Ramon E.S. Lerma is the Director and Chief Curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery in Manila, the premier museum of modern Philippine art. He is also the Coordinator for Art Education and Coordinator of the BFA in Art Management program at the Ateneo de Manila University, and was formerly Head of the Sub-Committee of Art Museums of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (2005-2007).

Lerma is credited for expanding the programs and increasing the profile of the Gallery through the various strategic partnerships that he has forged with the academe, business, media, and the arts and culture community. His key initiative is the Ateneo Art Awards, which now enjoys the reputation of being the most prestigious prize for an emerging visual artist in the Philippines.

As Director and Chief Curator, Lerma is the moving spirit behind the Gallery, defining its character and overseeing its growth and future development. He is presently overseeing the museum’s ongoing international academic linkages and projects – among these the Ateneo Art Gallery Studio Residency Grants at La Trobe University in Bendigo, Australia; Common Room Art Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia and at Artesan Gallery in Singapore – which cement the Ateneo’s position as an arbiter of excellence, and a key advocate of modern and contemporary Philippine visual art in the Asia-Pacific region.

In 2001, the Salzburg Seminar selected Lerma as one of sixty museum leaders from around the world to participate in a symposium entitled ‘Museums in the 21st Century’. In 2002, he was named by the Philippine Daily Inquirer as one of its ‘People of the Year’ in the field of arts administration. He was also selected as one of the ‘20 Most Important Young Filipinos’ by The Philippine Star in 2006.