IWD 2024: Champions of Inclusion

Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Singapore — the largest and the most active international business association in Singapore and Southeast Asia representing over 650 companies. Hsien is also Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Advisory Board, Vice President of the Precision Public Health Asia Society, board member of TalenTtrust, member of the United Women Singapore STEM Advisory Panel, and member of the 2023 FIRST Global Challenge host committee. Prior to AmCham, Hsien was Vice President, Medical and Scientific Affairs, Medtronic Asia Pacific, where she was responsible for the Medtronic Innovation Centers in Japan and Korea, training and education, and the company’s health systems transformation strategy in the region. Hsien has extensive experience in scientific affairs, corporate and healthcare communications, advertising, public relations, and government affairs. Hsien has lived and worked in the US, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, UK, and is now based in Singapore. She holds a BA (with honors) in Human Biology from Stanford University and a PhD in Epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where she was the recipient of a US National Institutes of Health Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology Training Grant. Her doctoral thesis explored the genetic epidemiology of end-stage renal disease and type 2 diabetes. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at National Taiwan University Hospital in the Department of Internal Medicine.

Anjali Bhat is the Country Manager for Cochlear (Singapore). An audiologist by education, she has been part of Cochlear implant industry in technical and leadership roles for the last 9 + years working with patients, families, audiologists, rehabilitationists and ENT surgeons in India and in SEA. As part of her career development, she was a part of AmCham Next Gen Business Leadership 2021 batch, when she embarked on a business and people leadership role in Singapore. She obtained her Doctor of Audiology in Aug 2021 from Salus University, Pennsylvania. As a formally trained Indian Classical music vocalist, she continues to learn music till date since the age of 4. In her free time, she is passionate about travel, community work and hearing health initiatives.

Rosaline invested $5M of her savings and borrowed another $5M to build her startup CXA after 5 years trying to convince her firm to invest in Asia. CXA won Insurtech of the Year and Rosaline won Woman Leader of the Year from the Asia Insurance Industry Awards. Rosaline supervised P&G factory lines in Iowa and then worked on Wall Street. She launched two dot-com start-ups before moving to insurance. Rosaline also grew Mercer and Marsh Benefit’s 14 APAC countries 800% over 8 years. She graduated from UCLA Cybernetics and Columbia Business School.

Dr Shravan Verma, after graduating with a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore and undergraduate studies in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Duke University, USA, practiced as a physician in a number of public hospitals, where he frequently noticed patients waiting hours for treatment of minor conditions. Believing there was a way to bring hospital-level care into the home, he embarked on an entrepreneurial journey as the co-founder and CEO of Speedoc, one of the region's leading digital health startups on a mission to advance home medical care making the future of medicine more affordable, accessible and comfortable for patients. To date, Speedoc has raised a total of $34 million from notable investors such as Vertex Ventures, Shinhan Ventures, Bertelsmann Investments, SMRT Ventures, and other family offices to expand its virtual hospital programme. As a pioneer for telemedicine and home-based healthcare in Singapore, the tech start-up is challenging the traditional centralised and facility-based healthcare model, helping to revolutionise the delivery of care. Their services span house call doctors and nurses, medication delivery, as well as remote diagnostics and health monitoring—bringing greater comfort and convenience to patients while alleviating strain and cost to the system. Working with different stakeholders and hospital partners, Speedoc launched H-Ward®, a virtual hospital programme that helps patients recover at home. Under this programme, Speedoc has discharged more than 6,000 patients successfully and saved approximately 25,000 bed days for national healthcare system. As a clinician-entrepreneur, Dr Verma has received numerous accolades, such as Prestige 40 Under 40, EDGE 35 under 35, the Spirit of Enterprise Award, the Singapore National Awards Public Service Medal (COVID-19), and the NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Speedoc has similarly been honoured by the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, named the top winner at the Emerging Enterprise Awards 2022, ACE Startup Award 2023, President’s National Awards (COVID-19), and earned distinctions such as Startup of the Year and Digital Value Creation Award from the British Chamber of Commerce and the American Chamber of Commerce respectively. In addition to his professional achievements, Dr Verma has made newspaper headlines twice for his Good Samaritan work, rendering medical care to two separate road accident victims.

Gina Wong is the Managing Director of Kyndryl Singapore (the $19 billion IT services business spun off from IBM and listed as KD in the NYSE). In her previous role, she was IBM’s Asia Pacific Head of Technology Consulting & Implementation Services, where she led a high-performing team of Consultants and multi-domain Specialists to support customers around multi /hybrid cloud advice, build and migration. Prior to IBM, she was SVP & Head of Sales and Customer Success at ST Telemedia-LEAP, a tech start-up designed to leverage innovative cloud and AI technologies to deliver measurable customer outcomes. Gina helped grow the business from a three-member team to an 80-member organization with successful customer and partner acquisitions across Asia countries. As a founding member, she was pivotal to define the company's culture, strategy and go-to-market approach. One of the few women leaders with deep cloud and innovation expertise, Gina has been instrumental in helping large enterprises adopt emerging technologies, such as spearheading the cloud journey for the world's #1 digital bank and world's #2 PET manufacturer. Gina continues to inspire and transform people and businesses through reinvention and her forward-thinking approach. Prior to ST Telemedia, Gina has held senior leadership positions at IBM, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco and Avaya. Over 25 years of IT and Business roles, coupled with knowledge across multiple industries and broad portfolio of technology products, solutions and services enable her to be a long-term trusted advisor to many CXOs. Gina has a Bachelor Degree in Arts & Social Sciences from National University of Singapore. Gina is based in Singapore.

Lisa joined Special Olympics Asia Pacific (SOAP) in 2022 to establish and deliver the regional fundraising strategy. Responsible for driving development initiatives and partnerships in the region, whilst aligning with Special Olympics global strategy, she is also developing Special Olympics Unified Leadership program in APAC, to raise awareness of and introduce leaders to our approach to inclusive leadership. Led by Special Olympics athletes, this helps people without disabilities turn from unconscious bias to conscious inclusion, changing their attitudes and behaviours to create meaningful inclusion in their teams, organisations, families and communities. Special Olympics is committed to promoting inclusion for people with intellectual disability (ID) through sports and other initiatives that help to break down barriers and create opportunities for all individuals.

Hanako has been with Special Olympics for 32 years now and has been working at the regional Asia Pacific office for 12 years. She started at 14 years old as a swimmer and bagged many silver and gold medals in both local and international games. After her successful journey as an athlete, she began her course with public speaking and was selected to be a Global Messenger for Special Olympics International. She remains very grateful that only 12 Global Messengers are selected across the globe each year, and she was one of them. In 2010, Hanako became a Special Olympics Singapore Board Member and was proud to represent other athletes. From 2012 to present, she works as Administrative Co-Ordinator with the Initiatives team, at Special Olympics Asia Pacific headquarters. She works on projects that involve Athlete Leaders and Youth Leaders across the region. Hanako enjoys learning about Special Olympics activities and events and more about the way Special Olympics works around the world. She continues to be an inspiration and a role model to many.

Vincent is a two-time stroke survivor and educator turned artist. He believes that every painting is "a dream come true" and every artwork can be a "hope for peace and harmony in the world". Over the years, Vincent has supported various charity institutions locally as well as across the region. He also conducts art workshops for residents of a mental health nursing home on a voluntary basis.

Sophie joined HSBC in 2023. Most recently, Sophie Guerin served as the Head of Diversity & Inclusion, APAC at Johnson & Johnson, where she launched the Ageing Business Roundtable in partnership with the Singapore University of Social Sciences, building a coalition of 50 companies to raise awareness on Ageing in Asia. Prior to joining J&J, Sophie was the APAC Head of D&I at Dell Technologies where she led the APAC DEI integration between EMC and Dell valued at $67B – the largest tech acquisition in history. She has also served as the Head of D&I for Community Business and the Greater China Deputy Director for WEConnect International. Sophie is a recognized expert on diversity & inclusion in Asia with a sub-specialty in supplier diversity and speaks frequently at industry and thought leadership forums. Most recently she represented J&J in the WEF Longevity Forum Working Group (currently represented by Mark Glover at HSBC). She is co-author of "Examining Diversity & Inclusion from an Asian Perspective" and “Developing Dependency” which explores special economic zones in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. She is Co-Chair and founding member of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Singapore Women in Business Committee. She is a founding member of AmCham China Women’s Professional Committee and former member of AmCham Hong Kong Women of Influence Leadership Committee. Sophie is the Founder of Women in International Public Affairs based in Paris, France and a founding member of Global Women Leaders, a female-led philanthropy platform. She holds a Masters in Public Affairs from SciencePo Paris and a BFA from NYU in East Asian Studies and Theatre. She recently completed a course on Sustainable Business Leadership with Harvard Business School Online. Originally from San Francisco, Sophie has been living and working in APAC on and off for 20 years, spending 12 of those years in Beijing. Her partner, Ben, is a primary school teacher in Singapore. Together they spend time hiking, cycling and traveling with their four-year-old daughter Beatrice and her mother, Marica. They are proud owners of three cats.