degree from the National University of Singapore in 2004. She was a Sheridan Fellow at NUS and was awarded the ASEAN Scholarship.

Prior to joining Seawood, she worked for an international law firm in the Philippines, where her practice covered both dispute resolution and corporate transactions. She worked on various corporate transactional and project finance work involving gaming and entertainment, energy and infrastructure projects. She also acted for domestic and foreign clients involved in domestic and international commercial arbitration proceedings.

Rena is a professor of Law at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law on International Commercial Arbitration. She lectures on Mandatory Continuing Legal Education seminar series both in the Philippines and in the US.

 

Erica Chang-Santos

Vice President

Erica Chang-Santos joined Seawood in 2016 and serves as Vice President, responsible for deal origination and investment execution.

Erica has more than 9 years of transactional experience in Asia with extensive background in the power sector. She has executed over $6B of deals in the Asian power and infrastructure space. Prior to joining Seawood, Erica was based in Singapore with American Capital Energy and Infrastructure (ACEI), a private equity firm focused on power investments in emerging markets. Prior to ACEI, Erica was Vice President at Marubeni Asian Power Singapore where she was responsible for M&A, Project Development, and Project Finance. Prior to ACEI, she worked at AES Corp’s M&A division based out of Hong Kong and at previously at Fortman Cline Capital Markets, where she advised on over $3B worth of M&A transactions in various sectors including power, infrastructure, and shipping.

Erica received her Bachelor of Science degree in Management Engineering (Honors Program) from the Ateneo de Manila University.