Two FilAm Executives Are Making Moves In Hawaii Business Landscape
Patti Ponimoi and Pete Castillejos are two Filipino American executives currently making big moves in Hawaii companies.
Ponimoi has been promoted from Local Sales Manager to SummitMedia Honolulu’s President last month. She’s a veteran sales and communications executive with a career of more than 20 years. She also held previous positions at Hawaii News Now, iHeartMedia and Hawaiian Airlines.
SummitMedia CEO Carl Parmer sad he’s excited for Ponimoi to lead the Hawaii SummitMedia team.
“She has a deep personal commitment to Hawaiian culture which is vital to our principles as well as our success,” he said.
Ponimoi says she’s honored to be part of SummitMedia.
“Continuing the tradition of Hawaiian music and perpetuating the culture of our local stations is very personal to me and I understand its importance to everyone,” she said.
In January 2021, Hawaii Filipino featured Castillejos as he was named as the new president of Mortgage Bankers Association of Hawaii.
Five months later, he took up the position Regional Manager at USA Mortgage, an employee-owned home lender based in St. Louis, as he opened its first Hawaii office on the ground floor of Pacific Guardian Tower in Kapiolani Boulevard.
According to Pacific Business News (PBN), as of July 2021, he has brought seven employees: loan officers, an underwriter and a processor.
With 17 years of experience in the Honolulu mortgage industry, Castillejos told PBN that he has plans to grow the company’s market share and open offices on neighboring islands.
“The strategy for a national company opening up in a new market is to hire a veteran and an experienced team. The team I hired has several years of experience, locally, already. We’re almost entirely referral based,” he said in an interview with PBN.
“We have a huge network of realtors and clients who were already referring us business, so we’re not starting from scratch. They know my team more than they know our company name.”
