Southeast Asia Political & Economic Update

Event Details

Join us for a morning briefing as we discuss the latest political and economic developments around the region, including the priority agendas of Indonesia's G20 presidency, the latest in the runup to the 2022 Philippine presidential elections, and Cambodia's chairmanship of ASEAN in the coming year.

* For any enquires please contact the AmCham Programming and Events Team at pe@amcham.com.sg.

Speakers

Bunhok Lim

Associate Director, Cambodia of Vriens & Partners

Jon Morales

Associate Director, Philippines of Vriens & Partners

Jeremy Mullins

Country Director, Myanmar of Vriens & Partners

Donna Priadi

Country Director, Indonesia of Vriens & Partners

Samuel Pursch

Director, Vietnam of Vriens & Partners

Isra Sunthornvut

Country Director, Thailand of Vriens & Partners

Hans Vriens

Managing Partner, Singapore at Vriens & Partners

Joses Wong

Country Director, Singapore of Vriens & Partners

Nazhif Yusoff

Country Director, Malaysia of Vriens & Partners

Bunhok Lim is the Associate Director of Vriens & Partners’ Cambodia office where he leads and manage the firm’s Cambodia-focused Government Affairs advisory work for our clients, as well as the expansion of our Cambodia office
based in Phnom Penh.

Bunhok joined Vriens & Partners in February 2020 as Senior Advisor in Cambodia, providing Government Affairs advisory support across multiple sectors. He has experience
working for the Royal Government of Cambodia at the Cabinet of the Prime Minister and Ministry of Culture, as well as for the private sector, particularly in cultural industry and the clean water supply sector. Bunhok previously served as the Advocacy Manager for EuroCham Cambodia, organizing
advocacy campaigns and policy forums, and supervising parts of a EuroCham project funded by the EU.

Bunhok brings with him more than a decade of experience working for major multilateral, non-profit, and academic projects across Cambodia. He served as a UNESCO officer overseeing a USD 1.2 million UNESCO-KOICA project and a Committee to safeguard and develop an Angkor site, and had also been
a UN Coordination Specialist.

Bunhok holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle and a Master’s degree in Phonetics and Linguistics from Paris Diderot University. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Health and Sciences in Cambodia and several training certificates in critical thinking and project management.

Jon brings 7 years of working to build coalitions with government, private sector, and civil society pursuing market and urban service reforms in Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Vriens & Partners, Jon worked as program manager for the Asia Foundation’s Urban Services program in Cambodia. The
program was run under the Foundation’s Program Strategy, Innovation, and Learning unit that focused on “doing development differently”, “thinking and working politically”, and iterative, adaptive program design using a dynamic theory of change. The program strived to find solutions to complex, nuanced development problems that were technically sound and politically possible.

Before moving to Cambodia to initiate the Urban Services program Jon spent 4 years in the Philippines as part of the Asia Foundation’s Economic Reform and Development Entrepreneurship team working on strategy development, recruitment, team building, and policy analysis. The team participated or initiated several successful major economic and public service reforms during his time there including implementing the Residential Free Patent law to increase land titling in the Philippines, the Sin Tax reform to increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol and fund universal healthcare, air liberalization and the Secondary International Gateways policy, and tourism road infrastructure.

Jon is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Jeremy is Country Director of Vriens & Partners’ Yangon office. He leads and manages advisory services for Clients, providing insight on Myanmar political dynamics and developing government affairs strategies. He has worked in Myanmar for six years as a consultant, journalist and market researcher, including as business editor of The Myanmar Times newspaper and managing director of FMR Research. Previous focuses include the energy, real estate and finance sectors, and he has travelled through much of the country on assignment. This varied experienced in Myanmar has enabled Jeremy to build a strong understanding of local political and business dynamics, while developing a strong network of key contracts.

Donna is Country Director at Vriens & Partners’ Jakarta office, where she leads and manages the firm’s Indonesia-focused advisory work and designs Government Affairs strategies for multinational clients across various sectors.

With over 25 years of experience working in foreign, Indonesian, and stateowned companies, Donna has built an extensive network within the Indonesian government. She possesses a depth and breadth of knowledge on Indonesia’s policy and
regulatory landscape, with a focus on the energy (renewables, power generation & distribution, oil & gas), healthcare and aviation industries.

Before joining Vriens & Partners, Donna was Director of Government and Corporate Affairs at General Electric (GE) Indonesia for close to four years, where she led advocacy efforts and sought alignment between the government’s regulations and policies with GE’s business objectives.

Prior to this, Donna worked for Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE), a subsidiary of the state oil and gas company PT Pertamina and earlier, BP Indonesia. In these roles she covered various positions including Corporate & Government Affairs, Communication & Public Relations, CSR, Commercial & Business
Development, and Engineering.

She currently serves on the Board of Governors for AmCham Indonesia, and has previously served as a Vice Chair of AmCham Indonesia Board of Governor (2017-2020). She has also been a company representative on US-ASEAN Business Council, USINDO, and SwissCham.

She has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) Degree from University of San Francisco, USA, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture Engineering from Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).

Samuel Pursch is a Director in Vriens & Partners’ Hanoi office where he manages accounts across sectors with a particular emphasis on tech, healthcare, and industry. He also leads the Vietnam’s office public-facing activities, providing briefings on Vietnam’s regulatory and commercial context.

Prior to joining Vriens’ & Partners in 2018, Samuel was co-founder and director of Andaman Research & Advisory, a socio-economic research and political risk advisory firm based in Yangon, Myanmar. Having moved to Myanmar in early 2015, Samuel managed projects for clients including international
hydropower and mobile finance investors, The World Bank Group, and a range of international NGOs. Andaman’s work included detailed stakeholder assessments, field research activities, including large-scale surveys, and developing policy recommendations for international actors working to address
Myanmar’s myriad development challenges.

Isra Sunthornvut is the Country Director for Thailand starting in April 2020. He recently completed his term as Secretary-General of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) located in Jakarta, Indonesia in September 2019.

Isra was first elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Bangkok under the Democrat Party in 2001 and has been involved in Thai politics in various capacities since, such as;
Spokesman and Advisor to the Bangkok Governor, Secretary to the Opposition Leader of the House of Representatives (2 terms), Deputy Secretary General to the Prime Minister (Abhisit Vejjajiva),Vice Minister Attached to the Prime Minister’s Office (attached to the Prime Minister), and Party List MP.

From 2001 to present, he has been a columnist for Thai Post and has contributed numerous articles for numerous publications; he has also produced, and hosted, numerous television programs since 1997. He holds a Master of Arts in European Studies from Chulalongkorn University and has been bestowed the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant Royal Decoration since 2013. He is married with two children.

Hans is the founder and Managing Partner of Vriens & Partners, the leading government affairs, public policy and political risk analysis firm around Southeast Asia. It is headquartered in Singapore and has more than 90 staff and 30 senior counselors around the region. The firm has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, and Cambodia.

Hans has lived and worked in Asia since 1990. He is a regular commentator on regional issues.

Prior to establishing V&P, Hans was Vice Chairman, Asia at APCO Worldwide. He set up and served as Managing Director of the Indonesia practice for six years. Prior to this he worked as a political economist at the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in Hong Kong. Earlier he practiced law in the M&A practice at Clifford Chance and was the Asia correspondent for a leading Dutch financial and economic daily. In 1995, he was elected president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Hong Kong, then the largest in the world.

Hans serves on the Board of Trustees of the Foundation of UWCSEA. He was a founding member of the Europe ASEAN Business Alliance, Chairman of the Foundation Dutch Education at UWCSEA, board member of Eurocham, and founding chairman of DutchCham in SG.

Hans graduated from law school in civil and public law at Groningen University in the Netherlands. During his studies, he was a research assistant in European parliamentary history and public law. In 1982 he took a year off from his studies when he was elected Senatus Rector of the Student Union (VAP).

Hans studied at the Bologna Center of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University. He also did stints at the Universities of Grenoble in France, and Krakow in Poland.

His family lived in Batavia, Semarang and on Biak off Papua in the Dutch East Indies for several generations until the handover of Papua in 1962. He is married to Katy le Blanc. They have two sons.

Specialties: Government Affairs, Political and Economic Analysis around Asia Pacific.

Joses Wong is the Country Director for Vriens & Partners’ Singapore office. He brings with him almost a decade of experience in the Singapore Government’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), which oversees Singapore’s economic policies and promotes bilateral trade and investment relations with other countries. Joses was posted to the Singapore Mission and Embassy in Brussels as First Secretary (economic) between 2017 and 2021, running the economic section of the embassy and promoting Singapore’s trade and economic relations with the EU, as well as the Benelux region (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg).

His previous roles include negotiating trade and climate change agreements at multilateral and regional platforms such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and sourcing for economic opportunities for Singapore companies in the emerging markets.

Joses has also published several papers in international business journals, and was a qualified Chartered Public Accountant (CPA) between 2012 and 2015. He graduated from the Singapore
Management University (SMU) with Summa cum Laude in Bachelors of Business Management (Finance) and Bachelors of Accountancy. He is a Deloitte Meritorious awardee and a Li & Fung scholar.

Nazhif Yusoff is Country Director at Vriens & Partners’ Kuala Lumpur office. With the team, he consults for clients from various verticals such as technology, healthcare, transportation and tourism, helping them develop their government relations strategy.

Previously, Nazhif was with the trade and investment team at Malaysia Petroleum Resources Corporation, an agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. At MPRC, he developed the agency’s database of export opportunities for Malaysian oil and gas services and equipment manufacturing companies. He also connected Malaysian oil and gas companies with opportunities in Southeast Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East through the organization of trade and specialized marketing missions.

Nazhif was also a fellow under the two-year Teach for Malaysia program, which places young leaders as teachers in high-need schools throughout the country. He taught English and Malaysian History at Alor Pongsu, Perak. There, he also initiated partnerships with corporate partners, constituency leaders
and NGOs to run specialized academic performance improvement programs.

Nazhif earned a Bachelor of Science degree, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington D.C., majoring in Regional and Comparative Studies (Middle East and Asia). He was a recipient of the Malaysian Public Service Department’s Overseas Degree Program
scholarship. He also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (History) from the Northern University of Malaysia (UUM). In his spare time, he indulges in cooking and Arabic calligraphy.

AmCham Member

Employees in member company and part of the membership roster

Member PriceComplimentary

Member Company

Employees in member company but not in the membership roster

Standard PriceComplimentary

Non-Member

Attendees that are not part of a member company and/or the membership roster