Archie G. Carrasco Is Named to The BoF 500, Becoming Its Fifth Filipino Honoree

Archie G. Carrasco has spent years bringing some of the world’s most influential media brands to the Philippines. Now, the Filipino media executive is receiving a global recognition of his own.

Carrasco, Chairman and CEO of AGC Power Holdings Corp. and publisher of Allure Philippines, has been named to The BoF 500, The Business of Fashion’s definitive index of people shaping the global fashion industry.

The recognition places Carrasco among a select group of Filipinos who have been named to the index since it was established in 2013. Previous Filipino honorees include V Magazine founder Stephen Gan and Bryan Grey Yambao, better known as Bryanboy, who were named in 2013; H&F Retail Concepts founder and managing director Jappy Gonzalez, who followed in 2017; and SSI Group President and CEO Anthony “Anton” Tantoco Huang, who became the fourth Filipino on the list in 2025.

Carrasco now becomes the fifth.

His inclusion also marks a milestone for Philippine media, placing a Filipino media leader among a global community of executives, designers, entrepreneurs, creatives, and cultural figures recognized for their influence on the fashion industry.

But for him, the milestone points toward something larger than individual recognition.

“I want us to move from showcasing Filipino creativity to helping build the industries around it,” Carrasco tells Allure Philippines.

Global brands, distinctly Filipino

Kieran Punay

Carrasco leads AGC Power Holdings Corp., whose portfolio spans publishing groups, marketing services agencies, and retail. Over the past several years, that work has helped expand the presence of Philippine media within global publishing networks, bringing international titles into the country while building them around Filipino audiences, talent, and perspectives. Its media titles include Allure Philippines, Vogue Philippines, GQ Philippines, Billboard Philippines, Rolling Stone Philippines, Robb Report Philippines, The Game, VMAN Southeast Asia, MEGA, Delish Philippines, BluPrint, Lifestyle Asia, The Business Manual, and Modern Parenting. He also serves as publisher of Allure Philippines, Vogue Philippines, GQ Philippines, and Robb Report Philippines.

For Carrasco, bringing international media institutions into the Philippine market has never meant simply reproducing what works elsewhere.

He describes the relationship as an exchange: global brands bring editorial standards, expertise, and international networks, while Filipino creativity gives those institutions a cultural perspective they could not produce anywhere else.

“It should never be a one-way transfer,” he says. “The best partnerships allow global institutions and Filipino talent to make each other stronger.”

That requires knowing which parts of a global institution are fundamental—and which conventions can be reconsidered for the Filipino audience.

“You protect the DNA, not necessarily every convention,” Carrasco says. “The best local edition feels unmistakably like the global brand while being impossible to produce anywhere other than the Philippines.”

From Filipino talent to Filipino industry

Kieran Punay

It is that distinctly Filipino point of view that Carrasco believes holds still-untapped economic potential.

Filipino creative talent is often celebrated culturally, he says, without the same attention being paid to what that creativity can become: intellectual property, businesses, exports, and globally relevant brands.

Beauty, in particular, offers a compelling case.

For Carrasco, meaningful global recognition would require moving beyond seeing Filipinos primarily as the faces of campaigns or consumers of international products.

“I want Filipino founders building globally recognized beauty companies, Filipino experts influencing international conversations, Filipino products entering international markets, and Filipino ideas contributing to how beauty itself is defined,” he says.

Allure Philippines launched in April 2025 as the brand’s third global edition, following the United States and Korea. Its debut issue, “The Filipino Now,” examined Filipino influence in beauty and culture both at home and around the world.

But visibility, Carrasco argues, is only one part of what media can contribute.

“I want us to move from showcasing Filipino creativity to helping build the industries around it,” he says. “Media can provide visibility, but our responsibility can go further—creating connections, commerce, education, experiences, and opportunities that allow creative talent and ideas to become sustainable.”

Beyond a seat at the table

Kieran Punay

That philosophy also shapes how Carrasco thinks about the future of media itself.

“Technology changes; purpose should not,” he says. “Whether the platform is print, digital, social, events, video, or AI, I ask whether it improves how we serve audiences, strengthens the brand, and creates sustainable value.”

“We should never adopt technology simply because it is fashionable,” he adds. “Innovation has to solve something.”

The global landscape Carrasco operates in today is markedly different from the one he encountered a decade ago. International relationships that once seemed geographically distant have become increasingly accessible to Filipino companies and creatives.

His inclusion in The BoF 500 is another marker of that shift—and of Philippine media’s growing participation in an international creative industry that Carrasco believes Filipinos should eventually help shape.

Yet Carrasco is less interested in access as an endpoint than in what Filipinos can ultimately do with it.

“The ambition now should not simply be to enter those conversations but eventually to help shape them,” he says.

And perhaps the measure of progress will be when achievements like his own no longer feel quite so exceptional.

“I hope access will no longer feel exceptional,” Carrasco says. “International opportunities, professional creative careers, and global recognition should become normal possibilities for talented Filipinos. If the next generation doesn’t have to fight the same battles for visibility and credibility, then we will have done our job.”