Kuan Hsu

Co-Founder & General Partner
KK Fund

Kuan Hsu started his career with McKinsey & Co. in the US, then focused on supply chain management in the US and China while at Solectron, an Electronics Manufacturing Services provider. 

He obtained an MBA/MA joint degree from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and became an investment banker in the US with Goldman Sachs, executing M&A deals in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector. 

Kuan subsequently moved to Singapore, executing private equity deals at Temasek Holdings prior to becoming a venture capitalist responsible for GREE Ventures’ Southeast Asian operations.

Gary Lee

Leadership and Organisational Development
Sivantos Group

Gary Lee is the Global Head of Leadership and Organisational Development with Sivantos. As a people developer with over 15 years of experience in L&OD, talent management and consulting, he has worked with companies from diverse industries in the areas of Talent Development, Leadership, Change Management and Corporate Strategy. Prior to his current designation, he was the chief HR specialist for a Danish MNC where he designed and implemented a global talent program for over 18,000 employees. He was also the Regional Head of Training of a consultancy firm with presence across seven countries in APAC. He then went on to become the Head of L&D, HR Business Partner for an SGX listed company where he led many L&OD projects to increase the firm’s readiness for IPO listing.

Lim Teck Yong

Head of Regional Operations & People Team
Shopee

As the Head of Regional Operations, Teck Yong oversees all aspects of operations from payment to logistics and customer operations. Concurrently the Head of People Team, Teck Yong has put in place initiatives to strengthen talent acquisition, employer branding, learning & development and employee engagement. Teck Yong brings with him extensive experience as a former management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group (BGC) where he led projects on growth strategy, market entry, operational improvement, and people & organization transformation.

Teck Yong holds a Master of Engineering with Management from Imperial College London.

Joel Leong

Director, Talent Management and Global Lead, Talent & Performance (Workday Implementation)
Jabil

Joel Leong is the global Talent Management Director at Jabil Circuit, a $22 billion Fortune 200 organization that’s a leader in the supply chain and electronic manufacturing sector. Based in Singapore, he is responsible for a wide range of enterprise-wide talent and human development interventions. These include talent strategy and framework, team development, leadership development and executive coaching.

Prior to joining Jabil, Joel was the APAC Head of Learning and Organizational Development in Bank of New York Mellon. Before that, he has held leadership roles in several renowned global organizations in industries ranging from financial services to pharmaceutical and energy. In 2008, he received the Singapore HRM Awards for Best Change Management Practices during his tenure as HR Change Manager in Shell Oil.

Passionate about helping young minds and aspiring professionals, Joel became an adjunct lecturer in 2015 at Nanyang Business School, which is ranked as one of the best in Asia.

Joel was a recipient of the Singapore Press Holding Scholarship Award and graduated with honours in Bachelor of Business from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In addition, he holds a Master of Arts in Education and HR Development from George Washington University, USA.

Stéphane Michaud

Senior Director – Human Link Asia
Mitsubishi

Stéphane has over 20 years of experience in spearheading HR/OD programs for Fortune 500 organizations and the public sector across Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe. For most of his career, Stéphane has been concentrating on Asia-Pacific, leading, designing and implementing solutions including People strategy, M&A, Change management, Workforce planning, Workforce analytics, Organizational design, Selection & competencies, Performance management, Leadership training & development, and Rewards. He is fluent in French, English, Indonesian and Japanese and intermediate in Spanish. He's currently learning Mandarin at the Confucius Institute.

Melanie Sharpe Nseir

HR Lead – Microsoft Services (Asia)
Microsoft

Melanie Sharpe Nseir is the HR Lead for Microsoft Services in Asia Time Zone. Melanie is widely acknowledged for her global perspective, energy for transformation and enthusiasm for change. She has held various roles across HR in Organizational Development, Business Partnership, Talent Acquisition and Business Management in Seattle, Beijing and Singapore.

Prior to Microsoft, Melanie was in the financial industry and started her career as an educator. She holds an MBA from the University of Washington, a Master’s in Education and is a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dennis Ng

Regional Head of Enterprise Strategy
Prudential

Dennis is Regional Head of Enterprise Strategy for Prudential Corporation Asia. He is responsible for the creation and delivery of Prudential’s Enterprise business strategy, and for growing and accelerating the Enterprise proposition both locally and in the region.

Dennis joined Prudential Singapore in 2015 as Head of Partnership (UOB), where he led our bancassurance partnership with United Overseas Bank. He was appointed Head of Strategy and Proposition, Agency Distribution in 2017, whilst concurrently driving Enterprise Strategy as Head of Enterprise Business Strategy (Transformation Division) in a dual capacity. He shifted full focus to the Enterprise Business in December 2017.

Dennis brings with him more than 15 years of experience in new business development, sales strategy, business strategy and distribution. He has worked at Allianz Group and its internal consulting division Allianz Consulting and was based in China, overseeing the North Asia markets as Head of Allianz Consulting (North Asia). He also worked in Citibank, across several distribution and sales strategy roles, with his last role as Head of Bancassurance.

Prior to that, he was a financial consultant with American International Assurance for seven years and founded his own publishing company for three years, reviewing mobile phone technology and capabilities.

He has a Master of Science in Finance from the University College of Dublin and multiple professional certifications in financial planning from the Insurance & Financial Practitioners Association of Singapore.

Karunesh Prasad

Founder and CEO
Change Et Al.

Karunesh is the Chief Executive of Singapore-based company Change Et Al.

Karunesh is passionate about HR technology and uses his global experience in HR, Lean Six Sigma, Design Thinking, Change management and Digitization to help companies drive  Change and Transformation.

Karunesh worked with GE for many years in Global and Regional roles in India, Belgium, Singapore and USA in roles like Global Head for Quality, Regional Head of HR, Global Head for Culture Integration and many others. Karunesh works out of Singapore running Change Et Al and working with clients globally.

Anitha Ramakrishnan

CHRO Insights, SEAP
Kantar

Anitha Ramakrishnan is the Chief Human Resources Offer for the Insights division for North Asia, South East Asia & the Pacific. She is passionate about HR and has deep experience in Talent, OD, Learning, Diversity & Inclusion, Compensation, Performance, Change, Workforce planning across different companies, cultures, business environments.

Anitha has more than 15 years of experience in HR and knows that HR function is an enabler in business success. She is passionate about partnering with senior leaders in Sales, Global functions teams, and coaching them on relevant HR interventions and helping to achieve their business priorities. Prior to joining Kantar, she was the Global HR Director for Talent Management for HPE.

Ilja Rijnen

HR Director (Asia Pacific) & Global Travel Retail
Beam Suntory

Ilja Rijnen has joined Beam Suntory in December 2017 as HR Director as part of the Emerging Asia Leadership Team and functionally reporting into the Regional President based in Singapore and the VP of International Human Resources based in Madrid, Spain.

In his role Ilja has HR oversight and management for the main Asia markets which cover Greater China, India, Taiwan, and South East Asia with significant interaction with Suntory Japan. 

Managing a team of 10 HR professionals, the role currently has oversight for 650 staff across the region.

Prior to joining Beam Suntory Ilja has gained significant HR experience through Edrington Asia Pacific and Diageo in South East Asia as Director and Head of HR. Ilja also brings a wealth of Organization Design background which is being applied in building up the Training and Development activity in the region and launched as the lead region The Edrington Academy and Sales Academy.

Prior to his roles in Asia, Ilja was the HR BP for Diageo’s Red Stripe Lager, Guinness & spirits business in Jamaica and Latin America and started his HR career as L& D Manager for the IKEA Supply Chain in the Benelux and Great-Britain. These varied roles have given him wide international business exposure and importantly experience of managing in change programmes in large organizations from varied cultures.

Ilja lives in Singapore and is married to Andrea and is enjoying fatherhood of his twins Sasha and Jessie. Outside of work Ilja has a big passion for travelling, inventing new wine and food combinations and improvising jazz music on his piano.

Benjamin Roberts

Vice President, Talent Management (APAC)
Essence

Benjamin Roberts is Vice President, Talent Management, APAC at Essence, a global data and measurement-driven media agency which is part of GroupM. In his current role, he is responsible for the agency’s human resource and talent acquisition functions across the region.

Benjamin is an accomplished professional with over 15 years of experience in business partnership, recruitment strategy, strategic workforce planning, human resource management and negotiation. He has a proven track record of working across geographies in diverse roles, facilitating and leading top-level hiring, succession planning and end-to-end talent management.

Prior to joining Essence, Benjamin was Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility Leader at Publicis Communications based out of Singapore. Before that, he held several roles at Saatchi & Saatchi, rising to the position of Chief Talent Officer Worldwide.

A true citizen of the world, Benjamin has lived in 12 countries and worked in 4 continents.

Dean Seiff

Senior Director for Customer Success
Synchrony Global  – A Rizing HCM Company

Dean has over 20 years of experience in HCM and digital transformation strategy. He has spent his career helping companies with their digital transformation, first in North America, then Europe and since 2014 in Asia. Most recently, Dean lead the SAP SuccessFactors Centre of Excellence and was responsible for developing and leading strategies to ensure the sales, pre-sales, delivery and support capability and capacity of HR Partners in APJ. He provides leadership and mentoring for business leaders and HR Partners, as well as their teams, with strategies and tactics to achieve successful organisational transformation and business outcomes.

Chee-Wei Tan

Global Head of HR (Shell Energy)
Shell

Chee-Wei Tan is the Global Head of HR for Shell Energy, the global marketing and trading business of Royal Dutch Shell for energy commodities, including LNG, natural gas, power and environmental products.

Based in Singapore, Chee-Wei holds more than 20 years of human resources and consulting experience with strong strategic business-partnering, talent management, organisational development, business transformation and change management experience at country, regional and global levels.

As the Global Head of HR for Shell Energy, Chee-Wei is responsible for developing and implementing human resource strategies that drive business growth and transformation of the global energy market.

Wendy Tan

HR Director (APAC)
Unity Technologies

Wendy has 20 years of experience in Human Resources across varied industries – pharmaceutical manufacturing, logistics, power and technology. She is currently the Human Resources Director for APAC at Unity Technologies and leads a regional team on partnering and advising businesses on performance, talent management, compensation, learning and development. She is also responsible for piloting innovative and progressive HR practices and scaling the APAC HR function in line with Unity’s strategic objectives and goals.

Wendy joined Unity Technologies in 2013 and was part of the pioneer team which started and built up the APAC region to what it is today.

Wendy firmly believes in 3 things which is crucial to being a successful HR Business Partner: being a trusted and valued HR Partner to the business leaders, the need to understand the business and the various geographies in which the business operates and the innate ability to discern what is practical and what works for the business. 

Adrian Tan

Regional Leader – Client Solutioning (APAC)
PeopleStrong

Adrian is the Regional Leader - Client Solutioning APAC at PeopleStrong, an India-based Enterprise HR SaaS platform. With over 15 years of HR entrepreneurial experience, he had won two HR Vendors of the Year award and is the recipient to SHRI HR Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013. He is the creator of Singapore HR Tech Market Map and is a jobs commentator on ChannelNewsAsia.

Vincent van de Belt

Partner
Cubiks

Vincent joined Cubiks as a Principal Consultant in the Netherlands before he became Global Product Manager at Cubiks HQ in the UK. He moved to Malaysia to manage Cubiks operations in the AsiaPac region and relocated back to the UK when he took on the role of Global Head of Marketing & Communications. As Head of Third Party Channels he is responsible for extending Cubiks’ footprint internationally. Based in Hong Kong, he himself has a particular focus on the AsiaPac region.

• He has worked with clients from a wide range of sectors, including energy, telco, logistics, education. His focus has been on enabling organisations to enhance their selection and development processes and decisions and on improving people’s performance. His experience includes:
• Facilitation of recruitment process audits to improve candidate experience, efficiency and hiring decisions
• Competency profiling and customisation of assessment (reports) to ensure company wide adoption of new practices
• Facilitation of 360 feedback and personal development plans with (senior) managers to enhance individual and team performance
• Delivery of assessment centres for selection and development purposes
• Delivery of 360 feedback training, certification training, competency based interviewing and sales training

Hadiyanto Wibawa

Chief Happiness Officer
Mednefits

Hadiyanto is Mednefits’ Co-Founder and Chief Happiness Officer. His primary role in the company is to oversee Mednefits’ partnerships with healthcare networks and healthcare providers. Mednefits brings together Hadiyanto’s academic & personal interest, and his aspiration is to create a better and more efficient healthcare experience. 

Shirley Wong

Managing Partner
TNF Ventures

Shirley Wong is a results driven, determined business leader and entrepreneur that has over 28 years of experience in the IT & Technology industry. Currently she is the Managing Partner of TNF Ventures Pte Ltd, a seed and early stage venture fund that focus on technology startups. Prior to the current role, she oversees the management and operations of the BT Frontline group in Asia Pacific, driving the professional services business for Cyber Security, Healthcare and Applications Development. She was the Chairman of Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation now renamed as SGTech from 2013 to 2016.

Shirley co-founded Frontline Technologies in 1994, and was listed on the Singapore Exchange in March 2001. Under her stewardship, the company has grown from a team of 8 to 5000 workforce spread across 11 countries in Asia Pacific. Subsequently, the company was acquired by British Telecom Global Services in March 2008.

In recent years, experienced in investing in technology based startups and mentoring startups.  She has been active in the startup scene, helping startups to secure funding and market access. She is passionate about entrepreneurship and innovative technology to drive efficiencies. She actively help to build the startup community in Singapore. 

Shirley is the Chairman of President’s Technology Award that gives recognition to research scientists and engineers in Singapore who have made outstanding contributions to R&D  resulting in the invention or discovery of significant technology with industrial applications. She is also the Chairman of Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, a convening platform for young innovators and investors on Smart Cities Innovation in Asia. 

Shirley serves on the board of Singapore Science Center, Assurity Trusted Solutions and National Kidney Foundation.  She previously served on the board of Infocomm Development Authority, Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore and Accel Systems & Technologies. She is currently  a member of the TechSkills Accelerator Governing Council, member of Temasek Polytechnic IT School Advisory Council, and Entrepreneur-in Residence of Singapore Management University.  

Kit San Yong

Country Manager (Malaysia) & Head (ASEAN)
Cubiks

Kit San has over 15 years of experience in the design, facilitation and alignment of top leadership teams in support the appointment, promotion, succession and development of leaders across a range of organisations and industries. Some examples of his experience include:

• Development Program for identified successors to Board and C-Suite roles of a 100 year old global conglomerate with head office in Malaysia Design and delivery of Assessment processes to support the identification of talents, and subsequent executive coaching and supporting development programs for a key subsidiary of FORTUNE 500 energy group, covering key talents in Europe, Asia Pacific and USA
• Design and delivery of the Assessments and follow up Development Program for Country Heads and next liners for Asia Pacific operating companies of a Japanese Office Automation Group
• Top team alignment for Asia Pacific Leadership teams for a Japanese Supermarket and Departmental Stores Chain
• Organizational Structure and top team alignment for different telecommunication groups in South East Asia
• Design and Delivery of Assessment Centres, and supporting development programs for European Engineering Group involving leadership teams in China, South East Asia and Europe