Speakers

Opening Keynote

Dr. Tan See Leng

Minister for Manpower, Second Minister for Trade and Industry, Republic of Singapore

In-Conversation

Dr. Tan See Leng

Minister for Manpower, Second Minister for Trade and Industry,

Republic of Singapore

Dr Tan See Leng was appointed as the Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry on 15 May 2021. Prior to this, Dr Tan was the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Second Minister for Trade and Industry and Second Minister for Manpower from 27 July 2020.

A veteran medical practitioner, Dr Tan was Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at IHH Healthcare Berhad, one of the largest listed integrated healthcare providers globally, from 2014 to 2019. He was also concurrent CEO and MD of Parkway Pantai from 2011 onwards till 2019 when Parkway Holdings was merged with Pantai Holdings. During Dr Tan’s tenure, the group doubled its revenue and expanded its presence to 11 countries with 84 hospitals employing over 50,000 employees.

An entrepreneur, Dr Tan founded Healthway Medical Group in Singapore in the early 1990s and was its Chief Executive Officer from 1992 to 2003. He expanded the GP clinic chain to more than 40 locations with a turnover of S$20 million per annum, making it the second largest private primary healthcare provider in Singapore.

Dr Tan has served on the boards of several medical committees including the Singapore Ministry of Health’s Medishield Life Review Committee. He also sat on the Advisory board of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at the Singapore Management University and has guest lectured at international symposiums including the Harvard Business School’s seminar on healthcare entrepreneurship.

Under his leadership, IHH Healthcare Berhad has won numerous awards, including Best Managed and Best Overall Corporate Governance Poll awards by Asiamoney. He has also earned awards from his own medical community in Singapore, including the Albert and Mary Lim award from the College of Family Physicians and the Merit Award from the Singapore Medical Association.

Panelists

In-Conversation: Navigating a Fractured Global Order

Dr. Taimur Baig

Managing Director and Chief Economist,

DBS Bank

In-Conversation

Dr. Taimur Baig

Managing Director and Chief Economist

DBS Bank

Taimur Baig, Ph.D, heads global economics as well as macro strategy for interest rate, credit, and currency at DBS Group Research. He also advises the bank on risk management and investment strategy.

Prior to joining DBS, Dr. Baig was a Principal Economist at the Economic Policy Group, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Earlier, he spent nine years at Deutsche Bank’s Singapore office, where his last position was Managing Director and Chief Economist, Asia.
During 1999-2007, he was based in Washington, DC, at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund, where his last position was Senior Economist.

Dr. Baig has published extensively for both specialists and a general audience, on areas including monetary policy, digital currency, financial technology, climate change, demographics, frontier markets, fiscal policy efficacy, and financial market contagion. He is the host of “Kopi Time,” a widely followed podcast series on markets and economies.

Dr. Baig sits as a council member for the Asian Financial Think Tank, Economic Society of Singapore, and Women’s World Banking.

Dr. Baig holds a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He attended London School of Economics and Wabash College for his B.A. in Economics.

Associate Professor Simon Tay

Chairman

Singapore Institute of International Affairs

In-Conversation

Assoc Prof. Simon Tay

Chairman

Singapore Institute of International Affairs

Ambassador to Greece (Non-Residential)

Simon SC Tay is a public intellectual as well as an advisor to major corporations and policymakers.
Prof Tay has held several public appointments for Singapore including as an independent Member of Parliament (1997-2001); Chairman of the National Environment Agency (2002-08) and an Expert and Eminent Person in the ASEAN Regional Forum (2002–2019). He also coordinated the country’s equivalent of the Peace Corps (1990-93). In 2006, Prof Tay received a National Day Award.
Since 2020, Tay has been appointed an Ambassador for Singapore, currently accredited to Greece on a non-residential basis. He is also Singapore’s chairman for the EU Singapore Free trade agreement domestic advisory group focusing on sustainability and trade.
Based in Singapore, he is Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, the country’s oldest think tank. The SIIA’s work focuses on the politics, economic policies and sustainability challenges that matter to corporations and policymakers. The SIIA anchors several key initiatives with the ASEAN Asia Forum, Sustainable World Resources Dialogue and in green finance and climate change policy. It was also the key knowledge partner for Singapore’s Emerging Stronger Taskforce to strategise paths forward from the pandemic.
He is concurrently a tenured Associate Professor, teaching international law at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law and has also taught at Harvard Law School, the Fletcher School and Yale University. Prof Tay is also Senior Consultant at WongPartnership, a leading Asian law firm of some 300 lawyers and with offices in ASEAN, China and the Middle East. He served on boards for leading global companies including MUFG Bank of Japan, Toyota Japan, and Deutsche Boerse (Asia), and was previously Corporate Advisor to Temasek Holdings (2006-09).

Facilitator:

Mr. Nicholas Fang

Director of Security and Global Affairs,

Singapore Institute of International Affairs

In-Conversation

Mr. Nicholas Fang

Director of Security and Global Affairs

Singapore Institute of International Affairs

Nicholas Fang graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He joined Singapore’s oldest think tank, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, in 2010. He is currently executive director of the institute, which was ranked local think tank, and among the top in Asia and the Pacific in 2015. Nicholas started his working life as a journalist, and spent nine years at Singapore’s national daily newspaper, The Straits Times. There he reported on financial and sports news, and also wrote lifestyle columns and special reports on a diverse range of topics, rising to the post of Senior Correspondent. He then spent two years as business desk editor at national broadcaster Mediacorp’s regional news channel – Channel NewsAsia. During this time, he oversaw local and business news coverage, and also presented various key bulletins, including the 2009 Singapore Budget Special. He is currently supervising editor of Singapore news at Mediacorp.

He was appointed Nominated Member of Parliament in February 2012, and served a two-and-a-half-year term focusing on issues pertaining to international affairs, media, defense and security and sports. He currently sits on the boards of Singapore humanitarian non-government organisation Mercy Relief, and non-profit social innovation organisation Social Innovation Park. He is also a member of the advisory committee of the national youth volunteerism institution Youth Corps Singapore.

A former national athlete, Nicholas has represented Singapore in fencing and triathlon. He hosted the International Olympic Committee meeting in Singapore in 2005, and was Team Singapore’s Chef de Mission at the 2015 South-east Asian Games hosted in Singapore. He founded Black Dot Pte Ltd, a strategic consultancy that offers public relations, media, sponsorship and marketing consultancy services focusing on the sports sector to help develop the sporting industry and talents in Singapore and the region.

Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources (SWR) Panel: Climate Action Amidst Global Upheaval

Speakers:

Mr. Colin Chen

Managing Director, Head of ESG Finance APAC,
MUFG Bank

Mr. Colin Chen

Managing Director, Head of ESG Finance APAC,

MUFG Bank

Mr. Colin Chen is the Head of ESG Finance, Asia Pacific, for MUFG Bank. He took on this newly-created role in April 2021 and has since built upon MUFG’s ESG presence in the region and deepened its market presence by further establishing the bank as a center of excellence for green financing. He is also part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Green Finance Industry Taskforce (GFIT). He actively engages clients across sectors in Asia to advise them on their sustainability journey and how ESG finance can help them get to their end-goal. He actively speaks at industry conferences and is a strong advocate of ESG Finance in the region.

Mr. Chen joined MUFG Bank in 2000 and has been involved in structured finance for over 30 years. Prior to his current appointment, he was MUFG’s Head of the Structured Finance, Asian Investment Banking Division, responsible for the project finance, real estate and asset finance businesses for the bank for the Asia and Oceania region. Under his leadership, MUFG has consistently been ranked one of the top project finance lenders in APAC and renowned for the inroads it has made in renewables financing in Asia.

Prior to MUFG Mr. Chen held senior positions at Morgan Grenfell, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and DBS Bank with assignments in London, New York and Singapore covering both advisory roles as well as arranging roles. He is currently based in Singapore.

Mr. Chen has a BSC (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the University Of Manchester Institute Of Science and Technology and an MBA from the University of Rochester, NY. He has also completed the “Sustainable Finance and ESG Investing” course from NYU Stern Business School, US.

Mr. Ferry Akbar Pasaribu

Assistant Deputy for Investment Strategy, Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs,
Republic of Indonesia

Mr. Ferry Akbar Pasaribu

Assistant Deputy for Investment Strategy, Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs,

Republic of Indonesia

As of August 2020 Ferry serves as the Assistant Deputy for Investment Strategy and Acceleration Policy at the Cooordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs of Indonesia. Previously he served as Diplomat (now with the rank of Minister Counselor) over 23 years and was assigned in Colombia, Belgium, and the United States, mostly related to promoting economic diplomacy.

His current main portfolio is to continuously enhance the investment regulatory frameworks, aimed at creating a more business-friendly enviroment. He works with the concerned line ministries, embassies, as well as foreign and domestic investors.

Ferry also is assigned to offer investment opportunities to foreign and domestic investors in infrastructure, especially toll road.
He has his Master’s degree in International Relations (University of Indonesia) as well as some professional trainings at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Government, Australia National University, University of Sydney, and University of Maryland.

Ms. Hum Wei Mei

Head of Asia-Pacific and Head of Carbon & Environmental Products,
AirCarbon Exchange

Ms. Hum Wei Mei

Head of Asia-Pacific and Head of Carbon & Environmental Products,

AirCarbon Exchange

Hum Wei Mei is concurrently, Head of Asia Pacific and Head of Carbon & Environmental Products in ACX. She is responsible for advancing ACX’s business interests in the Asia Pacific Region, product structuring and development. She acts as an In-House consultant and helps to ensure that ACX’s processes, market rules & guidance, are aligned to international best practices. She represents ACX on several industry led Taskforces and Committees.

Prior to her appointment at AirCarbon, Wei Mei spent over 6 years working on Climate Change related matters within the Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore (National Climate Change Secretariat, Strategy Group). Her main areas of focus were GHG accounting, Climate Risk, Carbon Markets and Carbon Trading. She also helped to articulate Singapore’s Climate Change policies at various local and international fora, including those hosted by the World Bank and UNFCCC.

Other positions, she has held include Deputy Director for Regulatory Affairs at one of Southeast Asia’s largest utilities, Principal Analyst in Singapore’s electricity and natural gas market regulator and Investment Banker in the Corporate Finance division of a European Bank.
Her international experience includes postings to China, selected ASEAN countries, and the United States. She has a Master’s Degree from Yale University and graduated with a BSc. in Economics (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Minnesota, where she was the 10th recipient of the Winnifred Fable & George F. Stockman Scholarship in Economics. She also spent a stint in the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis as a Visiting Scholar.

Mr. Souksavart Sosouphanh

Deputy Managing Director,

Électricité du Laos

Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources (SWR) Panel

Mr. Souksavart Sosouphanh

Deputy Managing Director

Électricité du Laos

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Nationality: LAO
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: 20 March 1985
Place of Birth: Pakse District, Champasack Province, Lao PDR
Current Address: Mueang Noy Village, Xaysettha District,Vientiane Province, Lao PDR.

EDUCATION
2010: Bachelor of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Osaka University, Japan.
2012: Master of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Osaka University, Japan.

WORK EXPERIENCE
Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM)
2012 – 2018: Officer at Contract Division, Department of Energy Business, Ministry of Energy and Mines
2018 – 2020: Acting Head at the Investment Division, Department of Planning and Cooperation, Ministry of Energy and Mines, focusing on Concession Agreement (CA) negotiation and international relations.

Electricite Du Laos (EDL)
2020: Deputy Director of Business Department at EDL, responsible for Finance and Debt analysis.
2020 – 2022: Director of Planning and Finance Department at EDL.
2022 – Present: Deputy Managing Director of EDL, assisting Managing Director in terms of Finance and Contract negotiation.

Moderator:

Ms. Cheryl Chen

Director, Global ESG Strategy and Engagement,
S&P Global and Council Member, SIIA

Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources (SWR) Panel

Ms. Cheryl Chen

Director, Global ESG Strategy and Engagement,

S&P Global and Council Member, SIIA

Cheryl Chen is the Director of Global ESG Strategy and Engagement at S&P Global and leads the efforts around corporate ESG disclosure, practices and performance. She joined the company as the Director of Corporate Responsibility for Asia Pacific in 2018 to scale S&P Global Foundation grant programs, employee volunteerism and corporate ESG practices in the region.

Before joining S&P Global, she was Vice President, Head of Corporate Citizenship for Citi Singapore and has more than ten years of experience in the private sector with a focus on how corporate citizenship and cross-sector partnerships can contribute towards sustainable development.

She serves as a District Councilor with the South East Community Development Council since 2014 and is currently an advisory committee member of the National Youth Fund of Singapore and management committee member of the Lien Centre for Social Innovation. She is also a Council Member with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, an independent think-tank in Singapore.

Cheryl graduated with a Double Degree in Bachelor of Science (Economics) and Bachelor of Business Management (Major in Finance) from Singapore Management University (SMU) and obtained the Master of Social Science at SMU in 2015. She lives with her husband and two sons in Singapore.

Panel Keynote: Digitalisation as an Enabler

Mr. Kiren Kumar

Deputy Chief Executive,

Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Singapore

In-Conversation

Mr. Kiren Kumar

Deputy Chief Executive,

Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) Singapore

Mr Kiren Kumar assumed the appointment of Deputy Chief Executive (Development) of Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) on 1 January 2021. He spearheads the development of Singapore’s digital economy and drives the implementation of the ICT industry strategy across both industry verticals and economic horizontals. Mr Kiren oversees both the Sectoral Transformation Group and Digital Industry & Talent Group to accelerate digitalisation across the industries and businesses to grow Singapore’s digital economy. Mr Kiren will also lead human capital development efforts to provide the right skillsets for ICM sectors as well as raise the digital literacy of Singapore’s workforce.

Prior to holding office as DCE (Development) in IMDA, Mr Kiren was the Assistant Chief Executive (Digital Industry and Talent) at IMDA and Executive Vice President (Digital Industry) at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).
Mr Kiren joined EDB in 2001 and took on various portfolios such as economic policy formulation and industry development in the Info-Comms & Media, Electronics and Precision Engineering sectors as well as worked closely with various multinational corporations on their Asian strategies and investments into Singapore.

In 2004, Mr Kiren was seconded to the International Enterprise Singapore where he assisted Singapore based companies to expand into the Asian, European and American markets.

Digital Panel: ASEAN’s Next Wave of Growth: Innovation, Interoperability and Inclusion

Speakers:

Dr. Kasititorn Pooparadai

Senior Executive Vice President, Strategy and Management Unit,

Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), Thailand

In-Conversation

Dr. Kasititorn Pooparadai

Senior Executive Vice President, Strategy and Management Unit,

Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), Thailand

Dr. Kasititorn Pooparadai has a Ph.D.in Science and Technology Policy Studies from Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST), University of Manchester, UK, in 1999. She spent nearly 20 years at the National Science and Technology Development Agency conducting and leading numerous ICT policy research and contributing to the formulation of successive Thailand ICT policies. Her most current contributions include the National Digital Economy and Society Plan and Digital Economy Promotion Plan.

She has joined the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA) as a Senior Executive Vice President since September 2017. Her current responsibility includes overseeing Strategy and Security Promotion Unit, formulating and implementing Digital Economy Promotion Plan and corporate strategy – turning strategy into real practice.

Her interests include various dimensions of ICT’s pivotal role and influence on social and economic development. She is also a part-time lecturer on public policy on ICT and the social implications of ICT at Thai universities.

Mr. Kiren Kumar

Deputy Chief Executive,

Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Singapore

In-Conversation

Mr. Kiren Kumar

Deputy Chief Executive,

Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) Singapore

In 2004, Mr Kiren was seconded to the International Enterprise Singapore where he assisted Singapore based companies to expand into the Asian, European and American markets.

Mr. Leo Jiang

Chief Digital Officer, Asia Pacific,

Huawei Cloud & AI

In-Conversation

Mr. Leo Jiang

Chief Digital Officer, Asia Pacific,

Huawei Cloud & AI

As a business and technology leader, Leo has had a ringside seat in the world of corporate innovation and transformation. He is highly regarded for leveraging design thinking, innovation to drive record-breaking growth for global multi-national companies such as BT, Orange and Vodafone. a columnist for medium.com, startup, data driven investor, on emerging technology and digital transformation.

At Huawei, Leo founded the Spark Program – a global startup accelerator platform, through which hundreds of companies have tapped into his expertise and insights to grow and scale exponentially. His efforts have also led Huawei Spark to be recognized and awarded as one of the best startup programs in Asia, despite just starting out in 2020. Leo looks forward to bringing his knowledge and insights to help companies, startups and corporates alike to lean into emerging technology and digital growth.

Ms. Shinto Nugroho

Chief of Public Policy & Government Relations,

GoTo Group

In-Conversation

Ms. Shinto Nugroho

Chief of Public Policy & Government Relations,

GoTo Group

Shinto joined Gojek Group in 2018 as its Chief of Public Policy and Government Relations. She currently leads policy and public sector engagement across Southeast Asia for GoTo Group, the largest technology group in Indonesia.

A seasoned industry expert, Shinto has over 15 years of experience as a lawyer and public policy specialist. Prior to Gojek, Shinto worked at Google focusing on public policy issues. She also was the Special Staff on Trade Policy for the Trade Minister of Indonesia and also worked for the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank in the earlier years of her career.

Shinto obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Indonesia and Masters degrees from Columbia Law School as Parker’s scholars and the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Chevening Scholar. Shinto was the recipient of the SIF ASEAN Leaders Scholarship and currently a 2021 Eisenhower Global Leader Program Fellow. She represented Indonesia in the Future Female Leaders in the New Asia Summit in New Delhi in 2013 and was named as one of Asia 21’s Young Leaders in 2012.

Shinto sits on the Board Member of Tifa Foundation, a non‐profit organization focusing on open and equitable society.

Moderator:

Ms. Jessica Wau

Deputy Director, ASEAN,

Singapore Institute of International Affairs

In-Conversation

Ms. Jessica Wau

Deputy Director, ASEAN

Singapore Institute of International Affairs

Jessica leads the ASEAN programme at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, the country’s oldest think tank and founding member of the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS) Network of think tanks. She is responsible for driving research, reports and conversations on ASEAN matters and its key economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Her work requires her to track policy trends and developments in Southeast Asia, which she analyses to provide advisory services to multinationals in the region.

Jessica has worked on a series of dialogues on ASEAN Centrality and Collective Leadership on pertinent issues including, trade, infrastructure and the Indo-Pacific. Currently, her work focuses on building SIIA’s ASEAN digitalisation programme, proposing a collaboration with digital economy stakeholders to offer research and analysis on ‘Charting ASEAN’s Digital Future’.

She was previously an Associate Producer at CNBC covering Asia’s major markets and economies. She specialized in ‘Regional Studies: The Asia Pacific’ as part of her master’s programme on International Affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.