Outstanding Professional Award 2014
Dante F.M. Ang II President and CEO,
and concurrently the Executive Editor of The Manila Times
D
ante Francis M. Ang II, better known by his endearing nickname “Klink”, is currently the President and CEO, and concurrently the Executive Editor of The Manila Times—the oldest-running news publication in the country, which has earned the Superbrands award numerous times under his administration.
His exposure to journalism began in the late 1970s when his father, then a fledgling entrepreneur, started publishing small weekly papers and monthly magazines. However, after the assassination of the late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino in 1983, along with his mother and siblings, Klink was forced to flee to the U.S. because the Ang patriarch was publishing a newspaper that was among the so-called “mosquito press”. It was at Sharpstown High School, in Houston, Texas, where Klink finished his secondary education in 1986, and where he fired up his passion for journalism as the Assistant Editor of the school newspaper. Four years later, he earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas, where he was twice named Editor of the university newspaper, and one time as editor of the college magazine. He went on to work as a reporter for the Tulsa Tribune in Oklahoma, where he covered state and local politics until 1992, after which, in that same year, he became Vice President for Marketing of the Bell Publishing Corporation, where he was responsible for opening distribution outlets in Rome for Diwaliwan, a monthly magazine for overseas Filipino workers, thus, hinting at his fixation on the welfare of his kababayan.
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