Eden Strategy Institute is celebrating its 10th year anniversary this year with a virtual conference on Social Innovation – The Next Decade. The second panel in our virtual conference, What businesses can learn from the social sector, sheds light on the insights and wisdom gleaned from the non-profit world which could have cross-sector relevance and applicability.

Non-profits and social enterprises are constantly facing resource constraints, fluid market dynamics, and changing stakeholder demands, in ensuring their long-term financial sustainability while delivering mission-critical impact. As businesses undergo similar disruptions in a post-Covid-19 world, the third sector could offer a treasure trove of good practices and inspiration.

Join in the discussion with our insightful panelists from leading organisations:

• Steve Loh, General Secretary & CEO, YMCA of Singapore
• Patsian Low, Chief of Staff and Policy Advisor, AVPN
• Claire Wong, Executive Director & Head of DBS Foundation
• Georgette Tan, President, United Women Singapore

The panel will be moderated by Kim Yee Tan, Senior Strategy Consultant, Eden Strategy Institute.

About the Panelists & Moderator

Steve Loh

As General Secretary & CEO of the YMCA of Singapore since 2018, Steve works closely with the YMCA Board to provide visionary, strategic, and operational leadership to over 450 staff across three divisions. Steve brings with him a unique blend of management, entrepreneurial and leadership experience gained from global missions, social service as well as from the media industry. He has garnered substantial expertise in managing operations, instituting governance and conducting business restructuring, while emphasising the need to value and develop people. Steve comes with over 10 years of leadership experience with international NGO, Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and locally registered charity, Mercy Centre, where he concurrently held several portfolios including directing Mercy Centre and YWAM Medical Ships. Prior to his service in YWAM and Mercy Centre, Mr Loh founded and managed his own company, Scribe Media, for seven years. He has also worked for a global media organization, Transworld International, IMG as a senior producer / presenter and was also the News Editor & Head of Department for Sports at SAFRA RADIO. Mr Loh is a qualified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and currently serves as an auxiliary officer in the Singapore Civil Defence Force Emergency Medical Services, operating as an ambulance medic. Mr Loh graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Journalism & Political Science. Being an active sportsman, he was a member of the university rugby team which won the regional championships. He is married with two children and attends St John’s St Margaret’s Anglican Church since 1976, where he has served as a lay pastor since 2005.

Patsian Low

Patsian Low is currently with AVPN as Chief of Staff, working closely with the Chair and CEO to ensure effective planning and execution of strategic priorities. She takes on this role in addition to serving as Advisor to AVPN's action platform for policymakers across Asia to build stronger and more collaborative social impact funding ecosystems. Patsian is a driven senior leader who brings over 24 years of cross geographic and cross industry experience, offering executive leadership, advisory services, project design/management, and training in social entrepreneurship/social investment, impact philanthropy, corporate social impact and non-profit strategy. To provide the highest impact, she draws from her knowledge of private and civic sectors in US and Asia, crossing the fields of social finance, social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, non-profit leadership and commercial finance. She was previously Senior Vice President and head of DBS Foundation and DBS Bank CSR; before that, Patsian was the Director of Philanthropy at Singapore's NVPC, which promotes and engages philanthropy from different donor sectors. Patsian currently serves on the boards of Artswok Collaborative Ltd, which brings community art to advance social development; and GiveAsia Kindness Foundation, a crowdfunded philanthropic foundation. She is an Advisor to Tri-Sector Associates, a Pay-For-Success incubation and structuring firm. She had also consulted with Johnson & Johnson to implement its new CSR strategy in North Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Australia/New Zealand. Before her journey into the civic sector began by starting a social enterprise advisory service in Asia’s social economy’s early years, Patsian held regional senior executive roles in Bankers Trust Company, Deutsche Bank and State Street Bank based out of New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Claire Wong

Claire is responsible for driving DBS Foundation’s commitment to champion social entrepreneurship for a better world. Prior to this role, she spent more than 15 years in the energy industry and in government policy. She started out in the Singapore Economic Development Board and moved into consulting for the energy sector. Most recently, she was an energy industry corporate banker at DBS bank. Claire is excited to be on this journey of supporting businesses that have long lasting and life changing social and environmental impact for the world we live. Claire has a BSc (Economics) from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an MPhil (Economics) from the University of Cambridge.

Georgette Tan

Georgette is President, United Women Singapore, an NGO advocating gender equality, women’s empowerment and focusedon building the pipeline of female leaders. She currently sits on the board of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) and is Chair of BoardAgender, an initiative of SCWO, focused on increasing the number of women on boards and in senior management positions. Georgette serves on the Taskforce on Family Violence which is jointly led by the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the Ministry of Home Affairs. In addition to her roles in the non-profit sector, she is on the advisory panel for a global e-commerce organisation and a gender-lens VC fund focused on emerging Asia. She was previously Senior Vice President Communications heading up Communications and CSR at MasterCard Asia Pacific. Her career includes heading communications roles in both private and public sectors in Singapore and Hong Kong including CNBC Asia, Dow Jones Asia, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, and Sentosa Development Corporation.

Kim Yee Tan

Kim Yee is a Senior Strategy Consultant at Eden Strategy Institute, with a background in fieldwork and ethnographic research. She joins Eden with a strong passion for development and environmental sustainability. Kim led the design of Singapore’s Fashion sector three-year industry roadmap where she engaged with over 80 senior business leaders and government officials in in-depth interviews and strategy design workshops. More recently, Kim led an ESG impact study of the Productivity Solutions Grant which engaged over 100 SMEs in Singapore to assess the qualitative and quantitative impact of the grant, including a statistical analysis of results to develop data-backed recommendations. She advised UN Women on the impact of over 3,000 social enterprises across the world and also facilitated innovation workshops with Voluntary Welfare Organization board members for the National Council of Social Services. She is a facilitator in SSI’s Board Members Network Sessions for board members of social service organisations in the social service sector. Before Eden, Kim Yee worked at the Placemaking Department of Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), where she proposed and implemented activities to bring the community together. She also planned and executed environmental sustainability projects for Sentosa, developed ideas in user experience design for a travel mobile application, and was Expedition Leader at Mercy Relief which rebuilt a fish farm in Indonesia to provide a sustainable livelihood for a group of 10 farmers. Kim Yee also developed ideas in user experience design for a local start-up, and conducted ethnographic research in Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia, with over 20 families to understand the needs and gaps of the public health system. Kim Yee holds an honours degree in Geography from the National University of Singapore.

About the Series

Social Innovation - The Next Decade is a three-part virtual conference organised to celebrate Eden Strategy Institute's 10th year anniversary, and 10 years of socially innovating with our invaluable clients and community. Our series reflects on the past decade of innovation in organisations across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. It offers an opportunity to share learnings from the innovation journey with the broader community and envision where the social innovation space is headed towards in the next 10 years. Look forward to our next two events in the conference series:

• Thursday, 1 October 2020 (9-10am): Moving the Behemoth: Lessons from Three Innovative Organisations
• Friday, 9 October 2020 (5-6pm): Reimagining Public Service: Inclusive, Compassionate, Digital

About Eden Strategy Institute

Eden Strategy Institute is a strategy consulting firm specializing in Business System Innovation. We approach the global issues of urbanization, disease, poverty, illiteracy, and exploitation by formulating strategies, models, processes, and products that help our clients create, realize, and sustain their economic impact. Eden plans and sets up industry blueprints, facilitates co-creation workshops, and forecasts and evaluates the impact of policy interventions. Our practice areas include Smart Cities, Education Innovation, Healthcare, Social Enterprise, and the Emerging Middle Class.

To learn more about our work, please visit www.edenstrategyinstitute.com