Dr. Reynaldo B. Vea is currently the President and CEO of the Mapua University. He is also the Chairman and CEO of iPeople, Inc., an education company that has seven schools as its subsidiaries.

Among these subsidiaries is the Mapua-Malayan. Colleges Laguna where Dr. Vea served as president from 2006  to 2021.  During his tenure he instituted degree programs in Marine Engineering and Marine Transportation in partnership with the Philippine Transmarine Carriers, Inc. (PTC) under the Mapua-PTC College of Maritime Education and Training (CMET). These programs are accredited under the Belgian Maritime Inspectorate (BMI).

Dr. Vea worked as a naval architect and marine engineer at Hudson Shipbuilding, Inc., Mississippi, USA and later at Herbert Engineering Corp., San Francisco, USA, from 1981nto 1983.  He was the Chairman of the Technical Panel on Engineering, Architecture and Maritime Education (TPEAME) of the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) from 1994 to 1997. He was a consultant to the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy (PMMA) from 1992 to 1997 where he helped establish the master’s degree programs in Maritime Education and in Shipping Business Management.  He was a technical consultant to MARINA from 1983 to 1986.

Dr. Vea is currently the Chairman of the Philippine Committee under the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) Committee. Dr. Vea is the immediate past Chairman of the Engineering Sciences and Technology Division of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) of the Philippines. He is also a former Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee of the UNESCO National Commission for the Philippines.

Dr. Vea was recently awarded the 2022 Engineer of the Year Award by the Federation of Engineering Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (FEIAP).

Dr. Vea has a PhD in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, an SM in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a BS in Mechanical Engineering, magna cum laude, from the University of the Philippines and a BS in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the NAMEI Polytechnic Institute.