Guest of Honour

Senior Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam
Ministry of Health & Ministry of Law

Mdm Rahayu Mahzam is the Senior Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Law. She has been a Member of Parliament representing the Jurong GRC since September 2015. Prior to her appointment as Parliamentary Secretary in September 2020, Mdm Rahayu was a lawyer, specialising in family law.

 

Mdm Rahayu is passionate about supporting residents in need and developing opportunities for people to come together to help one another. She has introduced many social programmes in Bukit Batok East, to help families, support students and uplift women.

 

In Parliament, Mdm Rahayu has championed the interests of the special needs’ community, youth development, as well as efforts to empower women and preserve a strong, multi-racial and multi-religious community.

 

As Deputy Chairperson of the REACH Supervisory Panel, Rahayu is closely involved to get feedback from the public on national policies and issues. She also contributes nationally through other committees, including the OnePeople.SG Executive Committee and the National Youth Council. She was one of the co-chairs leading the efforts of the Conversations on Women’s Development and the Singapore Together Alliance for Action to tackle online harms, especially those targeted at women and girls.

HER® Impact Forum 2023 Speakers

Renee Tan
MD
HER® Entrepreneur, Hashtaqs® Asia

Renee Tan is the Founder of HER® Entrepreneur, an inclusive and diverse regional community and  omni-channel media platform which inspires, educates, empowers and also connects the ecosystem  of entrepreneurs, leaders, government and investors across Asia through online content, monthly LearnXNetwork sessions and the yearly summit that was held in Singapore and Malaysia.

 

She is also the Managing Director of Hashtaqs®, specialising in uplifting businesses in brand transformation and omni-channel marketing advisory/implementation. She consulted for companies in tech, IT, logistics, education, retail, MICE, and many others.

 

Her yearly conference gathers C-suites and Founders to discuss, connect and forge potential partnerships.

 

She’s the Chief Producer for the HASH Asia Summit which was recently held that gathers business owners, industry leaders, government and investors across Asia to discuss business strategies to survive, thrive and grow amidst the pandemic.

 

She was a recipient of the Brands For Good Award in 2019 and was featured in The Business Times. She’s also the recipient of the SME Excellence Business Award 2022/2023 and the Aspiring Woman Entrepreneurs 2022/2023.

 

She had been invited to speak in several SME events and events for the MICE industry across the region. Her business and herself was featured in several media platforms such as 938FM, Astro Radio, e27, The Economist, CNA, News5, Marketing in Asia, The Business Times, etc.

 

She is a Singapore certified management consultant by the certifying body, TUV SUD, an ACTA certified trainer, and a degree graduate who holds a Double Major in Psychology and Marketing from the Singapore Management University, and a Diploma in Molecular Biotechnology.

Nichol Ng
CEO & MD
X-Inc
Co-Founder
The Food Bank

Nichol Ng is CEO and Managing Director of X-Inc, the parent of a group of companies that has been in the food business since the 1930s. She oversees about 180 employees, more than 5,000 products, over 4,500 customers, and an annual turnover exceeding S$70 million. Together, the companies bring to life dreams in the food ecosystem – from foodservice and retail to logistics and property.

 

It was her passion for food as well as a desire to deliver service with a heart that drove
Nichol to acquire the family business and rebranding and restructuring the company in
May 2007.

 

Prior to this, she was a Marketing Executive of MediaCorp Radio Pte Ltd where she was part of the team in charge of re-branding all the MediaCorp radio stations, including Class 95, Y.E.S 933,Perfect 10 987 and Gold 90.

 

In 2012, Nichol co-founded The Food Bank Singapore, a charity which re-distributes
excess foods to more than 370 non-profit organisations that reach out to more than
300,000 underprivileged.

 

For her effort in feeding the needy, Nichol was named as one of the 10 honourees in
The Peak magazine’s The Peak Power List 2016 and listed in Forbes Asia’s 2017 Heroes of Philanthropy and Harper’s Bazaar’s The Power List 2018. In 2021, she was the Southeast Asia honouree of the YPO Global Impact Award Regional, which recognises young CEOs for their impact outside of YPO, celebrating CEO impact that is both sustainable and scalable.

 

She has leadership roles and is actively involved in various local and global organisations:
• President of ONE (Singapore)
• President of Young Presidents Organisation – Singapore Chapter
• Board Member of Global Compact Network Singapore
• Asian Representative of Global Call to Action Against Poverty
• Member of International Women’s Forum
• Executive Committee Member of St Nicholas Girls School Alumnae
• Member of the Tan Tock Seng Medifund Board

 

More than just being a successful businesswoman, Nichol is happily married to her partner of 25 years and believes that the best legacy to leave her four children (from ages two to nine) is not money but her values.

Bell Beh
Co-Founder & CEO
BuzzAR

As a lawyer turned entrepreneur, Bell runs BuzzAR, a Singapore-based metaverse startup.

 

Bell graduated with Masters’s degree from UC Berkeley, she studied the intersections
between Law and Technology. She serves as the inaugural INTERPOL Metaverse Group of
Expert.

 

BuzzAR is building Enterprise Solutions to equip businesses in co-creating the Metaverse economies. She is passionate about identity, avatar and how to empower people to be the best version of themselves.
Her education-focused areas were AR/VR, Blockchain, Web3 governance, digital humans, video game laws etc., where she received a direct scholarship as the UC Berkeley APAC scholar.

 

Gaming is the team’s backbone, where they created and published The Cooking Game VR, the Top 6 Meta Oculus Cooking Game VR, endorsed and reported by Meta.
Bell and her team at BuzzAR are onto the next big thing, i.e. building the Enterprise Solution to bring more companies into the metaverse industry.

 

Fun facts about Bell:
1. Bell’s mission is to create a happier, more caring and a secure-by-design Metaverse for all.

2. She started her VR journey (aka the metaverse today) back in 2015, as a VR model. She is the co-creator & featured in The Cooking Game VR as a Cooking model, the game, later on, emerged as the Winner of Facebook Oculus’s The Spot Light Game.

3. She serves at Virtual Reality Augmented Reality Association (VRARA) – as Vice President, the Singapore chapter.

FounderWorld: Startup of the Year 2021, she was also chosen as Founders’ choice founder
(an award selected by selected founders based in Silicon Valley).

INTERPOL: Bell serves as the INTERPOL Metaverse Group Expert to co-create a Secure-By-Design metaverse for all.

Jacqueline Rachelle Yee
CEO
Funderbeam Exchange

Jacqueline has 30 years’ global track record from a dozen countries spanning EMEA-
Americas-APAC. Her work in Special Situations M&A, Capital Markets financial innovation and impact investing has been implemented in public and institutional investment policies in several countries, and Jacqueline has received accolades as Money 20/20 RiseUp Leader and Fintech65 Women Investor.

 

Currently based in Singapore. Jacqueline is CEO of Funderbeam Exchange. Previously Jacqueline worked globally as an investment banker, institutional investor and adviser at BNPP-Fortis, Société Générale, Paladin, Bankers Trust, and E&Y.

 

Jacqueline is Independent Board Director of renewables and deeptech companies
(LSE:MUST, Nasdaq:AHI, ASX:AHI, CSE:WTEQ). In Singapore, she volunteers as Treasurer for KDF; she serves on the SWITCH SLINGSHOT Judges Panel; she is an EnterpriseSG IMPACT+ Ambassador; and she is a mentor for the F10 Accelerator, IoT Tribe Accelerator and ACE.

 

Multi-lingual, Jacqueline graduated summa cum laude holding postgraduate MBA-MIF degree jointly awarded with Distinction (1st) as well as postgraduate credentials in public policy, law, econometrics and IS. She is an ASEAN Scholar and a Squash medallist.

Dr. James Ong
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Artificial Intelligence International Institute (AIII)

Dr. James Ong is an entrepreneur and community builder who has incubated, invested and mentored various technology start-ups and he is actively involved in the AI and tech ecosystem in China and ASEAN. He has more than 30 years of experience in the technology and strategy advisory services for digital transformation in Asia, US and Europe across multiple industry verticals. He is currently the founder and CEO of Origami that provides strategy, technology and investment advisory services for venturing towards Autonomous Enterprise.

James founded Artificial Intelligence International Institute (AIII), a think tank advocating Sustainable AI for Humanity. He is also adjunct professor and mentor-in-residence at SUTD and serves as mentor for NUS, NTU and Lean Launchpad program. He started his career as an AI scientist at leading US MCC research lab on advanced AI Fifth Generation Computer research and received his PhD in Management Information System specializing on AI research for Business Process Automation and MA & BA in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Lim Ee Ling
Co-Founder & Startup Mentor Young Founders Summit Executive Director, Market Launch
500 Global

Ee Ling Lim is the Executive Director of Market Launch at venture capital fund 500 Global, where she oversees the strategic development and implementation of 500’s startup programs in strategic and high potential markets globally, including Egypt, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, and more. In her role, she also advises governments, corporations, and foundations in designing and developing startup ecosystems and innovation programs.Prior to 500 Global, Ee Ling was an Investment Banker with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and CIMB Investment Bank, advising large listed corporations on M&A, equity and debt capital market transactions in Southeast Asia.

 

Ee Ling co-founded a K-12 edutech startup equipping students with digital technology and entrepreneurship education. She is also the co-founder and host of Young Founders Summit, a startup program for high school students in Asia that provides aspiring teenage founders with workshops and mentorship to launch impact-based startups.

Leck Ting Yan
Managing Partner
TRIVE

Ting Yan is Managing Partner at TRIVE. TRIVE is a seed stage VC in Southeast Asia focusing on high growth tech for positive social impact. TRIVE invested into 20 companies since 2015 and were running a pro-bono incubator and advisory prior.

Milena Nikolova
Partner
Aera VC

Milena is Partner at Aera VC, a global venture capital firm investing in breakthrough
technologies that accelerate the world to a more sustainable future. She focuses on radical and rapidly scalable climate solutions. Milena has over 20 years of finance experience, spanning investment banking, wealth management, venture capital investing and startup advisory. She is also an active proponent of gender equality and women empowerment and is Partner at Women on a Mission, a Singapore non-profit.

Maisy Ng
Managing Partner
Delight Capital

Maisy is the Managing Partner of Delight Capital, which invests in Southeast Asia technology startups. Prior to founding Delight Capital, Maisy was Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Add Partners, which was a leading pan-European venture capital firm. Notable exits from the €173M Add One fund include Apertio (acquired by Nokia Siemens), PolarLake (acquired by Bloomberg), Arieso (acquired by JDSU) and Sequans (IPO on NYSE). Before Add Partners, she was with Vertex Management as a Senior Manager & Head of the European office in London.

Antoinette Patterson
CEO & Co-Founder
Safe Space

Antoinette Patterson, is an award winning co-founder of trusted B2B2C digital mental healthcare provider, Safe Space™. With 12 years of startup experience and an avid mental health advocate, Safe Space™ has become an impactful tech business in Singapore and the wider APAC ecosystem.

Chua Kai-Ning
Co-Founder
Insectta

Kai is a passionate ento-entrepreneur who believes insects will power our future. As Co-founder of Insectta, Singapore’s first insect biotechnology company, she marries deep tech innovations together with nature to create technologies that extract valuable chitosan, melanin, and more from insects for applications in the pharmaceutical, organic electronics, personal wellness, and F&B industries. Insectta unlocks a brand new source of materials for these industries, contributing to our circular economy.

Peh Zhan Hao
Co-Founder & CEO
Dive Analytics

Peh Zhan Hao is the co-founder and CEO of Dive Analytics, an EdTech startup that offers a suite of educational software solutions to help K-12 schools achieve student, teacher and operational success.

As a self-taught technical founder, Zhan Hao is responsible for leading and developing the company’s software solutions that are in used by thousands of teachers and students across Southeast Asia and Latin America.

He has over 5 years of experience working with educators across both public and private schools and 8 years of experience in software development.

Nuha Ghouse
Co-Founder & CEO
Tutopiya

Nuha Ghouse is the founder and CEO of Tutopiya, has a background in mathematics and statistics, having earned a BSc (Hons) from Imperial College London.

Prior to founding Tutopiya, Nuha worked as a consultant for KPMG in the UK for over 4 years. In 2017, while teaching students from leading international schools in Singapore. Nuha recognized the need for an effective online tutoring platform, particularly for students who had to travel
long distances for in-person sessions. With the help of Co-Founder Buddhika, who had
experience building a tutorial platform, Tutopiya was born.

The platform not only offers live online tutoring but also includes revision quizzes and resources to support student learning.

Dr. Ng Shengyong
Director of R&D
Ants Innovate

A National Science Scholar with Ph.D. in biological engineering from MIT trained by 2 world-class tissue engineers, S. Bhatia and R. Langer, Dr. Ng specialises in engineering cell-based fat for meat cut production.

He leads the R&D efforts funded by high quality grants to generate intellectual properties and innovative products.