Claro Fernandez is a communications professional currently managing the Investor Relations (IR) of the Republic of the Philippines and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He has years of work experience as a financial/economic journalist in broadcast and print media with recent jobs in a major Philippine universal bank and the Manila BPO operations in natural language query systems for a Irvine-based startup.

He joined the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in February 2009 as Executive Director of the Investor Relations Office (IRO). The IRO undertakes a range of stakeholder initiatives to build awareness amongst domestic and international investment audiences around the Philippine Government’s economic reform program, promoting specific investment opportunities in the Philippines and facilitating information exchange and dialogue between key economic policy decision-makers of the REpublic and domestic/international investors. The effective implementation of the Government’s economic program and its success depends on regular two-way dialogue between economic policy makers and the investment community.

Fernandez started out as a business reporter in the print media and had stints at the Manila Chronicle, Business Day, Financial Post and Daily Express from 1985 to 1991. He shifted to broadcast media in 1991 and moved on to become news director and associate producer at GMA 7’s early morning business news program. He also did reports for the defunct Asia Business News (ABN).

Fernandez joined the banking industry as vice-president of the Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations Office (CAIRO) at Philippine National Bank (PNB) at the height of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He was the bank spokesman and managed its corporate affairs office and the bank's investor relations before he transferred to the Information Technology Group (ITG) of PNB and worked on Y2K and Bank’s enterprise wide automation and reengineering from 1999 to 2001.

In 2002, he began his career in government service at the Office of the President as Assistant Press secretary and later on, as the Deputy Communications Director with the rank of Undersecretary also at the Office of the President from 2004 to 2005. As an Undersecretary, he supported Presidential communications together with the functional operations of the offices and agencies that handle the administration’s public information and news and information dissemination.

From 2005 to 2008, he ran the day-to-day operations of the Manila office of a NASDAQ-listed US start up in artificial intelligence (natural language query systems). The Manila office housed a full time development team, providing QA and research, working with teams in New York, Ohio, Irvine and Italy.

Fernandez received his entire education from the University of the Philippines in Diliman from grade school to college, receiving his BA Communications degree in 1985.