Rowel Barba is Director General of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines. Prior, he was Undersecretary for the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry where he supervised the offices under it. He was also the Supervising Undersecretary of the Intellectual Property of the Philippines (IPOPHIL), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), National Development Corporation (NDC) & the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC), attached agencies of the DTI. He concurrently sat in various boards of government corporations, agencies and councils such as the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) & the acting Chairman of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), among others. He was also formerly the Undersecretary for the Management Services Group (MSG) and the Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business Group (CEODBG) of DTI. He concurrently sits as Governor of the Board of Investments (BOI) and Acting Chairman of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). Previously, he was Vice President and Head of the Corporate Legal & HR Divisions in the RFM Corporation and Vice President and Chief Legal Counsel in the JAKA Group.