Executive Education Associate
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
Total years of experience :35 years, 7 Months
Part of an exclusive group of professionals invited by the School to design and deliver lectures on an ad hoc basis.
run a series of curated programs for Partners at Deloitte designed to sharpen their ability to develop deep client relationships, negotiations, and trust. This renewable contract requires an in-depth understanding of the business challenges participants face, various cultural nuances, story telling skills and program content. I bring a combination of my experience and skill in the art of communications, research, project and stakeholder management in this role.
Achievement:
Persuaded C-Suite executives to act as faculty
Achieved the highest ratings for all my programs (average 4.6+)
Trained the trainers
Made impact that matters on over 250+ partners and managers
Negotiated and drafted contracts
Produced slick corporate videos and revamped communication templates
I managed publications, communications and media relations. I conducted communications training, written articles and reports, drafted press release, handled social media, revamped corporate website and significantly upgraded the program workbook. I led a small research team and also 'ghost' wrote articles for the CEO which have been published in credible news outlets such as the Financial Times.
Launched PRWeek in Asia. Created and curated content. Reported on the PR and communications industry in Asia. I wrote reports, features, thought pieces and commissioned articles.
Special Project: I curated a the very first list of Asia's most influential communications professionals.The special feature aggregated traffic to the website and helped PRWeek mop up readership
Conducted sector analysis and market reports for clients and investors.
Sectors covered: Agribusiness, Telecom, Energy, Education, Finance, ICT, Health, Media, Advertising, Mining, Logistics, Construction, Infrastructure, Retail, Tourism, Transport etc.
Assignments conducted in: The Philippines; Indonesia
Assisted Husk Power, a LGT financed social enterprise scale up its operations through marketing, brand building, communications, media outreach and partnerships. Husk Power Systems (HPS) provides sustainable electricity to those earning less than a US$1 a day by converting rice husk into power. Over 80 HPS biomass plants connect over 20, 000 households across the state of Bihar providing on-demand electricity at less than US$2 a month. The fellowship is sponsored by the Zurich-based LGT Venture Philanthropy and funded by Prince Max of Liechtenstein.
Set up brand guidelines, edited a publicity article in a Tanzanian social enterprise publication and organised HPS exhibition at the GreenX event at IIT BHU, Varanasi. Cultivated partnerships with international investors, customers and governments. Plugged a vital communication gap.
Advised the LKYSPP on the future direction of their executive program in India. I drafted a comprehensive business strategy report. The recommendations were subsequently implemented by the School.
I was tasked to attract private sector investors to Bagre, a value chain agricultural special economic zone in Burkina Faso, West Africa as part of the Government's Public Private Partnership (PPP) 'growth pole' strategy.
Achievement: Secured anchor investor commitments worth US$30m and served as a critical communication node between the Bank, the government of Burkina Faso and investors. Also drafted CAPSEL, a need based capacity building service line for senior government officials under the Competitive Industries practice mandate.
GI hosts the Business for the Environment (www.b4esummit.com), a flagship environmental summit that is held around the world in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), WWF and CNN.
Task: Fostering partnerships with public and private sector stakeholders and fund raising.
Achievement: Raised sponsorships for B4E, managed public/media outreach and wrote the ‘big ideas for a sustainable future’ booklet - a collection of innovative business ideas which was distributed at the Rio+20 Summit in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in 2012.
Initiated, negotiated and drafted partnership agreements with academic institutions, research agencies and industry. This required me to construct bankable projects with potential partners and persuade stakeholders - both internal and external - to come to an agreement and sign meaningful MOUs. The role required me to be a skillful negotiator, communicator, public relations strategist and agreement drafter all at the same time.
I also designed and executed overseas student mobility programs. (see project)
I wrote policy briefs, set discussion agenda during official delegation visits and conducted high-level overseas academic missions.
I Identified areas of potential cooperation and negotiated cooperation agreements. Such tasks required superior planning, management and communication skills.
I also acted as spokesperson, made presentations and represented the University on overseas missions.
Some of my notable achievements include:
Spearheaded NTU’s foray into India and secured a milestone partnership agreement with India's most influential business lobby, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII);
Initiated research collaboration with the Maharashtra State Water Supply and Sanitation Department (MJP) on water recycling and quality assessment.
Secured semester-long overseas attachments for NTU undergraduates in India.
Designed and executed a model four week long emerging-economies business immersion program in Vietnam, India and the Middle East and developed a comprehensive monitoring and impact evaluation framework that captured the effect of this program on their learning.
Raised program funding/grants, mentored students and oversaw their welfare as an honorary hall warden.
Coordinated the conferment ceremony and the complete official itinerary of the former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam during his official visit to Singapore in 2008.
I covered some of the most important current affairs stories of the day. The challenge was to present abstract and often complex developments in the world in a lucid reader friendly language. It is my responsibility to scan and select the leading stories of the day and ensure they are updated before going into print. I particularly enjoy writing commentary pieces. Often provocative and contrarian, my articles often receive passionate reader responses. This I find one of the most satisfying aspect of being a journalist. My notable achievement was winning the 2004 Panos Global Knowledge Program Award. It was awarded to me in Tunisia at the second World Summit on Information Society.
In less than six months I turned this marketing publication into an influential and profitable venture. In my time ad space revenue of the magazine went up by 30% and readership grew by 40%. I have produced the magazine almost single handedly, conducting interviews, writing stories, gathering industry newsworthy stories and even persuading marketers to advertise. My biggest scoops include an exclusive interview with Tim Sebastian of HardTalk BBC and John Dooner of McCann Erickson. I am effectively an editor, correspondent, bureau chief and the producer of the magazine all rolled into one.
Global Brand Forum positions itself as the world’s premier event for branding and leadership and has modelled itself on the World Economic Forum. It gets some of the world’s most influential and respected personalities to exchange ideas and thoughts in public. My job is to formulate the forum’s complete PR strategy and get the event and the speakers maximum and positive media exposure. Speakers include former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and film-maker Francis Ford Coppola.
I had been hired to bring an element of authority to the coverage of South Asia. With Channel NewsAsia spreading its footprint across the region, it found in me a confident, well spoken and articulate presenter. Indeed, for much of 2000 I was the face of morning news. Having traveled, reported and written extensively on South Asian affairs I became an in-house editorial adviser. My stories about the fall of Taliban, the earthquake in Gujarat and Pakistan President Musharraf’s visit to India were particularly well received. I also visited New Delhi and produced a 25 min documentary on the decline of the Congress Party.
A star reporter of the television news wire service, I worked mostly on foreign and strategic affairs. Reporting of the Commonwealth Summit in Durban, South Africa and the forty day non-stop reporting of the India-Pakistan conflict from the cold heights of Kargil were the highlights of my career here. My responsibilities included live reporting, piece-to-camera, scripting, editing, voicing and packaging daily news stories.
I presented news on ANI produced South Asia Newsline, a daily 20 minute news feed broadcast on WNVC TV, Washington.
While still at the University I started contributing articles to the South Africa based Cape Times. One such commentary (on Western Sahara) was so well received by readers in Cape Town that the news daily editor invited me to write regularly for the leader page. I was asked to write on a whole range of issues, from remains of communism in Africa to the implications of a coup in Lesotho. A short interview with the then South African President Nelson Mandela during his guest visit to the UK at the European Summit was the best of my reporting work for the Cape Times.
I worked two months as a student intern researching and scripting news stories at the BBC World news desk in London and received a special note of recommendation from the senior editor. My responsibilities also included booking guests, writing briefs and editing video packages. Arranging an interview with economist Jeffrey Sachs and persuading the visiting Albanian prime minister to visit the studio for an interview was the highlight of my work.
This was the start of my career in journalism. What started out as a short term research job at the BBC bureau in New Delhi became a life long passion. My job was to assist correspondents in fixing interviews, doing research and maintaining the library. I impressed the bureau chief enough to have him recommend me to the Broadcast Journalism school in Cardiff. I also helped produce some radio stories for Radio 5 live London and BBC World Service. The research that I made for the production of Andrew Whitehead’s Partition of India series and the award winning series on World Migration by John Pickford were the highlight of my term here.
This is a post graduate diploma in broadcast journalism. It taught me the basics of broadcast journalism both for TV and Radio. Selection was extremely competitive with seats limited to a little two dozen, but applications in the hundreds from around the world. The course is recommended and valued by the BBC
One of India's premier institutes, the Jawaharlal Nehru University has produced some of the finest academics and civil servants. The two years that I spent here were my formative years. It fortified my interest and expertise in International Relations - particularly in area studies covering security, foreign policy, middle east, Africa and the Subcontinent. Entry to the two year course is through a countrywide written test.