Because of bias and ignorance, Western companies in Singapore have failed to build up local leadership and talent in their management

March 22, 2013 Leave a comment

PUBLISHED MARCH 22, 2013

Western firms don’t build up local talent: study

Their competitive edge in Asia may be hurt in long haul if such practices stay

BY CHUANG PECK MINGPRINT |EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

[SINGAPORE] Because of bias and ignorance, Western companies in Singapore have failed to build up local leadership and talent in their management, says a study backed by the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment. And it warns that this may blunt the competitive edge of these multinational corporations in Asia in the long haul. “Our research shows that Singaporean talent brings unique strengths to leadership and organisational success, yet we observe that local employees often do not rise up through organisations to secure leadership positions,” says Kate Verson, a co-author of the study titled “Adopting an Asian lens to talent development – a Singapore study”. “There is a concern that approaches towards talent development may not be truly inclusive and that companies are potentially overlooking key local talent in the pipeline,” she adds.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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