The Front Row Podcast

Inderjit Singh is a former Member of Parliament in Singapore who served under the People's Action Party (PAP) from 1996 to 2015, representing the Ang Mo Kio GRC. A seasoned entrepreneur and technologist, he is known for his candid views on innovation, entrepreneurship, and policymaking. Inderjit played a key role in shaping Singapore’s start-up ecosystem and has remained an influential voice o...

Manoj Pradhan founded the independent macroeconomic research firm Talking Heads Macroeconomics, based in London. The firm specialises in analysing global and emerging market macroeconomic trends and their implications for financial markets. He was previously managing director at Morgan Stanley, where he led the global economics team. In this episode, we talk about why ageing societies will create...

Zhou Bo is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. In his prior life, he was a Senior Colonel in the People's Liberation Army of China. In this episode, we discuss the role China seeks to play on the international stage amidst its intensifying rivalry with the USA. 00:00 Intro 01:20 - China's Multifaceted Identity 04:47 Perceptions of China: Fe...

Bilahari Kausikan is a Singaporean academic and retired diplomat. He was the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the former ambassador to the UN and Russia. Before his retirement, Bilahari was the Chairman of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. In this episode, he unpacks the dilemmas and challenges that Singapore and Southeast Asia face in an...

John Carbrey is a Canadian entrepreneur and venture investor. In 2005, he founded Intrafinity, which built powerful web content management tools used by universities, hospitals, and Fortune 500 companies across North America. In 2008, he launched SharpSchool, a spinoff focused on communication and web platforms for K–12 school districts. It quickly scaled to serve nearly 10% of U.S. schools, deliv...

Steven Okun, is the Founder and CEO of APAC Advisors. He is a recognized expert on U.S. foreign policy, global trade, sustainability, and corporate public affairs across the Asia-Pacific region. With over 25 years of experience spanning government and private sectors, he excels at turning complex policy changes into actionable business strategies. Based in Singapore since 2003, Steven has consiste...

Dr. Vaughn Tan is a strategy consultant, advisor, and researcher. He currently leads Southeast Asia executive education for University College London, where he was part of the founding strategy faculty in the School of Management. He is the author of The Uncertainty Mindset (Columbia Univ. Press, 2020), a book about using uncertainty as a strategic tool for designing high-performing innovation org...

Allen Lau is a self-described 'recovering' CEO, and 3x entrepreneur, an engineer by training, a rocket scientist at heart, and a venture capitalist by profession. He was the CEO and co-founder of Wattpad, the world's largest social storytelling company with 100 million monthly users. A few years ago, the AI-powered company was acquired by Naver for over US$660 million. Allen is now co-founder and...

Magnus Grimeland is the founder and CEO of Antler. Before Antler, Magnus co-founded Zalora, taking the company from zero to Asia’s leading fashion e-commerce platform, and then helped scale Global Fashion Group across 26 markets. His former colleagues have gone on to found leading Southeast Asian startups such as Gojek and Stashaway. He is a Harvard graduate, a former McKinsey partner, and served...

Taimur Baig, PhD, heads global economics as well as macro strategy for interest rate, credit, and currency at DBS Group Research. He also advises the bank on risk management and investment strategy. Dr. Baig has published extensively for both specialists and a general audience, on areas including monetary policy, digital currency, financial technology, climate change, demographics, frontier market...

Wang Gungwu is an internationally renowned historian famed for his scholarship on the history of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, as well as the history and civilisation of China and Southeast Asia. In his illustrious academic career, Wang has held eminent appointments in various universities and organisations around the world. He was a history professor at the University of Malaya (1963–68...

Ong Ye Kung is the Minister for Health. He was elected Member of Parliament for Sembawang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in September 2015, and was re-elected in July 2020 in Sembawang GRC.He had held the positions of Minister for Transport, Minister for Education, Second Minister for Defence and board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He is also the Chairman of the Chinese D...

In today's episode, I speak with Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, a distinguished diplomat and international civil servant who served as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Dr. Heyzer also led the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), transforming it into a powerful advocate for women's rights and empowerment globally. This episode was produced in conjunction with the upcoming Internat...

In my first ever solo audio episode, I thought to share with a book that I have read and re-read every year. I re-read Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going during a recent holiday and thought I should share with you my thoughts on this book (and why you have to read this!) Let me know your thoughts!

Robert Wu is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and thinker. He started working for BigOne Lab, China’s leading data & information service provider, first as an employee/partner, and later, with a buyout, became its CEO. You can find his China-focused Substack here at https://www.baiguan.news/?r=8th0v TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Trailer and Intro 01:32 DeepSeek's Watershed Moment for China's AI 02...

Professor John van Wyhe is a historian of science at the National University of Singapore and the founder and Director of Darwin Online– probably the most comprehensive scholarly website on any historical person. His research has resolved long-standing mysteries and myths such as Darwin’s so-called delay, when Darwin received Wallace’s evolution essay, whether Darwin was the naturalist on the Beag...

Professor Daniel A. Bell is Professor, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He served as Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University (Qingdao) from 2017 to 2022.He specialises in Comparative Political Theories, focusing on Confucianism and Legalism. His books include The Dean of Shandong (2023), Just Hierarch...

Jack Sim is The Founder of the World Toilet Organization. Renowned as "Mr. Toilet," Jack Sim shattered the global stigma surrounding toilets and sanitation by propelling the issue into the international spotlight. After achieving financial independence, he retired from business to dedicate his life to social work. In 1998, he established the Restroom Association of Singapore and 2001 founded the W...

Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. Nir previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Nir co-founded and sold two tech companies since 2003 and was dubbed by The M.I.T. Technology Review as, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.”...

Professor Chua Beng Huat is a Singaporean Sociologist and is an Emeritus Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is also currently a Visiting Fellow at the Singapore Management University. He is the author of two books: 1) Public Subsidy, Private Accumulation: The Political Economy of Singapore's Public Housing (https://amzn.to/3Wf6uhz) 2) Liberalism Disavowed: Communitarianism and S...

Chade-Meng Tan (Meng) is an award-winning engineer, international bestselling author, movie producer and philanthropist. He is Co-founder of Buddhism.net, and Co-chair of One Billion Acts of Peace, which has been nominated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and seven other Nobel Laureates for the Nobel Peace Prize. He co-founded the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI, pronounced “silly”)....

Dr. Brian Wong is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. His research examines the ethics and dynamics of authoritarian regimes and their foreign policies, historical and colonial injustices, and the intersection of geopolitics, political and moral philosophy, and technology. In this episode, we discuss Hong Kong's evolution in the past twenty years, its strategic fun...

Ian Ball is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Accounting and Commercial Law at Victoria University of Wellington, and until 2021 was Chair of the Audit Committee for the financial statements of the New Zealand Government. He was Chief Executive Officer of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) (2002-2013). Earlier, as Chairman of the IFAC Public Sector Committee (now the Internatio...

Professor Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics and Dean at the Lee Kuan Yew School Of Public Policy. His research interests lie in income inequality, economic growth, and international economic relations. His work takes an economic approach to world order - focusing on global power shift and the rise of the east, and alternative models of global power relations. In this episode, we exp...

Professor Keyu Jin is an Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. She specialises in international macroeconomics and the Chinese economy. Her research focuses on global trade imbalances, asset prices and China's economic growth model. She is the author of the best-selling book, The New China Playbook. In this episode, we examine the country's rise as an industrial power...