TONI VASQUEZ - SHAWAN, Chief Executive Officer / Principal Architect

Anne Tonette is a proud alumna of University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia and one of the only two Centers of Excellence in Architecture in the Philippines. In 2007 she graduated as the sole recipient of the most coveted award, Thesis of the Year for her thesis proposal wherein she was the only student out of her entire graduating class to recieve a perfect score. Her project entitled Vista Filipinas - Philippine’s first observation tower garnered much admiration for its design complexity, concept, and for pioneering on reclamation as a design solution. It was the first of its kind in the history of the university and was very well received by local faculty, fellow students, as well as visiting international schools. In 2008 it became one of the four official entires of the Philippines for the Hunter Douglas International Design Competition – Best Thesis Projects in the World 2009 held at Montevideo, Istanbul.   

In her pursuit to gather diversified training, she geared herself towards international exposure. She found herself needing to concentrate more on developing her technical skills thereby accepting an offer from New Jersey Institute of Technology as a Provost Scholar under their Masters of Architecture professional program. With her impressive portfolio and extensive professional experience, she receive multiple course advancement and was able to expedite her six-semester graduate studies to three while working as a teacher assistant and maintaining scholarship.    After graduating she moved to Los Angeles, California to join Bondanelli Design Group, headed by Italian architect Bruno Bondanelli on which she was assigned to assist in designing for a couple of upscale houses within West Hollywood area, commercial shops around Greater Los Angeles and created concept furniture as well. Through this company she became an invited design critic for two semesters in UCLA for their Masteral Program in Architecture and Interior Design.  

After coming back to the Philippines in 2010, she re-joined TVA&P as the managing director for its branch office in Cebu and also the Vice-President in charge of overseeing International Standards. Under her leadership and direction, in just 12 months TVAP Cebu tripled in size and is now one of the strongest and most respected names in the architectural scene of regions south of Manila. 

She designed and supervised several high-rise projects, beach resorts, luxury interior designs among many others.   She is an expert in client relations, business marketing, utilizing social media, and project presentations. TVAP has benefited to a series of successfully acquired projects because of her innovative designs, compelling concepts and her ability to retain client confidence. With her fresh and creative methodology, she has also successfully turned her company into a respective brand by the time it celebrated its 20th year milestone. Also an expert public speaker, she has been invited to give several speeches, lectures, and has moderated local and international focus groups in Manila.  She has been featured multiple times on different publications including the Philippine’s most prestigious design magazine, BluPrint, on which she is also an occassional contributor and serves as a consultant for the magazine’s subject focus. 

In 2014, she was invited by De La Salle - School of Design & Arts to become one of their visiting professors where she taught Design for High Rise and for Intermodal Projects. Despite not being able to teach all the time due to project demands, she retains her credibility in the academe by being a seasoned juror commonly invited in three of the biggest universities in Manila and one of the most sought after consultants for graduating students for their thesis projects. She proudly boasts of having at least one of her students receive the “Best Thesis” award while under her supervision for 7 years in a row. In 2015 she became the Chairperson of the Architecture Department of Lyceum of the Philippines University and provided them the framework for their upcoming architecture program. This role was superseded by her acceptance of becoming the first Dean for School of Design & Communication, Southwestern University in 2017. With her inovative and radical methodology on Architecture education, she comits to bringing theburgeoning design school and its aspiring students into becoming a respected name in the country.

Finally in 2017, she takes on her most important role yet by becoming the appointed Principal Architect & CEO of TVAP succeeding her late father, Topy Vasquez. With more than 10 years of solid and diversified experience as a licensed architect both here and abroad, she now takes on the company under her wing with a fortified vision of positioning the company as a global design brand. She is a proud member of American Institute of Architect in New York and United Architects of the Philippines. Since the start of the tenure she has successfuly involved the company to several projects in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, USA. Backed by her talented and expert design team, she continues to her mission of anchoring the company in North American market.