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Asian Insights Conference 2015
Learn from Asia’s most influential thinkers and leaders as they share thoughtful analysis which defies commonplace thinking.
Alexander Lee is a market strategist for DBS Vickers Hong Kong and is responsible for developing HK/China equity market strategy ideas. Alex has more than 10 years of equity research experience in HK/China equities, and has covered various sectors including ground transportation, infrastructure, banks, and non-bank financials. He leads the HK/China financials research team, which was ranked #3 in the 2014 Asiamoney Brokers Poll for local banks research. Alex is a CFA charter holder and has a bachelor of Business Administration with the University of Hong Kong.
Mr. Khoo is currently a Director of the Food Services Division at ABR Holdings Ltd and apart from managing the various brands within the group, he is also involved in corporate and strategic activities. He has held senior management positions in a number of diverse industries including food, retailing, and the hospitality sector. Previously, he was also the Director of Corporate Affairs in a UK and Malaysian Listed company. Mr. Khoo holds a degree in law from Cambridge University and a Master of Business Administration from Seattle Pacific University. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 2002. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Federal International (2000) Ltd, the Executive Committee of Franchise and Licensing Association (Singapore), and is the Honorary Secretary of the Restaurant Association of Singapore.
Dr Beh was appointed Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on December 1, 2014. He also chairs the Boards of Directors of EDB Investments.
He was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Law from July 1, 2012 to November 30, 2014. The Ministry of Law is responsible for legal policy; the development of the legal sector including regulation of the legal profession; intellectual property policy; land policy; the provision of services such as bankruptcy administration, public trustee services, community mediation and legal aid; as well as the regulation of moneylenders and pawnbrokers.
Dr Beh was Managing Director of EDB from August 1, 2008 to June 30, 2012. He joined EDB in November 1992 and held various portfolios over the years including leadership roles in the development of Singapore’s Biomedical Sciences industry cluster, as well as overseas assignments in EDB’s North American operations.
In 2006 and 2007, Dr Beh held concurrent appointments as the Executive Director of the Biomedical Research Council at the Agency for Science, Technology & Research, as well as the Director of the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s Energy Planning Division.
He is a medical doctor and graduated from the National University of Singapore. He is also a Sloan Fellow with a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and completed the Advanced Management Programme at the Harvard Business School.
He is a Board Director for Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd, which is listed on the Singapore Exchange, as well as The Esplanade Co Ltd. He is a member of the Strategy and Advisory Boards of the Singapore Management University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. He is also a member of the Young Presidents’ Organisation.
Mr Emmett has been a director of Horizon Oil Limited for the past 14 years and has more than 40 years of experience across the exploration, exploration and production management, and investment banking industries.
He graduated from Adelaide University with a Bachelor of Science First Class Honours degree, majoring in Physics and Geophysics. From 1974 to 1983, he worked as an explorationist in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand for Esso, as well as Elf Aquitaine.
He joined Ampolex Limited as Exploration Manager in 1983 and filled general management roles in North and South America, as well as international and business development. He was also a member of its Executive Committee. During his tenure at Ampolex, its market capitalisation increased ten-fold to approximately US$1.9 billion.
From 1997 until 2001, Mr Emmett was Managing Director – Oil & Gas Advisory with investment banking firm, CIBC World Markets. During that time he advised on acquisitions and divestments of oil and gas assets worth about US$900 million.
In October 2000, Mr Emmett was elected to the board of Bligh Oil and Minerals N.L. In 2001, he founded an investor group, Oasis Energy Investments Pty Limited, which took a major stake in Bligh Oil and Minerals N.L. In January 2002, he was appointed CEO of the company, which subsequently changed its name to Horizon Oil Limited. Since then, Mr Emmett has been actively engaged in building Horizon Oil's portfolio of international exploration, production, and development assets. Mr Emmett is a member of its Risk Management and Disclosure Committees.
Ms Carol Wu is an Executive Director and Head of Research for Hong Kong & Mainland China of DBS Vickers (Hong Kong) Limited. She joined DBS Vickers (Hong Kong) as an Equity Analyst in November 2007.
Over the past seven years, she helped to raise the profile of the Greater China property research franchise for DBS. DBS Vickers was recently ranked as the top Best Real Estate Team in Hong Kong in the latest Asiamoney Poll, and Carol was also personally rated as the No. 1 Real Estate Analyst in Hong Kong and No. 2 Property Analyst in the region in the Poll. She was ranked by Asia Wall Street Journal as the No. 1 analyst in Hong Kong (out of 342 analysts) in 2013.
Prior to DBS Vickers, Carol worked as a strategist for LaSalle Investment Management, a property fund under Jones Lang LaSalle, to set the investment direction for the fund.
Carol received her MBA from the University of Texas in Austin and B.A. in International Relations from the National Taiwan University
Chong Lim has more than 20 years experience in the corporate banking and investment banking environment, specializing in the real estate, hotel and construction sectors. His experience includes both commercial lending and investment banking activities in debt issues, syndication and real estate related advisory work. Chong Lim has been involved in many corporate and investment banking transactions.
Chong Lim began his working career in the civil service in Singapore (Singapore Police Force) and was an internal auditor at the Bank before joining the corporate & investment banking environment. Prior to rejoining DBSBank in Feb 2005, Chong Lim was employed by HSBC Singapore in Corporate & Investment Banking, Markets. He was with HSBC for 5 years.
Chong Lim was seconded from DBS Singapore to DBS China in 2010 and was the Managing Director and Head of the Real Estate lending business under DBS' Institutional Banking Group in China. He was also Deputy Head for the institutional banking business for large corporations for DBS China. He has assumed and is currently the Managing Director and Head of Real Estate lending business under DBS Institutional Banking Group in Nov 2011.
Chong Lim was conferred the designation of IBF Fellow for Corporate Banking (Relationship Management – Wholesale Banking) by The Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore in 2014.
Darius Cheung is the founder of 99.co, the most trusted with to search for property with real listings and real data in Singapore.
99.co empowers home seekers to find the best home at the best value, by providing verified listings and data over with a powerful, intuitive map-based search online. 99.co is the fastest growing property search company in Singapore and is backed by top investors such as Eduardo Saverin and Sequoia Capital.
Prior to founding 99.co, Darius was the Director of Consumer Mobile Technology at McAfee, which he joined via its acquisition of tenCube, a Singapore-based mobile security company Darius founded and served as CEO for 5 years.
At tenCube, Darius grew the startup to a team of 26 people in 2 locations over 5 years, raised 2 rounds of financing, created award-winning mobile security product WaveSecure and led the startup to profitability.
Darius was been selected as BusinessWeek’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in Asia, and for his contribution to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Darius was awarded the Singapore Youth Award, Singapore highest youth accolade. He is an angel investor in more than 15 startups, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD and serves on the Board of Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE).
David Carbon is Managing Director of Economic and Currency Research at DBS Bank in Singapore. He joined DBS in October 2005, bringing with him 14 years of research experience covering the economies and markets of Asia and the G10 from Singapore, Hong Kong and London.
David began his banking career in Asia in 1994 with JP Morgan and was a partner and market strategist at Pacific Asset Management. Between 1996 and 2000, he was a Singapore-based fixed income investment manager. In 2000, David joined WestLB A.G. to cover the economies of North Asia but was soon seconded to London to head WestLB's economic & currency research of the G10 for three years.
Prior to his career in investment banking, David taught international trade and finance for two years at universities in China and conducted research on trade policy as a Fellow at the Korea Development Institute in Seoul.
David, who is fluent in Mandarin, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin and holds a Master of Philosophy in Economics from Yale University.
Mr Derek Tan is a Vice President and Head of Property Research for Singapore at DBS Group Research. He joined DBS Group Research as an Equity Analyst in August 2007.
Over the past eight years, Derek has helped to raise the profile of the Singapore Property Research franchise for DBS and has been involved in various IPOs within the property and REIT space that DBS is involved in. DBS Vickers was frequently ranked amongst the top research houses in Singapore over the years and is recently ranked No. 3 Best Real Estate Team in Singapore in the latest Asiamoney Poll. Derek is also ranked as one of the top 5 Best Real Estate Analyst in Singapore in the Asiamoney Poll.
Eugene Leow is a Rates Strategist with DBS Bank in Singapore. He started out as a Southeast Asia economist when he joined the bank in June 2011. Prior to DBS, he worked as an analyst covering economics, politics and financial markets in Southeast Asia. Eugene has a Master in Finance from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Science from Singapore Management University. He is also a post-graduate scholar under the Financial Scholarship Program (FSP) administered by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Ms Goh Swee Chen has been Chairperson of Shell Companies in Singapore since October 2014.Concurrent to her country chair role, she is also Vice President, Lubricants (Asia Pacific), a role she undertook in 2009.
She joined Shell in 2003 as Chief Information Officer for the East. From 2004 to 2008, she was the Vice President, IT Infrastructure and Services for Shell International, where she led an organisation of more than 4,000 staff in 64 countries across the world. In this role she successfully concluded a multi-billion dollar IT Infrastructure outsourcing contract. This initiative was the first outsourcing deal of this scale in the oil and gas industry and a game-changer for the sector in terms of commercial structure and innovation.
Before coming into Shell, she worked for a number of Fortune 40 corporations including IBM Australia as a Systems Engineer and 14 years with Procter & Gamble in various assignments in IT and Real Estate..
She holds a degree in Information Science from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and an MBA from the Chicago Booth, University of Chicago.
She is a Singaporean and is married with three children aged 20, 18 and 16.
Harvey Koh is a Managing Director at FSG where he co-leads the Inclusive Markets approach area.
Based in Mumbai, Harvey works with both enterprises and philanthropic donors to develop and scale inclusive business models that benefit the poor. His experience spans a number of sectors including housing, water and healthcare, and has ranged from deepening understanding of low-income consumers to helping entrepreneurs refine their business models.
Harvey also directs the research program of the Inclusive Markets area, which aims to advance global thinking and practice in inclusive business and market-based solutions in development. He has lead-authored influential reports on inclusive business and impact investing, and speaks regularly around the world on these topics. These reports include From Blueprint to Scale (Monitor Group with Acumen Fund, 2012), which introduced the notion of the ‘pioneer gap’ in the development of new market-based solutions for the global poor, and Beyond the Pioneer (Monitor Deloitte), which described the scaling barriers facing market-based solutions and makes the case for the practice of ‘industry facilitation’.
Until 2014, Harvey was co-leader of Monitor Inclusive Markets (MIM), a social action unit of Monitor Deloitte. Prior to that, he was the founding head of programs at Private Equity Foundation (now Impetus-PEF), a London-based venture philanthropy organization established by leading US and European private equity firms. He has also worked with The One Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital. Harvey started his career as a consultant with Monitor Group in London where he focused on competitive and growth strategy for multinational corporate clients.
Harvey was born and raised in Malaysia, and holds an MA Cantab from the University of Cambridge.
Mr Ho Kwon Ping is Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, which owns both listed and private companies engaged in the development, ownership and operation of hotels, resorts, spas, residential homes, retail galleries and other lifestyle activities around the world. Born in 1952, Ho Kwon Ping was educated in Tunghai University, Taiwan; Stanford University, California and the University of Singapore.
He worked as a broadcast and financial journalist and was the Economics Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He joined the family business in 1981. In 1994, after the success of rehabilitating an abandoned tin mine into Laguna Phuket, Asia’s first integrated resort, he launched Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts. Banyan Tree has grown to more than 30 hotels and resorts, over 60 spas and close to 80 retail galleries, as well as three golf courses. With a strong presence in China, Banyan Tree will double its number of properties by 2016.
In May 2000, he was conferred an honorary doctorate by Johnson and Wales University, and later received the London Business School 2005 Entrepreneurship Award. In 2008, he was named CEO of the Year at the Singapore Corporate Awards. In 2009, he was the recipient of the Hospitality Lifetime Achievement Award at the China Hotel Investment Summit in Shanghai.
As Chairman of Singapore Management University (SMU), Mr. Ho was awarded the Singapore Government’s Meritorious Service Medal for his contribution in the founding of SMU. In 2010, he became the first Asian to receive the ACA (American Creativity Association) Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his creativity and innovation in various spheres of endeavour. In 2011, he was voted top Thinker in Singapore in the Yahoo! Singapore 9 Awards, a testament to his business innovations and leadership in civic causes. In 2012 he was bestowed with CNBC's Travel Business Leader Award Asia Pacific 2012, in addition to being named to the board of Diageo, a British multinational company.
He is married to Claire Chiang, Senior Vice President, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited. They have two sons and a daughter.
Mr Jusuf Wanandi is Senior Fellow and co-founder of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees CSIS Foundation, Jakarta. He is Vice Chair of the Indonesian National Committee for the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (INCPEC), Co-Chair of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), and Co-Chair of the Council of Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP), Indonesia.
He is also President Director of the publishing company of The Jakarta Post newspaper, as well as Chairman of the Board of the Prasetiya Mulya Business School, and Chairman of the Foundation of Panca Bhakti University in Pontianak, West Kalimantan.
A lawyer by training, he was assistant professor of law at the University of Indonesia, and has served in various national and international organisations in the course of his career. He was appointed as Secretary of the Indonesian Supreme Advisory Council; Secretary General of the National Education Council; and as four-term representative in the People’s Consultative Assembly. He was active in the Golkar Party between 1979 until 1988 as a member of the Central Board in various capacities.
He has written extensively in national and international magazines and newspapers and has edited a number of books on political and security developments in the Asia Pacific region.
Kuo-Yi is a Managing Director at Monk's Hill Ventures. He was the CEO of Infocomm Investments, a $200M venture fund based in Singapore investing in technology startups globally. Prior to Infocomm, Kuo-Yi has been a founder, early employee, mentor and angel investor of early-stage technology startups spanning the US and Asia. He was a senior sales executive at Encentuate (acq. by IBM) and Reputation Technologies (acq. by Security Sources), and co-founder of SportsHook, a sports-focused SaaS platform.
Lim Say Boon is the Chief Investment Officer for DBS, Group Wealth Management and Private Banking. In a career spanning 30 years, Say Boon has held senior positions in both banking/finance and the financial media internationally.
Prior to joining DBS, Say Boon was the Chief Investment Strategist for Standard Chartered Bank, Group Wealth Management and Private Banking. Over the years, Say Boon has also worked as Director of Research for Standard Chartered Indonesia; Research Manager for Standard Chartered Securities Singapore; Regional Research Manager for Societe Generale-Crosby Securities; Head of Investment Research for the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC); Director of Portfolio Counseling for Citigroup Private Bank.
Say Boon has also held senior positions in the financial media in the 1980s when he was Finance Editor for The Herald-Sun and the Sunday Herald newspapers in Australia. The Herald-Sun was the largest circulation newspaper in Australia. Say Boon still writes finance columns for regional newspapers. He is also a regular guest host on CNBC Asia's popular morning show Squawk Box. Say Boon is an economist by training, with a degree from Australia's Monash University. He is an Australian citizen and is married to a Japanese. They have a 5-year old child.
Executive Director
Marc Giuffrida is an Executive Director leading our Global Capital Markets Group working globally and based in Asia. Marc also sits on both CBREs Asian and Global Capital Markets Executive boards. The Global Capital Markets Group advises investors seeking global opportunities and provides them with the platform and resources to source underwrite and execute cross border transactions in a timely manner. During 2012 CBRE Global Capital Markets was the intermediary for sales and financings in excess of $100,000,000,000 USD.
Professional Experience
Marc has over 15 years' experience advising, structuring and transacting across the risk return spectrum. His track record includes positioning and marketing single asset trades, complex development projects, structuring and marketing corporate sale and leasebacks and undertaking portfolio sell downs. Marc has also successfully navigated diverse business environments managing varied cultures and business practices.
Marc joined CBRE from Knight Frank's Singapore office where he was instrumental in leading their Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Group in completing a range of landmark cross-border investment and development transactions with some of Asia's leading Family Offices and Institutions.
Prior to that assignment Marc worked in Knight Frank's Sydney office where he built up an enviable track record advising and transacting Australia's key fund managers and Asian based private investors.
Martin Soong is the co-anchor of CNBC's Street Signs, based in Singapore. Street Signs follows the day's biggest moves to provide viewers with actionable, real-time insights. From the anchor desk to the trading desk, the show helps you to capitalize on the plays of the day.
Part of the CNBC Asia team since 1993, Soong is one of the founding anchors of the network, and has played a key role in helping shape its identity and development.
Mr Nathan Chow is DBS Bank’s Economist and he joined us in May 2011.
Mr Chow is responsible for monitoring the market development of offshore RMB businesses and the macroeconomic conditions in Greater China. He conducts economic/ investment seminars on a regular basis for the public and internal staff across Asia, spanning from Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei to Shanghai and Beijing. Mr Chow also provides training for internal staff with an aim to support sales programmes.
Prior to joining DBS Bank, Mr Chow had stayed with China International Capital Corporation Limited, China Investment Corporation and Hong Kong Monetary Authority as economist and analyst. Mr Chow’s expertise focuses on macroeconomics and financial market research.
Mr Chow speaks regularly to the electronic media such as Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Cable TV and various print media, like Asiamoney, providing his professional insights on finance and economics. Mr Chow also speaks on economic forums and conferences, such as those convened by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and Treasury Markets Association.
Mr Chow holds a Bachelor and a Master degree in Economics from Simon Fraser University.
Neal Cross is Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer of DBS Bank and a strong advocate for innovation thinking and culture.
Cross is driving the bank’s innovation agenda regionally, as DBS moves to shape the future of banking, to enhance customer experience and better engage customers in the digital landscape. Cross has more than 20 years’ experience in technology, innovation and financial services.
Working with internal stakeholders and external collaborators, he charts the innovation roadmap for DBS to enhance customer experience and better engage the bank’s customers in the digital landscape.
Previous to DBS, Cross was at MasterCard, where he was responsible for driving innovation as Vice President of MasterCard Labs in the company’s Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions. Cross started working in the Asia time zone at Microsoft in Australia and later in Singapore as the financial services industry director.
In a Civil Service career in Singapore spanning 40 years, Ngiam Tong Dow has served as Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Communications and Information, and the Ministry of National Development.
Concurrently he also chaired the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), Sheng-Li Holdings (restructured to be Singapore Technologies Holdings), the Singapore Telephone Board which merged with the Telecommunications Department to become the Telecommunications Authority of Singapore.
On retirement, he was appointed as chairman of the Central Provident Fund Board and the Housing Development Board. He was also invited to serve on the boards of three public companies. Currently he is an independent director of United Overseas Bank, Singapore Press Holdings and Yeo Hiap Seng Limited. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
Mr. O. P. Bhatt is a graduate in science and a post graduate in English literature. He has served as Chairman of State Bank Group, which includes State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest commercial bank; five associate banks in India; five overseas banks; SBI Life, the India's largest private life insurer; SBI Capital Markets, India's leading investment bank; SBI Fund Management; and other subsidiaries spanning diverse activities, from general insurance to custodial services.
He led SBI during challenging times. Under his leadership, SBI rose on the global rankings of Fortune 500. He was also Chairman of Indian Banks' Association, the apex body of Indian banks and has advanced India's economic diplomacy as the government's nominee on the India-US CEO Forum, Indo-French CEO Forum and Indo-Russia CEO Forum, forging links with a cross section of the world's business leaders.
He is currently a Governor on the Board of Centre for Creative Leadership in the United States. He was nominated as one of 25 most valuable Indians by The Week, Banker of the Year by Business Standard, Indian of the Year for Business in 2007 by CNN-IBN and the Best Executive in India by Asiamoney.
Dr Paul Heithersay is the Deputy Chief Executive of South Australia's Department of State Development. He is also Chief Executive of the state's Olympic Dam Task Force and Co-Chief Executive of its Resource Infrastructure Task Force.
He spent more than 20 years in the mining industry in Australia, Southeast Asia and China before embarking on a senior career in the South Australian Public Service in 2002.
Since then Dr Heithersay has played a key role in the rapid expansion of the state's resources and energy sectors, with highlights including the development of the Plan for Accelerated Exploration, the Road Map for Unconventional Gas Projects in South Australia, and the South Australian Resource Information Geo-Server.
He has received the prestigious Legend in Mining award for his role in guiding South Australia's transformation into a major destination for investment in mineral resources and energy. In June 2012, he was awarded a Public Service Medal for his contribution to the growth and development of the mineral resources sector in South Australia. In November 2012, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Fellows of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences.
The Society of Economic Geologists appointed Dr Heithersay as its 2014 International Exchange Lecturer in a programme that brings leading economic geologists to venues worldwide to interact with economic geology professionals and students.
Mr Peter Seah joined the Board of Directors of DBS Group Holdings Ltd and DBS Bank Ltd on 16 November 2009 and assumed the role of Chairman on 1 May 2010. He is Chairman of the Compensation and Management Development Committee, Executive Committee and Nominating Committee, as well as a member of the Audit Committee and Board Risk Management Committee. In addition, he is Chairman of DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited and also chairs its Board Risk Management Committee.
Peter is the present Chairman of Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd, Singapore Health Services Pte Ltd and LaSalle College of the Arts Limited. Peter was a banker for 33 years before retiring as Vice Chairman and CEO of the former Overseas Union Bank in 2001.
Peter is a member of the Temasek Holdings Advisory Panel. He also serves on the boards of CapitaLand Limited, Starhub Ltd, STATS ChipPAC Ltd and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Private Limited. Amongst other appointments, he is also a board member of the Defence Science and Technology Agency.
Philip has 35 years of academic and industry experience. He started his career as a mineral and oil exploration geologist before moving into the field of energy and resource governance. He has a PhD in geology and an LLM in energy and resources law and policy. Until 2010 he was Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Dundee and Director of the Centre of Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy. There the principal focus of his research was China’s energy sector, both the domestic and external dimensions. After that, whilst a Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund of the US, he co-authored a report entitled The Global Resource Nexus. The Struggles for Land, Food, Water and Minerals. From 2010 to 2012 he led a major European Union, Framework 7 Programme project “Competition and Collaboration in Access to Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources”. Recent books include China, Oil and Global Politics with Roland Dannreuther (Routledge, 2011) and The Governance of Energy in China: Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012). - See more at: http://www.esi.nus.edu.sg/about-us/our-researchers/philip-andrews-speed#sthash.Bajz8ZCe.dpuf
Philip Wee is a Senior Currency Economist at DBS Bank. Prior to joining DBS in 2000, he was a Treasury Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, and an Economist at NatWest Markets and HSBC.
At DBS, Philip oversees the market views for five major currencies and eleven Asian currencies. He works closely with DBS’ many corporate advisory teams in helping Singapore Inc – entities from government-linked companies to small-and-medium enterprises – to manage their exchange rate risks.
Apart from providing currency views, Philip has worked with clients to improve their hedging models and built currency baskets for hedging purposes.
Philip’s goal is to establish DBS as one of the leading houses for currency research in SGD and Asian currencies.
In 2008, Philip was best remembered for going against the market in predicting the rise in USD/SGD above 1.40 to 1.50 in the second half of the year. His SGD NEER (nominal effective exchange rate) model is closely followed by institutional clients, one of many factors that contributed towards DBS Bank winning the Asia Risk House of the Year award in 2009.
Mr. Piyush Gupta is Chief Executive Officer and Director of DBS Group, as well as Director of DBS' subsidiary companies, The Islamic Bank of Asia Limited and DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited.
DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia, with assets of USD 300 billion, and with over 200 branches across 15 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is a market leader in Singapore with over four million customers and also has a growing presence in Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. DBS earned the Global Finance's "Safest Bank in Asia" accolade for five consecutive years, from 2009 to 2013.
Prior to joining DBS, Piyush was Citigroup's Chief Executive Officer for South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Piyush began his career with Citibank in India in 1982 and over the years, held various senior management roles across Citi's corporate and consumer banking businesses, including Head of Strategic Planning for Emerging Markets and Regional Director for Global Transaction Services for Asia Pacific. He has also served as Citi's Country Officer for Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore respectively.
Piyush's external appointments include serving on the Group of Experts to the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum and on the boards of The Institute of Banking and Finance, Dr. Goh Keng Swee Scholarship Fund, the MasterCard Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa Regional Advisory Board, the Institute of International Finance and Human Capital Leadership Institute. He is an advisory board member of Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics, and a council member of Singapore Business Federation. Piyush is also a Managing Council member of Indian Business-leaders' Roundtable (under SINDA) and the Chairman of The Association of Banks in Singapore.
Married with two children, Piyush has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, India and an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Richardo is the Group Managing Director of the social enterprise events agency - Adrenalin Group Pte. Ltd.
Prior to starting Adrenalin, he worked in the public sector with the Economic Development Board for close to 2 years, there he helped to encourage overseas companies to invest in Singapore. It was also at EDB that he was inspired to combine his love for events and a heart to contribute to the community and start Adrenalin. Today Adrenalin is a team of 40 people with 4 different subsidiaries that looks after the events, creative, photography/videography and audio/visual event support.
30% of Team Adrenalin is made up of people who are deaf, use a wheelchair or are disadvantaged youths. Adrenalin has managed over 600 events with many of them at national and international level events such as the launch of the Presidents Challenge and International Volunteer Day. Adrenalin is the recipient of the Presidents Challenge Social Enterprise of the Year Award (Youth Category)
Richardo is active in the social enterprise industry and speaks regularly at forums and platforms about the subject.
Other Info (optional for use)
Mr Ronald Kapavik is based in Kuala Lumpur as leader of IHS’ Energy’s Power, Gas, Coal and Renewables team in the APAC region. In his role with IHS, he works with senior management of Utility, E&P, Trading and Financial, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Government client companies to bring IHS’ research and consulting knowledge that address key strategic energy midstream, fuel supply, and electric power market issues.
Prior to joining IHS, and throughout Ron’s 30-plus years of energy experience, he was most recently Vice President with Wood Mackenzie in North America Gas & Power. In previous roles, he was a Director with Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), where he co-led North American Gas & Power, and Director of Business Development with Apache Corporation responsible for global gas monetization and power market development.
Additionally he was 17 years with El Paso Energy and Tenneco Energy in various E&P upstream, midstream and gas marketing commercial roles that included strategy, asset management and electric power development. Ron holds a BS degree from Texas A&M University and MBA from the University of Houston..
Sabrina Peng serves as president of Alipay International, a unit of Ant Financial Services Group responsible for the payment service provider's international development. She currently oversees Alipay’s business development, operations and marketing activities in overseas regions including APAC and the EU. She plays an active role in formulating Alipay’s cross-border and regional payment business strategies and has driven major collaborations with multiple partners.
Sabrina joined Alibaba Group in 2000 and was the architect behind Alibaba.com’s China TrustPass product, successfully leading a team which marketed the product to hundreds of thousands of SMEs in China. She served as director of customer service in Alibaba.com's China marketplace division from 2004 to 2005, and as head of Alibaba.com’s China web operations department from March 2006 to February 2007. She was promoted to vice president of Alibaba Group in October 2007, and was named president of Alipay International in Nov 2012.
Sabrina holds a bachelor's degree in English for special purpose and a bachelor's degree in international trade from Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Sebastian Paredes was appointed Chief Executive Officer of DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited on 13 September 2010.
A seasoned banker of 25 years, Sebastian, an Ecuadorian citizen, has a strong track record in building franchises across multiple markets. He is highly experienced in managing complex situations and leading through times of economic volatility.
As President Director of P.T. Bank Danamon, Indonesia, from 2005 to early 2010, Sebastian successfully solidified the bank’s position in retail, SME and commercial banking, and made inroads into new businesses such as consumer finance and micro lending. Over the five-year period, the bank more than doubled its loan book, expanded its customer base from 2 million to 5.2 million customers and grew revenues by over 240%. Prior to Danamon, Sebastian spent 20 years at Citi, with stints in South America, Middle East, Africa and Europe. Between 2002 and 2005, he managed 11 markets as CEO of Citigroup South Africa and regional head of Sub Saharan Africa.
Sebastian holds a Bachelor degree from California State University (Fresno CA., USA) and an International MBA from IE Business School (Madrid, Spain). He speaks five languages (Spanish, English, German, French and Bahasa Indonesia).
Soul co-founded Lending Club, the world's largest and most advanced Peer-2-Peer (P2P) company, where he served as the Head of Technology until 2011. He led all the design and development efforts of Lending Club's online platform, ensuring that all online capabilities were both state-of-the-art and fully secure. The P2P platform received the prestigious Technology Pioneer award at the 2011 World Economic Forum. In Feb, 2014 Lending Club successfully shot up in the Wall Street debute, becoming the first P2P listed company. Its valuation reached over 8.5billion USD.
In 2012, Soul came to China and started to build up Dianrong on basis of advanced technology and his expertise. His had a dream of providing a fast real-time online platform to Chinese market, with lower loan cost and higher investment return.
Prior to founding Dianrong, Soul has spent most of his professional career building enterprise software at Oracle Corporation. His focus was in real-time online services and system design for high availability and fault tolerance.
Sumitra Pasupathy is the incoming Executive Director to Ashoka Singapore and a key member of the South East Asian Ashoka Organisation of over 3000 social entreprenurs globally. Sumitra has a wealth of experiences in both the social enterprise and the private sector. In 2008, Sumitra co-founded Playeum, an education focused social enterprise that has achieved international recognition globally with British Council, Lego Foundation, Arts Council Melbourne and amongst others. Prior to that, she attained close to 15 years of experience in marketing and corporate development in Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and Bertelsmann in the UK, US and Germany.
Sumitra's work within Ashoka will look at bridging the gap and allowing for exchange between private and social sector to impact social change.
Sumitra is a Social Entrepreneur-In-Residence at INSEAD, British Council Lien Foundation Elevate Fellow (Creativity for Social Change), RSA Fellow with an MBA from INSEAD and a Chemical Engineer graduated from Cambridge University.
Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is the sixth President of the Republic of Indonesia, and also the country’s first directly elected President in the democratic era.
During his two terms in office, Yudhoyono delivered what the World Economic Forum called "Indonesia's golden decade", a period between 2004 and 2014 that was marked by democratic development, political stability, high economic growth and resilience, conflict resolution and robust international role. Under his leadership, Indonesia became an emerging economy, a regional power, a G-20 member, and assumed important roles on issues ranging from climate change to post-MDG, terrorism to geopolitics, inter-faith to architecture, etc.
Yudhoyono's life story has been nothing less than phenomenal: a military officer who became a 4-star general, who became cabinet minister and then politician, who became President and then one of Asia's most respected statesmen. His time in office was hardly a breeze: he faced the destructive tsunami and a series of natural disasters, separatism, terrorism, financial crisis and more. But he managed to overcome these challenges with a steady hand : the country recovered from tsunami and other disasters, the conflict in Aceh was peacefully and permanently resolved in mid-2005; terrorist groups were disbanded and detained; and the economy rebounded. And at a time when democracies around the world were in distress, Indonesia's democracy steadily moved from strength to strength.
With a Ph.D in agricultural economics, Yudhoyono relentlessly pursued his 4-track economic program of “pro-growth, pro-job, pro-poor, and pro-environment”. His development mantra was "sustainable growth with equity".
As President of the country with the world's largest muslim population, Yudhoyono has become a strong advocate for peaceful and moderate Islam, both internally as well as on the global stage. He devoted great efforts to develop closer relations between the western and Islamic world. He also staunchly promoted and became an architect of military reforms, and championed Indonesia's robust peace-keeping operations around the world.
Yudhoyono is presently chairman of Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and, as head of Partai Demokrat, remains active in the politics of Indonesia. He has 7 million followers on Twitter, and 4.5 million on Facebook.
Ms Tan Su Shan joined DBS in June 2010.
She is currently Group Head, Consumer Banking & Wealth Management. She also serves as the President Commissioner for PT Bank DBS Indonesia.
Prior to joining DBS, Su Shan was Morgan Stanley’s Head of Private Wealth Management for Southeast Asia. Before re-joining Morgan Stanley in May 2008, she was a Region Head for Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei for Citi Private Bank. She was responsible for the private bank’s overall business and a board director of Citi Trust Singapore. Su Shan was also the Singapore Investment Centre Head.
Prior to that, she was an Executive Director with Morgan Stanley in Singapore, serving from 1997 to 2005 as an investment adviser to high net worth families, corporates and institutions in the region.
Before joining Morgan Stanley, Su Shan spent eight years in ING Baring Securities in institutional equity sales, working in key financial hubs in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Su Shan was a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore between February 2012 to August 2014. She was the founder and past president of the Financial Women’s Association in Singapore, and a board member of Aetos Security Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. She also sits on the investment committee of Ministry of Health Holdings. In addition, Su Shan is co-chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore Private Banking Advisory Group.
Married with two children, Su Shan is actively involved in fund-raising for various Singaporean charities and sits on the board of Singapore’s KK Hospital Health Endowment Fund, which provides financial support to needy patients. She was a past board member of the National Museum and a member of the International Women’s Foundation and the Young Presidents Organisation. On the education front, she is an advisor to Hwa Chong Institution, SJI International School and Lincoln College, Oxford University.
Su Shan graduated with a Master of Arts from Oxford University in the United Kingdom, where she studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics. In February 2006, she was selected by Citi Private Bank to participate in the Senior Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. In May 2012, she was awarded the Distinguished Financial Industry Competent Professional (FICP) title, which is the highest certification mark for a financial practitioner in Singapore, by the Institute of Banking and Finance. In June 2013, Su Shan was named “Outstanding Private Banker of the Year” by Private Banker International – the first time an Asian has won this global award since its inception 20 years ago. In October 2014, Su Shan became the first Singaporean to be recognised as the world’s “Best Leader in Private Banking” by PWM and The Banker, leading wealth publications by the Financial Times Group.
Professor Wang Gungwu is the Chairman of the East Asian Institute and University Professor, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University (ANU).
He is a Commander of the British Empire (CBE); Fellow, and former President, of the Australian Academy of the Humanities; Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science; Member of Academia Sinica; Honorary Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Science. He was conferred the International Academic Prize, Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize. In Singapore, he is Chairman of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Chairman of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS.
He received his B.A. (Hons) and M.A. degrees from the University of Malaya in Singapore, and his Ph.D. at the University of London (1957). His teaching career took him from the University of Malaya (Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, 1957-1968, Professor of History 1963-68) to the Australian National University (1968-1986), where he was Professor and Head of the Department of Far Eastern History and Director of the Research of Pacific Studies. From 1986 to 1995, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong. He was Director of East Asian Institute of NUS from 1997 to 2007.
Yu-Ming Wang has a wealth of experience in the asset management industry with a notable track record particularly in managing global fixed income. As Nikko AM's Global Head of Investment, he orchestrates the work of Nikko AM’s global investment team, which covers staff in 9 countries. He joined Nikko AM as international CIO in January 2013. He assumed the position of Deputy President in addition to his roles as international CIO in April 2014.
He was previously the Head of Fixed Income Asia at Manulife Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited, where he was responsible for managing the team of fixed income portfolio managers and research analysts in ten countries. Under his leadership, the team produced stellar outperformance in pan-Asian bonds and RMB bonds and won several prestigious industry awards.
Mr. Wang started his career as an analyst at M&T Bank in New York City and spent a number of years in the banking and finance industry before co-founding his own investment advisory company, Structured Credit Partners LLC, which was later sold and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Wachovia Corporation with more than US$4.5 billion under management. Joining Wachovia as a Managing Director, Mr Wang created a specialist securitisation unit in the Fixed Income Division and grew the unit from five employees to more than 120 fixed income professionals in six years. He was then appointed Head of Global Markets and Investment Banking Asia and relocated from New York City to Hong Kong to spearhead a number of prominent fund management projects in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.
He earned his bachelor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his MBA from New York University. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
