Nanyang Fellows 20th Anniversary Celebration, 5 May at Capitol Theatre

Panel Discussion: Managing Business in Asia in an Era of Digital Transformation

Moderator: Ms , Producer and Presenter, BBC World News

Sharanjit Leyl is a Singaporean producer and presenter for BBC World News.

She regularly anchors and Newsday from the BBC's studio. She is also a reporter and producer on these shows along with .

She has filed reports for radio on the BBC World Service business and arts programmes and written features for BBC news online.

Sharanjit began her broadcasting career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1997. While there she reported for the award-winning show The Pacific Rim Report. While in , she covered the protests and subsequent police brutality against students who were pepper-sprayed at the APEC summit that took place there in 1997.

She returned to Singapore in 1998 to file reports on the Asian financial crisis for CBC. She joined financial news service provider Bridge Information Systems where she wrote for its newswires on foreign exchange movements in the aftermath of the crisis. She also provided daily television and radio updates on currencies and equity movements in South East Asia.

She was approached by Bloomberg Television in 2000 and moved to its headquarters in Tokyo. There she presented its main three-hour On The Money Asia, reporting on breaking financial stories as well as major news events such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

She also anchored a weekly lifestyle and culture segment from Asia. As one of the first main anchors for Bloomberg's Asia Pacific headquarters, she played an integral role in editing and influencing the content of its programming.

Sharanjit Leyl joined BBC World News in September 2003 and has since reported and presented from places as far afield as , Tokyo and London.

Her noteworthy interviews include heads of state ranging from Thailand, Pakistan, the Philippines, New Zealand, and East Timor, former prime ministers of Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, presidents of the World Bank and the IMF, and chief executives and chairpersons from various Fortune 500 companies ranging from Microsoft to Walmart.

Born in Singapore, Sharanjit moved to Washington DC in her teens with her family, where her father was a diplomat. There she earned a degree in both journalism and English literature from The University of Maryland College Park. She then moved to Vancouver, Canada where she completed a Masters degree in English literature at the University of British Columbia which focused on post- colonial writers such as Salman Rushdie. 1 | P a g e

Panellist 1: Mr Amit Roy Choudhury, Journalist and Consultant

Amit, the former Technology Editor of The Business Times, has more than 30 years of journalism experience. His areas of expertise include enterprise technology - both industry trends, such as digital transformation and specific sectors like government, cloud computing, big data analytics and others.

Currently, he works as a freelance columnist for The Business Times, Govinsider and a few other publications writing on subjects ranging from technology, to finance and public sector policy. Amit also consults for companies to help them articulate their business models.

Over the past decade he has been part of a number of judging panels, including the Singapore Government’s National Infocomm Awards, IT Leader Awards and the Best IT Company. He regularly takes part in roundtables and public speaking engagements, both as a speaker as well as moderator.

Link to articles written by Amit: Article list

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Panellist 2: Mr Sam Liew, Managing Director, Technology, ASEAN, Accenture

Bachelor of Accountancy, NTU Singapore Nanyang Business School Alumni Advisory Board Member

Sam is managing director of Accenture Technology in ASEAN and is responsible for developing and driving Accenture Technology’s strategy and agenda for the region, which includes Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

Before that, Sam served as managing director for Accenture’s Asia Pacific (APAC) Communications Center of Excellence. He led strategy and capability development for clients in the wireless, wireline and cable segments across APAC.

Sam is also programme director for a number of major business and IT transformation programmes across APAC. In this capacity, he focuses on building diverse onshore and offshore implementation teams to deliver tangible and sustainable results.

Sam has worked across APAC including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, The Philippines, China, Taiwan, India and Australia. He also serves on Accenture’s Global Technology Leadership Council and is Chairman of the board of advisors for Singapore’s Information Technology Management Association’s (ITMA) CIO Workshop. Sam is based in Singapore.

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Panellist 3: Ms Low Peck Kem, Chief Human Resources Officer & Senior Director (Workforce Development), Singapore Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office

Bachelor of Engineering, NTU Singapore

As the Chief HR Officer and Senior Director (Workforce Development) for the Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore, Peck Kem is responsible for professionalizing HR in the public sector of 16 Ministries and more than 50 Statutory Boards.

Prior to her current appointment at the PSD, she was the Senior Director for HR & OD for a not for profit organization, The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) based in Geneva, where she was responsible for HR, OD, Legal, Internal Audit and Corporate Administration for the 15 global offices at GAIN.

Peck Kem has the unique combination of experience from a quality engineer to manufacturing manager to VP Human resources in the private sector (Tandon, Western Digital, Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies & Avago Technologies), a Divisional Director of National HR Division in the Singapore Ministry of Manpower in the public sector, a Senior Director ODHR in GAIN, a not for profit organization based in Geneva to now a Chief HR Officer for the Singapore Public Service Division. This combination has widened her perspective in private, public and NGO sectors, and viewing the leadership from an Asian and European perspective.

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Panellist 4: Mr Yinglan Tan, CEO & Managing Partner, Insignia Venture Partners

Tan Yinglan founded Insignia Venture Partners in 2017, an early stage technology venture fund focusing on Southeast Asia with over US$120 million under management. Prior to founding Insignia Venture Partners, Yinglan was Sequoia Capital’s first hire and Venture Partner in Southeast Asia. He sourced multiple investment opportunities for Sequoia including Tokopedia, Go-jek, Traveloka, Carousell, Appier (where he represented Sequoia on the board), Dailyhotel, Pinkoi and 99.co. Yinglan had also been a member of the elite Singapore Administrative Service, where he served in a variety of positions in the Prime Minister’s Office (where he was part of a team that managed a S$360 million fund for innovation and enterprise), Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Defence. Yinglan was also the founding Director of 3i Venturelab China, a joint-venture between private equity firm 3i (LSE:III) and INSEAD.

Yinglan has been named as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2012 – 2017), a WEF Technology Pioneer Selection Committee Panel (2015-2017), Top “40 leaders under 40” by Prestige Magazine (2015), Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle (2016), one of 100 Leaders of Tomorrow by the St Gallen Symposium (2010), 100 Global Thinkers (2011) by think-tank Lo Spazio della Politica, a World Cities Summit Young Leader (2014), a WEF Global Agenda Council member on Fostering Entrepreneurship (2011-2013) and a Kauffman Fellow. He also serves on the Singapore Government’s Pro Enterprise Panel and the Committee on the Future Economy's Sub-Committee on Future Corporate Capabilities and Innovation. Yinglan is an Adjunct Associate Professor at National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. He is also a Strategic Research Innovation Fund Investment Committee Member at Nanyang Technology University, author of 3 books - The Way Of the VC (Wiley, 2009), Chinnovation (Wiley 2010) and textbook New Venture Creation - An Asian Perspective (Mcgraw Hill 2011). Yinglan was educated at Harvard, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon.

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