Malou N. Santos

Malou Santos was born on February 3, 1957 to Winifredo Santos, a physician, and Nora Navarro-Santos.^[1] She has five siblings, including Maria Rosario ("Charo", born 1955).

Santos and her siblings grew up in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, with her and Charo being fans of radio host Inday Badiday and of actress Nora Aunor by the 1970s.^[2][3]

She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in hotel and restaurant management at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.^[1]

After her graduation, Santos started work as an assistant manager at Perpetual Savings Bank.^[3] Upon the insistence of her sister, actress and producer Charo Santos-Concio, Santos became a production assistant on the set of the 1984 action film Batuigas II: Pasukuin si Waway, which began her career in the film industry.^[3] Santos later served as line producer and associate producer for Regal Films in the 1980s. Santos was credited by filmmaker Olivia Lamasan with encouraging her to pursue writing and directing as a profession instead of advertising.^[4]

On May 8, 1993, Santos and her sister Charo founded Star Cinema Productions, Inc., or simply Star Cinema, with Santos as head of production.^[5] It was a successor to the sisters' former production company Vision Films, and is a subsidiary of the media conglomerate ABS-CBN. After Simon Ongpin left as managing director in 1995,^[5] Santos served as Star Cinema's managing director from 1995 to December 2017.^[6][7][8] Santos in 2001 had expressed that the 1995 romantic drama film Sana Maulit Muli was the last film she was "100 percent hands-on" as a producer, and cited it as one of Star Cinema's film productions that "really left a lasting impression on me".^[3] She was later credited with encouraging assistant director Rory B. Quintos to pursue directing for the studio.^[9]

As head of Star Cinema, Santos has been characterized as maintaining a lower profile than her sister Charo, who was among the top management at ABS-CBN.^[3] In September 1997, Viva Films executive Eric Cuatico moved to Star Cinema and became joint managing director with Santos,^[6] but left after two years in July 1999 to join the newly established Seven Crown Ventures of Jesse Ejercito, President Joseph Estrada's brother.^[10] Although the film studio did not often produce profitable films for most of its early years, by fiscal year 1998, most of Star Cinema's output was noted to have turned a profit.^[11]

In the 2000s, the films produced by Star Cinema under the management of Santos were among the most commercially successful films produced in the industry, regularly ranking among the top-grossing Filipino films of the year.^{[12][13][14][15][16]} By the time Santos stepped down as chief operating officer in 2017, Star Cinema films had surpassed on ten occasions the record for the highest-grossing Filipino film of all time: Isusumbong Kita sa Tatay Ko... (1999), Anak (2000), Ang Tanging Ina (2003), Sukob (2006), You Changed My Life (2009), No Other Woman and Praybeyt Benjamin (both 2011), Sisterakas (2012), It Takes a Man and a Woman (2013), and A Second Chance (2015).^{[17][18][19][20][21][22]}

In February 2016, Santos was named COO of Star Creatives.^[23] After Santos stepped down as Star Cinema's COO in December 2017, Lamasan was appointed as the new managing director while Santos remained as an executive adviser for the production company.^[7]