Ahtisa Manalo: Life and Success Story
Ahtisa Manalo won Miss Universe Philippines 2025 and went on to place third runner-up at Miss Universe. Long before the crown, though, she had already built a career in food and beverage retail, co-founding a restaurant group behind some of the drinks and snacks sold in malls across the country.
Early Life
Ma. Ahtisa Manalo was born on May 25, 1997, in Candelaria, Quezon. Her mother is of Filipino-Spanish descent, and she has said she and her Finnish-Swedish biological father do not have a relationship. She was raised mainly by her mother and grandmother, and her schooling was supported by her grandmother and a godfather.
Money was tight growing up, and Manalo has said that awareness pushed her toward pageants early. She joined her first competition in fourth grade for the free tuition it offered, and won it at age 10.
Education
Manalo earned a degree in Accountancy at Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation, where she also served as Supreme Student Council President. By her own account she had a head for numbers early, managing stock investments for her cousins while still in high school. She never practiced accountancy professionally, but has said the training shaped how she approached business later.
The Business: Visum Ventures
In 2019, Manalo joined Visum Ventures, a food and beverage retail group founded and led by John-Michael Hilton. Visum built its name through the pandemic by launching brands aimed at health-conscious, delivery-first customers: Koomi, a natural drinking yoghurt; Oh My Greek, a shawarma-inspired concept; and Zig, marketed under a “Healthy Made Happy” tagline. The group’s brands are sold mainly through Robinsons, Ayala, and Megaworld malls, with SM Supermalls accounting for a large share of its footprint.
Accounts of Manalo’s exact role at Visum differ depending on the source and the year. A 2022 Manila Bulletin profile of the company, based on an interview with founder John-Michael Hilton, lists her as the executive handling social media and PR. A 2025 PEP.ph profile describes her LinkedIn listing as co-founder of the company, serving as Chief Financial Officer until 2022 and Chief Marketing Officer from 2023. Both describe the same company and the same person; the discrepancy in title is left here rather than resolved in favor of one account.
Outside Visum, Manalo has also run two cafes in Australia, Cafe Noun and Call Me Harris, which she opened by the time she was 20.
Where Things Stand Now
Manalo won Bb. Pilipinas International in 2018 and first runner-up at Miss International that same year, then stepped back from pageantry for several years. She returned in 2024, won Miss Cosmo Philippines, and was reappointed Miss Universe Philippines Quezon in February 2025. She won the national title in May 2025 and placed third runner-up at Miss Universe in November 2025, held in Thailand. She continues to describe herself as someone who was, in her own words, “meant for business,” alongside her pageant career.
A Note on Sourcing
Coverage of Manalo’s business career is thinner and less precise than coverage of her pageant career, and the two available profiles of her Visum Ventures role do not fully agree, as noted above. Figures like Visum’s revenue or Manalo’s ownership stake, if any, are not publicly available and are not included here.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Ahtisa Manalo”
- PEP.ph, “Who is Ahtisa Manalo, Miss Universe Philippines 2025?” and “Beauty queen Ahtisa Manalo chooses food business over luxury items”
- Manila Bulletin, “The Visum Vision” (March 2022)
- Rappler, GMA News, and Philstar.com, coverage of Manalo’s Miss Universe Philippines 2025 win and Miss Universe 2025 placement
