EdFinTech Innovator Ronald Replan Appointed as InvestEd.ph President

InvestEd, an award-winning student loans provider in the Philippines, has appointed Co-Founder Ronald Replan ¹ as its President. InvestEd caters primarily to unbanked poor and low-income students in the Philippines by providing collateral-free education loans and the complementary learning support, and to date has raised a total of $1.6M from its investors, lenders and donors.

As President, Ronald is expected to supercharge the firm’s strategic growth by enhancing its intellectual property assets and ensuring the continuous development of customer-centric products and services.

My dream for every Filipino is to be assured access to higher education,” he says. “Since education is key to climbing out of poverty, getting a diploma should not be a game of odds. Unfortunately, with the current system, we are effectively leaving the future of our country to chance.

Ronald has witnessed countless other Filipinos struggle because of a plain lack of opportunity. This is what inspired him to co-found InvestEd in 2016. Born to a low-income household in Cabanatuan City to parents who were unable to finish tertiary studies, Ronald pushed hard to complete his Business Administration degree from the Philippines’ national university. Through part-time jobs and multiple scholarships, Ronald graduated magna cum laude.

Ronald brings to the role a decade of experience from large corporations such as Coca-Cola Philippines and various faculties at the University of Toronto (Business, Engineering, and Education). His broad experience enabled him to develop his expertise in behavioral data science, which was instrumental in creating InvestEd’s credit scoring algorithm and award-winning coaching platform.

At the helm of InvestEd, Ronald is committed to fostering inclusion and equity in the education financing sector. Ronald is an advocate of LGBTQ+ empowerment in the workplace and is also a strong ally of women. This commitment is reflected in InvestEd’s structure which staffs 80% of its ranks with women, including its leadership team. InvestEd likewise offers products with features tailored to specific women contexts, for instance, single mothers.

Drawing from his own experience, Ronald shares, “for a great part of my life, I’ve experienced various forms of discrimination for being poor, gay, and Asian. Although I have somehow risen above those struggles, it was hard not to internalize the rejections. At some point, I started believing that I did not deserve a chance. I would like InvestEd to inspire young Filipinos to believe that they deserve an opportunity to progress in life through higher education.

“To solve a wicked problem like the one InvestEd is addressing, we have to innovate relentlessly,” Ronald adds. There is much to be seen as to the mark he will be making, but so far, InvestEd has hit record-high Investee (i.e., customer) acquisitions by expanding its coverage in terms of locations, schools, and degree programs in his first three months in the role.