18 Recruiters Fueling the Philippines’ IT Growth
Explore the best Filipino tech talent recruiters & headhunters, renowned for their ability to identify and connect exceptional professionals with top companies. ↓
Hiring developers in the Philippines used to mean routing everything through a BPO middleman. That has changed.
A generation of in-house talent leaders and independent recruiters now runs direct pipelines into the Manila and Cebu engineering communities, not only the big outsourcing names that built the country’s reputation.
The 18 IT recruiters in the Philippines below are the ones whose names keep surfacing when companies actually place senior tech talent here, rather than just post jobs.
Some lead recruitment inside multinationals like Citi, Cargill, and TaskUs; others work solo, sourcing engineers for clients abroad. Here’s who they are and what each is known for.
- Giovani Salanatin
- David Espuerta
- Marlon de Mesa
- Avon Morales
- Oliver Lewis
- Ron Cullimore
- Lhen Perez
- Rich Cruz
- Mary Ann Gilyn Basa
- Agon Alosado
- Kay Galinato
- Noel Elgincolin
- DJ Ortiz
- Bryan Jacosalem
- Patrick Jess Dimayuga
- Erika So
- Aaron Estrada
- Friedreich Soriano
Giovani Salanatin
Photo: LinkedIn
Giovani built his name inside the IT-BPO world, heading recruitment at an outsourcing firm before going independent.
Colleagues call him a “talent matchmaker,” and LinkedIn put him on its Top 100 Filipinos list in 2024, largely off the hiring advice and career-coaching posts he still publishes for candidates trying to break into tech.
- Linkedin: Giovani Salanatin
David Espuerta
At Cargill Philippines, David recruits technical talent for one of the more unusual corners of the market: agriculture and food tech.
He’s a Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant there, and much of his writing connects two things recruiters rarely pair, personal branding and mental well-being during a job search.
His posts lean toward career growth and mentorship, which is what’s made him worth following for engineers eyeing corporate agritech.
- Linkedin: David Espuerta
Marlon de Mesa
Effective talent acquisition is about understanding the pulse of the market and matching the right people to the right opportunities for both growth and success.
Marlon runs talent acquisition across Southeast Asia for TaskUs, where high-volume tech hiring is the daily reality rather than the exception. That scale shows up in what he writes about: employer branding, recruitment analytics, and mentoring the next layer of IT/BPO recruiters.
LinkedIn included him on its Top 100 Filipinos to follow.
- Linkedin: Marlon de Mesa
Avon Morales
Photo: YouTube
Avon sits at the top of HR for Zenutna Holdings Corporation as Chief People Officer (SVP), steering talent acquisition across the group’s four IT companies. Her LinkedIn, which earned a “Top Career Development Voice” badge, covers HR innovation and diversity hiring.
The detail people tend to remember, though, is that she also coaches pageant contestants, and she’s candid about how reading a room quickly is the same skill in both jobs.
- Linkedin: Avon Morales
Oliver Lewis
In recruitment, it’s not just about filling a position—it’s about finding individuals who will drive innovation and contribute meaningfully to an organization’s vision.
A British recruiter who settled in Makati, Oliver founded TalentHero after 15+ years headhunting across Europe and Southeast Asia, plus an earlier firm, Lewis-Glanz Consulting. TalentHero concentrates on IT and executive search.
He’s also one of the most-followed recruitment voices in the country, posting steadily on hiring trends, startup recruitment, and career coaching.
- Linkedin: Oliver Lewis
- X (Twitter): @olilewis10
Ron Cullimore
Another transplant, Australian this time, Ron heads client services at Manila Recruitment, building offshoring and recruitment strategies for everyone from startups to multinationals.
He writes a great deal, with a long back-catalogue of articles on the Manila Recruitment blog about talent-market trends and how to repair a broken candidate experience.
- Linkedin: Ron Cullimore
Lhen Perez
Lhen moved to BDO Unibank as Head of Recruitment in 2026 after a long run at Citi, where she was Asia Regional Head of Strategic Talent Sourcing (SVP) out of the Philippines.
The brief at both is similar: attract tech and finance professionals across APAC with a cross-border team. She speaks and writes mostly about modern sourcing, and the unglamorous habit of building a network before you actually need it.
- Linkedin: Lhen Perez
Rich Cruz
Rich made an unusual pivot, from Talent Acquisition Senior Manager to full-time Diversity, Equity & Inclusion consultant, collecting several awards for HR transformation along the way.
His writing sits at the intersection most recruiters skip: how IT and BPO teams actually build diverse, high-performing teams instead of just talking about it.
- Linkedin: Rich Cruz
Mary Ann Gilyn Basa
Mary Ann runs recruitment across several regions as a Geography Head at an IT-BPO company, where the work is volume hiring for technical-support and infrastructure roles.
She’s a steady presence on LinkedIn, posting openings but also putting real time into mentoring younger recruiters coming up in the BPO sector.
- Linkedin: Mary Ann Gilyn Basa
Agon Alosado
Photo: LinkedIn
Agon covers a lot of ground, literally. As Talent Acquisition Manager for Asia at engineering and IT consultancy Aurecon, he hires across the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.
That cross-border beat is the throughline of the content that earned him a place on LinkedIn’s Top 100 Filipinos for 2023, and it’s where his mix of engineering and IT recruiting experience pays off.
- Linkedin: Agon Alosado
Kay Galinato
Kay recruits the people who build AI: engineers, data scientists, and the harder-to-define “innovator” roles, as a Recruitment Director in the AI/tech space. She practices what she hires for, posting regularly on how AI is changing recruitment itself.
LinkedIn named her one of the 100 most influential Filipino women on the platform in 2023.
- Linkedin: Kay Galinato
Noel Elgincolin
Noel hires developers, QA, and DevOps engineers for international placements as a Global Talent Acquisition Partner at gaming-software company Play’n GO, all from the Philippines. Remote work is his recurring theme, specifically how Filipino specialists can compete for roles anywhere.
That sourcing instinct earned him a place on the 2024 Top 100 Filipinos on LinkedIn.
- Linkedin: Noel Elgincolin
DJ Ortiz
Photo: The Org
DJ has built one of the larger personal audiences on this list, over 35,000 LinkedIn followers, as a certified technical recruiter now with Watsons Philippines.
Her feed mixes hiring insight with straight motivation for jobseekers, a combination that landed her in the 2023 Top 100 Filipinos on LinkedIn. Personal branding comes up often, and she’s a working example of it.
- Linkedin: DJ Ortiz
Bryan Jacosalem
Bryan works for himself, placing Filipino software, network-engineering, and cybersecurity talent with clients at home and abroad. Nine years in, with around 6,000 LinkedIn followers, he runs the day-to-day on the platform: job posts, resume tips, remote-work openings.
He points to his freelancing-platform reviews as the reason clients keep coming back.
- Linkedin: Bryan Jacosalem
Patrick Jess Dimayuga
Photo: Linkedin
Fifteen-plus years across telecommunications, consumer goods, and power have made Patrick a generalist in the best sense. Today he’s APAC Talent Acquisition Lead at Cargill, concentrating on the roles nobody else can fill, after founding and running HIP Careers earlier in his career.
The recognition has stacked up, from “Top 100 Filipinos to Follow for Inspiration and Learning” to “Philippines’ Top 30 Leaders,” but it’s the plain-spoken, relatable posts that explain why people actually read him.
- Linkedin: Patrick Jess Dimayuga
Erika So
Erika hires for banking technology and operations across Asia-Pacific as an Assistant Vice President and Talent Acquisition Lead at Citibank, often juggling requisitions in several markets at once.
Her LinkedIn, which earned a Top 100 Filipino professional nod, stays practical: how to break into banking tech, how to prepare for the interview, what multi-country hiring really looks like from the inside.
- Linkedin: Erika So
Aaron Estrada
Aaron flipped the usual model. Instead of working for employers, his company My Personal Recruiter works for the candidate, a “reverse recruiter” coaching professionals through their own job search.
It draws on years of tech and BPO hiring, plus a parallel role as an educator who walks jobseekers through resumes and interviews. Much of that advice he gives away free on LinkedIn, often on the language-and-culture side of global hiring that most recruiters skip.
- Linkedin: Aaron Estrada
Friedreich Soriano
Friedreich focuses on the unglamorous engine room of recruiting: building repeatable processes for hard-to-fill technical roles.
He was previously Head of Talent Acquisition at Penbrothers, and his full-cycle track record is the kind that helps both local employers and remote-first teams competing for experienced engineers in a tight market.
- Linkedin: Friedreich Soriano
Wrap Up
While these individuals offer valuable industry expertise, deep networks, and a track record of working with startups and tech firms in Philippines, their services often come at a premium price tag or with limited availability.
For fast-moving teams seeking a more responsive and cost-effective alternative, EchoGlobal Tech can be an option. Contact us today!
Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top professionals. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Working with a Philippine IT recruitment partner gives access to strong pools of software engineers, data specialists, and IT-BPO talent across hubs like Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao. Agencies handle sourcing, screening, and bilingual interviews, which shortens time to hire and improves match quality for onsite and remote roles.
TalentHero, Manila Recruitment, TaskUs, EchoGlobal Tech and Aurecon. These organizations are active in hiring across engineering, data, cloud, and leadership roles in the local and regional market.
Typical fees are 15% to 25% of the hired candidate’s annual gross salary. Executive or niche searches may run on a retained model with staged payments. Some providers also offer RPO or project pricing for volume hiring.
Prioritize teams with proven tech placements, bilingual communication, and clear process metrics such as time to shortlist and acceptance rates. Review client testimonials or case studies, confirm domain expertise in your stack, and ask for transparent terms covering replacement guarantees and communication cadence.
