SSS Distinguished Alumni Award 2022 Runner-Up

Amanda Tan

Amanda Tan (Graduated in Psychology in 2016)

Amanda graduated from Psychology in 2016 with PhD on "Long-tailed macaque stone-tool use in intertidal habitats" in evolutionary psychology and primatology. She then went to Dartmouth College as a postdoctoral scholar in Anthropology from 2017-2018, and she is now Assistant Professor in Primatology (Anthropology) at Durham Univesity, UK. 

As a grad student, Amanda was awarded a Leakey Foundation Grant for PhD students, and a small grant from the Animal Behavior Society to fund her work at Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park in Thailand. There she studied the development of macaque stone tool use behavior in young macaques, working under Assoc Prof Michael Gumert's research project with Chulalonkgorn University and the National Research Council of Thailand. During the work, she was also a member with Assoc Prof Michael Gumert of the Primate Archaeology Program, in cooperation with Oxford University. While still a student, she developed a fruitful collaboration with Dartmouth University, on her own, and this is where she ended up going for Post-doc work. 

Following her post doc, she succeeded in getting an Assistant Professorship at the Department of Anthropology in the Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre, Durham University, UK. Her graduate work produced several publications, one of which won her paper of the year from the Journal of Comparative Psychology. She continues to be successful. She is supervising one student currently. She is continuing some of the work in Thailand, was planning a project in Singapore, and trying to launch a project in Gibraltar.

Chua Jia Rong

Chua Jia Rong (Graduated in Psychology in 2009)

Jia Rong graduated from Psychology (Honours) at NTU in 2009. She has been working in MINDEF for over 10 years since graduation from NTU. She also got a Master's degree in Behavioural and Economic Science with Distinction from University of Warwick in 2016.

 

TENG_Jessica

Jessica Teng (Graduated in Economics in 2011)

Jessica received her BA (Hons), in Economics, from NTU's School of Social Sciences in 2011 as a sponsored student from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). After graduation, Jessica returned to the SAF to serve her bond and held multiple command and staff appointments. One of the highlights in her multiple stints within the SAF was as the Officer Commanding of a rifle company in 1st Singapore Infantry Regiment (1 SIR) at the tender age of 26 - a feat not commonly achieved amongst female combat officers during her time. 

After leaving the SAF in 2017, Jessica continued to drive impact in various roles while waiting for her MBA intake at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Working first at Accenture, and subsequently as Head of Operations at the high-growth technolody company Ninja Van, Jessica bridged the gap on how skills can be transferable between public service, MNC and a high-growth start-up.

After completing her MBA in University of Cambridge in 2020, Jessica was headhunted by Grab and is currently the Regional Lead (Strategy and Product Ops) for Grab's enterprise division.

Jonathan Chua Jian Xin

Chua Jian Xin, Jonathan (Graduated in Sociology in 2015)

As part of The Sam Willows, Jon Chua JX made it to the Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia in 2019. He has also been an ambassador of several brands—TAGHEUER, Adidas and works closely with Fendi, Gucci & Audi. He created Zendyll Music in 2015, and independent music and culture agency. Zendyll has done commercial music and sound design for companies such as Lego, Changi Airport and Adidas, and they also own some top music IPs such as Majulah Music & Comedy Festival, HOMETOWN HEROES (music reality show). The company also manages artists and roster of songwriters under its artist & repertoire development and management arm, Zendyll Records, which owns the imprints HVT Entertainment & 465 Music. They have signed acts such as RRILEY, Feez , Ae$op Ca$h.

Jon Chua JX is currently signed under 465 Music, which has a partnership deal with Universal Music Singapore, and has a highly anticipated album slated for release in 2022. Jon has several Gold & multiple Platinum songs under his belt, and has performed at some of the top music festivals such as SXSW (USA), Summersonic (Japan), We The Fest (Indonesia) and several more. One of the most recognisable faces in music in Singapore, Jon has established himself as an artist as well as a music executive, co-producing many songs for local, regional and international artists, as well as speaking at top global conferences such as Music Matters (Singapore), MUSEXPO (Los Angeles) and several more. 

 

FEROZ TAHERBHAI PP

Mohamed Feroz Taherbhai (Graduated in Sociology in 2010)

Feroz is currently the Regional Head (Asia-Pacific) of Global Trade for HP Inc. He leads a team of 6 experts and is responsible for Trade Compliance & Advocacy in China, India, ASEAN and other key markets. Previously, Feroz served with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Singapore Customs. In both positions, Feroz represented Singapore’s economic interests at various international trade platforms and participated in major Free Trade Agreement negotiations.

Marcus Low - Image

Marcus Low Wei Jie (Graduated in Economics in 2011)

Marcus worked his way from a commercial manager to a commercial director in the Beam Global Asia which is the largest privately-owned alcohol beverage company globally that own beloved brands like Yamazaki, Hibiki, Roku, Jim Beam, Bowmore etc. He is a member of the Southeast Asia Leadership Team critical in charting strategic decisions for the business unit. 

Marcus' primary mandate include distributor and RTM management, focusing on commercial development, strategic planning, pipeline management & depletion frameworks, key account & channel management to drive category growth of focused categories & segments from both a commercial & brand perspective. He is also charged with internal & external stakeholder management balancing marketing strategic imperatives and commercial priorities. Finally, he is tasked with transforming the business through changes in route to market frameworks, commercial excellence programme and brand market matrices.

Marcus' achievements in the company include consistently exceeding budget targets across Southeast Asia BU for the past five (5) years including during the pandemic. He has been instrumental in leading the pivot in strategic direction during the pandemic to sustain business growth and momentum while deleveraging off dependence off traditional channels. Consequently, he led Beam Suntory into a new horizon with leadership positions in the new channels (i.e. retail and e-commerce). 

Under his leadership, his team is involved in developing all commercial & brand imperatives from a strategic to a tactical level. He was promoted to Commercial Director - Southeast Asia from 1 June 2018, being the youngest director in the history of Beam Suntory globally. He has won numerous internal and external awards in his field.
Marcus was previously the Head of Marketing for Southeast Asia and Third Party Markets in William Grant & Sons (Singapore) Pte Ltd, another family owned alcohol beverage company that own beloved brands like Glenfiddich, Hendrick's, Monkey Shoulder etc. He drove exponential value growth in key Southeast Asian and Third Party markets by leading and managing the conceptualisation, development and implementation of a holistic marketing/brand strategy and tactics for WGS portfolio of brands to generate brand equity, consumer commitment and brand P&L. 

He led the recruitment and coaching process of the regional marketing function that grew from a single resource capability to a high performing team of 20 in the development and execution of marketing/brand campaigns across a diverse portfolio of 14 brands and across 10 unique market propositions (i.e. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Philippines, Outer Mongolia). He is part of the core leadership team in the business/brand development and commercial growth of the Southeast Asian business, consistently exceeding targets (>100%) set by Global year-on-year from 2012 till present effectively doubling the business annually. 

He conceptualised, developed and overcame earlier reservations from various senior regional and global stakeholders and executed the multi-award winning The Glenfiddich Experience experiential platform that is now lauded as a global best practice and adopted by the Glenfiddich Global Brand Team to be rolled out globally. He grew the size of prize of the Prestige channel by cross leveraging owned and adopted experiential platforms with luxury brand partners & private banking programmes that led to a Y-O-Y doubling of market share in the super premium+ quality segment (i.e. 9% to 18%). He was involved in the new product development in conceptualising, developing and managing pipeline with New Product Development team in Scotland to create 5 one of a kind bottlings for Glenfiddich in celebration of Singapore’s 50th Anniversary. 

He is the recipient of the Event Marketer of the Year 2015, the most prestigious award to be given at the Marketing Event Awards 2015, a South Asia, Southeast Asia and ANZ awards programme recognising excellence in event marketing. He is the recipient of a bronze STEVIE® at the 12th Annual International Business Awards 2015, the world’s premier business awards programme recognising outstanding performance in the workplace worldwide. He is the recipient of further multiple regional marketing awards for the development, incubation and execution of best in class marketing campaigns driving significant demand conversion.