Robina Gokongwei

In this Philippine name for married women, the birth middle name or maternal family name is Yu, the birth surname or paternal family name is Gokongwei, and the marital name is Pe.

Robina Gokongwei-Pe (born July 15, 1962) is a Filipino businesswoman who is currently chairman of Robinsons Retail.^[1] She is the daughter of late tycoon John Gokongwei and Elizabeth Yu-Gokongwei.^[2]

Robina Gokongwei-Pe
Born	(1962-07-15) 15 July 1962 (age 62)
Nationality	Filipino
Education	University of the Philippines New York University
Occupation(s)	Businesswoman, investor, philanthropist
Spouse	Perry Pe ​ (m. 1993)​
Parent(s)	John Gokongwei Elizabeth Yu

Business

Gokongwei served as the president and COO of Robinsons Retail in 1997 and then appointed as president and CEO of the company in 2018 before stepping down from both positions on January 1, 2025.^[3][4]

She is also a director of JG Summit Holdings, Robinsons Land, Cebu Pacific, and the now defunct Robinsons Bank Corporation.^[5] She is a trustee and the secretary of the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation, Inc. and a trustee of the Immaculate Concepcion Academy Scholarship Fund.^[6]

Gokongwei formerly wrote a column at The Philippine Star named Chicken Feed.^[7][8]

Kidnapping victim

Gokongwei was once kidnapped in the 1970s, only to be saved later by a unit of the Metrocom Intelligence and Security Group (MISG) led by Ping Lacson. When Lacson ran in 2022, she supported his campaign.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

Sports

Gokongwei is a sponsor and patron for her alma mater's men's basketball team, the UP Fighting Maroons.^[14][15]

Personal life

Gokongwei is married to Perry Pe, a lawyer from Ateneo de Manila University.^[16][17]

Robinsons Galleria urban legend

An urban legend relating to the Robinsons Galleria flourished in the 1990s, which claimed of a half-snake, half-human creature that resided in the basement of the mall and purported to be a lucky charm installed by the Gokongwei family, feeding it with unsuspecting victims from a supposed shaft from a dressing room. Among its supposed victims were actresses Alice Dixson and Rita Avila. Although the rumor is now considered absurd and dead, it was revived in 2010 after a supposed YouTube video depicting it surfaced.^[18]

Gokongwei asserted in 2008 that the tale emerged from the "market competition".^[19] Dixson herself dismissed the entire narrative as fake, and in 2020 she finally put the entire tale to rest through a YouTube video.^[20] She had appeared in a videographic advertisement by the mall two years earlier, poking fun at and lampooning the extinct urban legend.^[19][21]

On January 27, 2025, ahead of the Chinese New Year which happens to be the year of the snake, Gokongwei poked fun at an urban legend in a Facebook post featuring herself posing with snake decorations at one of the Robinsons malls.^[22][23]