JUDGMENT day has come for The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition as the winner is to be revealed on Thursday.
After 12 episodes that saw the original 16 finalists’ business acumen and physical abilities tested with different challenges, ONE Championship Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong is now to choose on who between former mixed martial arts champion Louie Sangalang from the Philippines and Singapore-based sales director Jessica Ramella from Venezuela will be the last person standing and awarded the position of ONE’s new chief of staff.
Mr. Sangalang and Ms. Ramella bested Monica Millington of the United States and Irina Chadsey of Russia in the Final Four to book their respective spots in the finale.
The two remaining finalists have been consistent top performers throughout the contest, making strong cases to be The Apprentice.
Baguio-born Sangalang has built a reputation in the show as being a “silent assassin,” a strong strategic threat, and a capable executive, banking on his experience in overcoming many challenges in his life.
A cancer survivor, Mr. Sangalang, 43, has moved forward from a troubled past and is continuing to cultivate himself as an individual.
In the show, he won twice as a project manager and was sent to the boardroom only once.
“I didn’t really have a game plan coming into the competition because I didn’t know what to expect. So my preparation was quite simple: I told myself that I’m just going to be my best professional self and practice mental toughness, then I will adapt to the situation along the way,” Mr. Sangalang shared to Filipino mediamen of the mind-set he had heading into the show.
He also looks at working at ONE as a great situation to be in.
“I think that working for ONE Championship will give me a lot of resource estimate and further develop me as a good team player. I have a lot to offer and that’s the reason I want to be part of ONE Championship [which] embodies the values that I also look up to and the practices that I like,” he said.
Ms. Ramella, meanwhile, has been carving her path since she was 18 years old, traveling from country to country, chasing her professional dreams in a competitive corporate world.
Throughout the show’s inaugural season, she has showcased her resourcefulness and superior problem-solving skills.
She only won as project manager once, but she never ended up in the boardroom for elimination.
For the final episode of the The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition, Mr. Sityodtong and special guest Anthony Tan, CEO of Grab, will put Mr. Sangalang and Ms. Ramella through an intense interview to discover who they really are.
The two CEOs will attempt to break down their walls and get to the core of their personalities in order to make the final decision and crown the winner, who will earn a $250,000 job offer to work in ONE as chief of staff in the organization’s global headquarters in Singapore.
The season finale of The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition will be on AXN on Thursday, June 10, at 8:50 p.m., on TV5 on Saturday, June 12, 11 p.m., and on One Sports on Monday, June 14, at 9 p.m. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo