Southeast Asia CFO Vision 2022 | Singapore

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office

Second Minister for Finance and National Development, Singapore

Ms Indranee Rajah is the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office. She is also Second Minister for Finance, and Second Minister for National Development.

Ms Rajah is the Leader of the House for the 14th Parliament. She has been a Member of Parliament for the Tanjong Pagar Group Representation Constituency (GRC) since 2001.

She is a Senior Counsel, and was a practising lawyer before joining Government.

Ms Rajah assists in the oversight of the National Population and Talent Division in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Under her Finance portfolio, Ms Rajah is involved in the development of the Government’s fiscal policies. She also oversees the:
• Professional Services Programme Office (PSPO), to develop and promote the legal and accounting industries in Singapore and catalyse the internationalisation of such professional services; and
• Infrastructure Asia, the Singapore government platform that connects infrastructure demand and supply in the region

As Second Minister for National Development, she is involved in the formulation of Singapore’s housing and development polices. She also assists in overseeing:
• The Centre for Liveable Cities and the World Cities Summit;
• The professional services in the built environment sector;
• Review of Singapore’s long-term land-use planning for urban development;
• Strategies for sustainable housing; and
• Policies guiding Singapore's transformation into a City in Nature

Ms Rajah is also involved in the Forward Singapore exercise, as one of the Ministers overseeing the Care pillar. This pillar explores how to enable every Singaporean to lead a dignified and fulfilling life, and to better care for themselves and other around them. Forward Singapore is a collective effort between the Government and Singaporeans, to refresh Singapore’s social compact and set out a roadmap for the next decade and beyond.

Chief Financial Officer, Asia Pacific, NTT Ltd.

Agnes Lim is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at NTT Ltd. (Asia Pacific) since November 2021 and is responsible for all finance and legal functions of the company including treasury, accounting, planning and forecast, tax and risk management in Asia Pacific. Agnes is very passionate about developing a positive and collaborative culture in finance and places significant importance on values, relationships and people.

Agnes is a seasoned finance professional and Chartered Accountant with more than 20 years of experience, spanning across multiple industries, from consulting to electronics trading. Prior to NTT Ltd., she was the Chief Financial Officer (Asia Pacific) at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), and has led many transformation projects with large groups of people, effecting change within the organisation and across borders.

In her free time, Agnes likes to read and partake in high energy activities such as body combat and aerobic dance.

Co-Founder and CEO, Addo

Dr. Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of Addo, an artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm

Ayesha was named one of Southeast Asia's groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine. She is also founder of 21st Century Girls, a charity that teaches girls coding and artificial intelligence.

Ayesha has a BA (honours) in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University and a PhD in Information Systems and Innovation from the London School of Economics.

Regional Head of Policy, ASEAN ANZ, ACCA

Chun Wee is the Policy and Insights lead for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in Asia Pacific. He works with ACCA members and key stakeholders to identify and drive research initiatives that provide evidence-based policy and thinking impacting the business community and the profession, supporting ACCA’s delivery of public value. Chun Wee is a board member on the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and serves as a taskforce member on a variety of key IAASB projects including the quality management standard (firm level) and audits of less complex entities. He is a regular speaker and panel chair on various topics including integrated reporting, the evolving role of finance leaders, and talent issues.

Prior to joining ACCA, Chun Wee was a key member of the Professional Practice Department of a Big Four accounting practice, where he focused on audit methodology and regularly delivered internal and external trainings on auditing and quality assurance matters. He has more than a decade of experience in public accounting and has worked in audits of and special assignments for multinationals and local listed companies.

Enterprise Finance Strategist, AWS

While a Technology Chief Financial Officer (CFO), he influenced business and technology executives to transform the business. As an Enterprise Finance Strategist, he works with enterprise executives around the globe to share financial management experiences and strategies for how the cloud can help them increase speed and agility while devoting more of their resources to their customers. He has led the planning and execution of a cloud-enabled business transformation at Capital One.

Looking beyond the numbers is essential for any successful CFO and Chris does just that. Chris spent over 20 years as a leader in Capital One. He not only led a major cloud transformation as a Technology CFO but was a driving force in transforming the Finance function. Chris believes that to be trusted and to impact the business, CFOs must embed themselves into the business rather than boxing themselves into a single role.

A frequent topic of conversation with AWS customers is how to develop the business case for cloud and how the cloud’s payback is delivered. Chris highly encourages organizations not to get trapped into assuming nothing will change along the journey and to continuously revisit their assumptions. He also advises them that cultural transformation within their organization is just as critical as technology transformation. Success comes from painting a clear picture of the enterprise’s cloud strategy to build consensus and ensuring that employees impacted by the cloud have the time and resources to reskill.

In addition to a B.S. in Finance from Virginia Tech, Chris has an International M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He chose a career in technology and finance for its constant innovation and his desire to see the big picture and to make an impact.

Global Head, Digital Platforms & Innovation, Standard Chartered Bank

Craig is a digital and technology leader who has over 25 years of experience as a C-level executive driving digital transformation and building digital products from the lens of design thinking, behavioural science, and customer experience. His past roles include Chief Information Officer at Tangerine, Canada’s leading digital bank, Chief Digital and Group Design Officer at Absa Group, one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services groups, and Chief Digital Officer & CEO New Media at Kagiso Media Group.

Head of Platforms and Ecosystems, Climate Impact X

Genevieve Soh is Head of Platforms and Ecosystems, responsible for user experience across the exchanges several platforms. Prior to this, she was a Principal with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and a Venture Architect Director at BCG Digital Ventures.

Genevieve holds an MBA from the Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from Singapore Management University. Outside of work, she enjoys pottery as therapy and hosting dinner for friends and family. Genevieve is also passionate about marine wildlife, for which she has learnt to scuba dive.

Chief Financial Officer, GXS Bank

Jean oversees the financial activities of GXS Bank, whose mission is to make banking better for everyday consumers and small businesses.

Prior to this role, Jean was a successful MD CFO at Standard Chartered Bank as Regional CFO, ASEAN & South Asia, Singapore Country CFO, Global Corporate and Institutional Clients CFO and Global Private Bank CFO. A proven track record in strategic, financial and digital transformation and being adept at acquisition, divestitures and legal entity reorganization makes her a trusted leader.

In her personal time and capacity, she creates social impact by coaching underrepresented groups for career advancement and mentoring entrepreneurs/start-ups for success. She is personally committed to championing and inspiring career advancement in women to plug leaks in the talent funnel to C-suite.

CEO, Centennial Asia Advisors Pte Ltd

Mr. Bhaskaran is a Partner of the Centennial Group, a strategic advisory firm headquartered in Washington, DC. As Founding CEO of its Singapore subsidiary Centennial Asia Advisors, he coordinates the Asian business of the Group which provides independent economic research on Asian political and macroeconomic trends for investment institutions, government agencies, multilateral institutions and companies with interests in Asia, leveraging off 40 years of studying Asia.

Mr. Bhaskaran is also Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore where his main interests are in analyzing macroeconomic policy frameworks in Singapore.

Prior to Centennial, Mr. Bhaskaran held senior positions at Société Générale’s Asian investment banking division where he supervised Asian economic and investment strategy analysis and was a member of the Executive Committee, in charge of Asian equity research. In 12 years with the firm, Mr. Bhaskaran helped to establish its business presence in Southeast Asia and in South Asia, while also helping to develop the firm’s highly-rated equity and economic research. Prior to that, Mr. Bhaskaran worked for the Singapore government, supervising a team that prepared strategic political and economic assessments of Asia for senior Singapore government officials.

Mr. Bhaskaran holds a range of other positions. In terms of public service, he served as Chairman of a high-level government committee reviewing the regulation of moneylenders in Singapore in 2014–2015. He is also Member of the Competition Appeals Board, Singapore. In addition, he is a Member of the Regional Advisory Board for Asia of the International Monetary Fund; Council Member, Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA); Vice-President, Economics Society of Singapore; and an advisor to the Asia Foundation.

Mr. Bhaskaran also serves on the boards of several companies whose businesses span the ASEAN region including CIMB Investment Bank (a subsidiary of CIMB Bank, Malaysia’s second largest bank and which operates across ASEAN), Japfa Ltd (listed in Singapore) and Luminor Capital.

Mr. Bhaskaran was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge University where he earned an MA (Cantab) and at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he obtained a Masters in Public Administration. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Senior Vice President and Head of Consulting and Analytics, Asia Pacific, Visa

Prateek Sanghi leads Visa Consulting and Analytics in Asia Pacific and is a member of the regional Leadership Team. He is also the acting head of regional Business Planning and Operations. As head of VCA, he is responsible for a unique range of capabilities including insights, advisory and managed services, that help customers make smarter decisions with better outcomes. They enhance business performance, uplift consumer engagement and enhance the value of payments for financial institutions, retail and commerce firms, acquirers, fintechs and public-sector institutions.

He brings diverse experience in Strategy, M&A and Business Development in the payments industry across geographies. Since joining Visa in 2015, he has held several roles based in India and Singapore across strategy and planning. Prior to Visa he was the head of Strategy and Innovation at Worldline and also held roles at ICICI Bank in India.

Prateek has a degree in Computers Science from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, and holds an MBA in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

APAC Chief Financial Officer, UBS AG

Rachael is the APAC Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director at UBS AG. She joined UBS in 2000, spending a number of years in Equity Research and in Investment Banking Strategy before taking up her current CFO role.

In addition to her Finance responsibilities, Rachael is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. She chairs the ‘All Bar None’ network for UBS Singapore, as well as the Group Finance Diversity Council, and is a strong advocate and sponsor for next generation leadership. Rachael holds a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a M.A. from the University of British Columbia in Canada.

APAC Payments Controller, Google

Suken is the APAC Payments Controller at Google overseeing the fast growing Gpay suite of products as well as the broader payments infrastructure that processes billions of dollars each year. In this capacity he helps scale and adapt the finance function to manage the payments business in an ever evolving, dynamic and diverse regulatory and business environment across the APAC region.

Prior to Google, Suken served as an Executive Director with ISS Corporate Solutions advising corporate issuers and board of directors across APAC on corporate governance policies, hostile takeover strategies, and overall shareholder engagement. Suken started his career as an analyst with Merrill Lynch in New York following which he held senior positions at Thomson Reuters in Singapore and New York.

Suken holds a MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Science from the Rutgers University.

CTO, IBM Security, ASEAN, AU, NZ and Korea

Pei Yuen WONG is the CTO for IBM Security in ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand and Korea responsible for driving business and technology strategies to address clients’ cyber security challenges. He has over 20 years of experience in cyber security spanning defence R&D, government and the financial sector.

Prior to joining IBM, he was the CISO of the Monetary Authority of Singapore with overall responsibility for cyber security at the central bank, ranging from Security Architecture, Security Programme and Portfolio Management, Vulnerability Assessment and Security Testing, SOC Operations as well as Governance, Risk Management & Compliance. In this capacity, he was a key member of executive committees including the ICT and Digitalization Steering Committee, Critical Information Infrastructure Committee, Technology Risk Management Committee and Architecture Review Committee.

Pei Yuen also represented MAS and Singapore as a member of the Global Cyber Resilience Group comprising key central banks and financial regulators across the globe. He was previously a Senior Member of Technical Staff at DSO National Laboratories conducting cyber security research and a consultant at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore responsible for carrying out critical infocomm infrastructure surety assessments.

Climate & Sustainability Assurance Leader, Deloitte Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia

Brian Ho is a Partner and the Climate and Sustainability Assurance Leader for the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia at Deloitte. He has 20 years’ experience in sustainability and providing professional services to clients. Before joining Deloitte, he spent 8 years as a sustainability leader at an international professional firm, and 10 years as the China Director of an APAC based sustainability consulting firm. Brian has been leading engagement teams to work with clients on ESG implementation such as ESG strategy, ESG investment frameworks, governance and management, internal controls, data management, sustainable finance assurance for issuers. He holds a number of positions in sustainability sector and now are proactively promoting the development of climate and sustainability in the region. He is also a PhD candidate focusing on governance and ESG.

Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte Singapore

Pui Yuen has more than 30 years’ experience in public accounting in Australia and Singapore, including 2 years in Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Melbourne. He has served as Lead Client Service Partner on listed and non-listed companies.

Pui Yuen has substantial experience in serving both multinational corporations and local companies in a wide range of industries. In addition to audit engagements, Pui Yuen has been involved in assisting companies planning on listing on the Singapore Exchange, undertaking cross-border financial due diligence assignments, as well as conducted seminars on various audit-related issues.

Pui Yuen is currently the Country Managing Partner and a member of Deloitte Singapore’s Management Committee.

Pui Yuen has held various appointments within Deloitte, including Chairman of the Singapore firm’s Governance Committee, Board member of Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia, member of the Southeast Asia and Singapore Management Committee, Head of Audit and Assurance for Southeast Asia and Singapore and Head of Transaction Services, Financial Advisory Services.

Outside Deloitte, he serves as the Audit Committee Chairman and a Board Member of the Singapore Land Authority; Deputy President of the Singapore divisional council of CPA Australia; a member of CPA Australia’s Corporate & SME committee and Chairman of CPA Australia’s ESG Committee. He is also a member of the Investigation and Disciplinary Panel of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA). A member of the Complaints Panel of the Singapore Medical Council and Chairman of the Accounting Advisory Board of NUS Business School. He is also a member of the Industry Advisory Committee of Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).

Pui Yuen graduated from the National University of Singapore with an honours degree in Accountancy and holds master’s degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Southern Queensland. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, and CPA Australia.

Executive Director, Risk Consulting Services, Deloitte Southeast Asia

Edna Yap is Executive Director of Risk Consulting Services at Deloitte Southeast Asia. She has more than 18 years of experience in the IT advisory and security field. Her core competencies are in the areas of cyber strategy & advisory.

In Deloitte, Edna leads Cyber Strategy for Southeast Asia. Edna’s recent experience revolves around advising various clients on cyber strategy roadmap and planning; security architecture for FSI and public sector clients. In addition, Edna has led engagements in relation to security testing. Edna also has considerable experience in advising board members and senior management on cyber security risks.

Director, Consulting, Deloitte Southeast Asia

Lyonel is a Director in Consulting at Deloitte Southeast Asia. He advises clients on Cloud transformation strategy and how to achieve agile digitisation through Cloud Technology. Before joining Deloitte, Lyonel was the Head of Cloud at a public HealthTech Agency, managing a massive set of Infrastructure and support the application running on both private and public cloud. Healthcare IT operation is not only crucial to patient safety, it is also highly sensitive on costing, resiliency and security aspects.

Lyonel led migrations from on-premise data centres to cloud and achieved significant cost-savings. Apart from tangible financial savings, other benefits include accelerating innovation, driving business agility and streamlining operations. He firmly believes every organisation needs to take an active approach in reviewing their Cloud strategy and Cloud will be the future Technology mandate. Lyonel also serves in Singapore Computer Society as a senior member in the Cloud Chapter Committee. He actively participates in various forums to bring Cloud awareness to businesses and spoke in many conferences.

Lyonel is a Computer Science graduate with an MBA and Master in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore.

Executive Director, Consulting, Deloitte Southeast Asia

Pushp Deep Gupta is a Partner in the Human Capital practice at Deloitte Consulting, based in Singapore. He leads the Talent Initiatives, spearhead the SE Asia Pursuit Centre of Excellence (PCoE) and serves on the Consulting Executive Committee.

Pushp has over 20 years of experience, specialising in talent and leadership consulting. He helps his clients articulate robust high potential talent and leadership strategies, and co designs with them longitudinal interventions to help them achieve the desired outcomes. His works with clients include Leadership Acceleration, High Potential Talent strategy, Integrated Talent Management, Top Team assessment, and Total Rewards strategy. Pushp brings to his clients a focus on long term thinking, creative program design, and stakeholder alignment. He strives to have a significant 'multiplier effect' on leaders that he coaches and develops.

Pushp has coached and delivered class room based leadership sessions for over 1800 leaders across Asia over the past 9 years. In 2012, he partnered with his client Estée Lauder Companies to win the Gold Trailblazer award presented by the CLO Magazine in Colorado. He led the design and delivery of the immersive 9 month "Transformation Leadership Program" which was a cornerstone of this award winning effort.

Pushp has been teaching at the National University of Singapore and has authored a number of articles and white papers. He has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Kolkata and has worked in India, Malaysia and Singapore.

Global & US National Managing Partner, CFO Program, Deloitte & Touche LLP

Steve Gallucci is the Global and US National Managing Partner of the CFO Program. The CFO Program harnesses the broad capabilities of the firm to deliver forward thinking insights for every stage of a CFO’s career. Steve helps CFOs manage the complexities of their roles, tackle compelling challenges, and adapt to strategic shifts in the market.

In addition to his CFO Program leadership responsibilities, Steve’s experience at Deloitte includes advising some of our largest and most complex clients in multiple sectors, including consumer products; retail; and technology, media, and telecommunications. Steve has significant experience leading large, multi-office external audit teams as well as internal control assessments, due diligence, and M&A projects.

Active in the community, Steve currently serves on the boards of the Americares, The Madison Square Boys and Girls Club and the Posse Foundation and is the chair of Providence College School of Business Advisory Council. He is also a member of the Partnership for NYC Innovation Council. Steve previously served as the chairman of board of trustees of the Rett Syndrome Research Foundation.

Steve earned a bachelor’s degree from Providence College and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

SEA CFO Program Leader, Deloitte Southeast Asia

Timothy leads the Finance & Enterprise Performance (F&EP) practice in SEA and is also the SEA CFO Program Leader. He has more than 19 years of experience driving finance transformation programs across multiple industries. His projects include helping CFOs and finance functions define their finance strategy, shaping the operating model, improving performance management, implementing end-to-end shared services across Asia Pacific, and M&A integration work. Timothy also helps CFOs look at how to leverage digital and technology to drive improvements in the finance organisation.

FSI Regulatory Strategy Leader, Deloitte Southeast Asia

As SEA FSI Regulatory Strategy Leader, Nai Seng has been advising digital bank applicants, payment services providers, wholesale and private banks, and investment advisers on compliance and risk matters. In addition, he is SEA Public Policy Leader and also co-leads the Deloitte APAC Centre for Regulatory Strategy.

Before joining Deloitte, Nai Seng was Assistant Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. In that role, he oversaw payments and technology risk supervision, prudential policy formulation, and macroprudential supervision.

During his more than 20 years’ experience in MAS, Nai Seng held various leadership positions in banking supervision, strategic planning, macroprudential supervision, prudential policy and capital markets regulation.

He also contributed to the work of international and regional regulatory bodies like the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Financial Stability Board, International Organisation of Securities Commissions, and the Executive Meeting of Asia-Pacific Central Banks.

Chief Economist, Partner, Deloitte China

Xu Sitao is Chief Economist and Partner of Deloitte China, spearheading Deloitte's economic and industry research. Prior to Deloitte, he was Chief Representative of China and EIU forecasting director at the Economist Group from 2004 to 2014.

Sitao worked for MMS International of Standard and Poor’s Group in Singapore as the Economist for Indonesia, Korea and Thailand in 1995. He joined Standard Chartered Bank as Regional Treasury Economist in 1996. From 2000 to 2002, he was Societe Generale’s Chief Economist for Asia. In 2003, he became the Head of Economics of ICBC (Asia).

Sitao has written for YaleGlobal Online, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Caijing, Caixin and 21st Century Business Herald. He appears regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg, CCTV, and other TV shows as a commentator on China. He is on the Speaker Retainer Program for the Virginia-based CFA Institute, and is often invited by leading MNCs to their board rooms, to present key issues on China.

Sitao holds a B.A. in Economics from Peking University, a M.A. in Economics from the University of Connecticut, and a M.S. in Finance from Boston College. He was a visiting scholar at Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 2012. He is also a guest professor at the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University. He has sit on the board of Forterra, a listed company in Singapore, Valin, a major steel companies which is partially owned by ArcelorMittal, Hisun, a technology company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and a joint venture between Bank of New York Mellon and Western Securities.