Josephine Romero heads the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Silicon Valley attached to the Consulate General of the Philippines in San Francisco. Her jurisdiction covers the northwestern US states of northern California and Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

Ms. Romero promotes trade and investments between the Philippines and the United States. Besides increasing exports and imports in long-standing mutual interests in food, garments and manufacturing equipment and services, she is working to develop opportunities to build business process and technology exchanges as well as seek emerging knowledge industries in which Filipinos can excel. A primary campaign she currently advocates is the SAVE Our Industries Act (www.saveourindustriesact.org), aimed at saving jobs in the US textile and Philippine garment industries.

She is actively engaged in the Filipino-American community organizations as a board member of the national organization Filipina Women's Network (FWN); board director of the Philippine Center Management Board; selection committee member of the FWN 100 Most Influential Filipino Women; and adviser to the San Francisco Filipino American Chamber of Commerce.

Before coming to the Bay Area, Ms. Romero was the Philippine Trade Representative in New York from September 2005 to February 2009, and concurrently Commercial Attache in Washington DC from November 2007 to March 2008. She led business and development promotions for the country’s priority industry sectors in food, gift and home products, garments and fashion accessories, infrastructure development, and information technology services. Together with thought leaders and sourcing executives in the New York metro area, she co-founded the Philippine BPO Council and the Global Sourcing Council as venues for executive discussions on global services and sustainable sourcing.

Before joining government, Ms. Romero was employed with technology companies like Sun Microsystems in Asia South where she was Philippine Country Manager for Education Services, and Beacon Frontline Solutions as Marketing Director. She was one of five friends who successfully set up and sold Pinoymail.com, the free email service with the biggest subscriber base in the Philippines at the peak of the dotcom era. She held coordinative and marketing positions in financial and education services, garments and fashion fabrics, furniture and home accessories. She also worked as research analyst for university and international non-profit organizations.

She earned her Economics degree at the University of the Philippines in 1991 and attended the Regis Colorado and Ateneo de Manila Universities' joint MBA program at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business in the Philippines in 2000.