KEYNOTE AND SPOTLIGHT SPEAKERS 2025

Chavalit Frederick Tsao

Chairman
Tsao Pao Chee Group

Connect Singapore Speaker

Founder of Octave Chairman, Council of Wisdom, Family Business Network (FBN) International Founder & Permanent Honorary President, Family Business Network (FBN) Asia Chairman, IMC Pan Asia Alliance Group Former Chairman of Intercargo, International Shipping Associations Chavalit was born in the East and educated in the West. Chavalit joined the 4th generation family business at age 20 and officially took over the group's chairmanship at 37 from his father, Tan Sri Frank Tsao. The alumni of the University of Michigan then went on to transform the IMC Pan Asia Alliance Group into a multi-national conglomerate with diverse business interests. Chavalit cut his teeth early in his entrepreneurship journey by starting a highly profitable palm oil business in Thailand, turning around a bankrupt Thai national shipping line, and listing it successfully. Chavalit, as he is known to his community, is leading the movement to embrace the Dawn of a New Era by elevating our shared consciousness, achieving a new humanity for all. He has consolidated over 45 years of experience as an entrepreneur, exploration of life and journey of self-cultivation into a set of belief systems. One that embraces consciousness as the mother of all capital, the principle for one to be well, all must be well; when all is well, one will be well, and the importance of moving from a shareholder to a stewardship mindset. The 4th Generation Business Leader also founded the Octave Institute, a platform for a new economy, one that is based on happiness and well-being, helping people find personal clarity, harmony and a new consciousness.

Rajeev Peshawaria

CEO
Stewardship Asia Centre

Connect Singapore Speaker

Rejecting platitudes and theoretical models, Rajeev combines 22 years of global Fortune 100 experience with research-based insights to provide unique and practical approaches to personal leadership, ethics, governance, sustainable business growth, and stewardship. A sought-after speaker and consultant, he is the CEO of Stewardship Asia Centre, Singapore, and President of Leadership Energy Consulting, Seattle, WA, USA. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Human Science of Environmental Action. He also sits on the advisory board of Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT), which is under Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education. Author of the Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller Open-Source Leadership (McGraw Hill), Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Simon & Schuster), Sustainable Sustainability (Penguin Random House), co-author of Be the Change (McGraw Hill) and a regular contributor for Forbes, he constantly challenges conventional wisdom on leadership, management, stewardship, sustainability, and corporate governance. He has pioneered innovative practical concepts, including Leadership Energy and Emotional Integrity for personal growth, the Brains-Bones-Nerves model for enterprise leadership, and the Steward Leadership model for driving sustainable business growth in the 21st century. Rajeev is a high-energy, inspirational speaker who provides coaching, consulting and advisory services to corporate and public sector clients globally. He also serves as guest faculty at leading business schools in the US, Europe, and Asia. He has been widely featured in international media such as CNN, Bloomberg TV & Radio, National Public Radio, Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Fast Company, Leader to Leader, American Management Association magazine, Leadership Excellence magazine, The Times of India, The Straits Times, Business Times, and many more. Before joining SAC and starting LEC, he was the CEO of the Iclif Leadership & Governance Centre. He was formerly the Chief Learning Officer of Coca-Cola and Morgan Stanley and has also held senior positions at American Express, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs. At Goldman, Rajeev helped found Pine Street − the firm’s acclaimed leadership academy − and headed Pine Street for Europe and Asia. In his early career, he was a banker and currency trader. In 2014 and 2017, he was named one of the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders for Trustworthy Business by ‘Trust Across America.’

FEATURED SPEAKERS 2025

Devahuti Choudhury

Senior Specialist- Private Finance for SDGs for Asia Pacific
UNDP

Connect Singapore Facilitator

Devahuti is UNDP's Senior Specialist, Private Finance for the SDGs for the Asia-Pacific region. She brings with her over 18 years of experience in operations, management consulting, research, and impact management across development themes such as digital inclusive finance, education, healthcare, agri-finance, and others. An advocate of using unified frameworks like the SDGs to create and communicate impact, Devahuti focuses her time on working with UNDP country office teams, government stakeholders and the private sector to build market intelligence to identify and activate flow of private capital for the SDGs. This work is scaffolded by her work to assist the governments and the private sector in adopting the SDG Impact Standards and impact management practices to help them authenticate their contribution to development agendas for people and the planet. Her priors include the Grameen Foundation where she founded and led their research and M&E advisory in Asia-Pacific and the International Finance Corporation [IFC, World Bank Group] where she managed projects related to responsible finance. Early in her career, Devahuti has also worked with incubator programs to set up microfinance institutions, many of whom have grown to become small banks, serving BoP populations in India. Currently based in Singapore, Devahuti holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Department of Social Work at the University of Delhi and an executive diploma in Social Finance from Saiid Business School, University of Oxford.

Sean Low

CEO & CIO
Golden Vision Capital

Connect Speaker

Golden Vision Capital (Singapore) is a new Single Family Office set up in 2021, focused on making PE, Private Debt and VC direct investments in Asia, leveraging on the family and team’s strong business connections in the region. It also actively invests in leading Funds globally and co-invests alongside them. Its CEO Sean Low, CFA is a veteran in the industry with 27 years of deal sourcing, investment experience, including 17 years in the PE & Infrastructure department of GIC, Singapore's SWF, where he help to oversee some of GIC's PE, Infra, Private Debt & VC fund and direct/co-investments in US, Europe and Asia at different times, and led some of GIC’s landmark deals in each region. He last played a leading role in expanding GIC’s private debt program, and last served as an active member in GIC Credit Business group which help review GIC’s overall credit investment strategy.Sean began his career in Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), after he received the EDB Scholarship in 1993. He served first as Assistant Head of InfoComms & Media group, and then as Director of Chicago Centre. Sean was also formerly the senior advisor to Yangzijiang Financial Holdings, a listed asset management company in Singapore with US$3b NAV active in PE Fund of funds investment and private debt direct investments. He was also board member of CFA Singapore and first chaired its Audit Committee in his first term, and later its Investment Committee in his second term. He was also elected the Treasurer of Singapore's VC & PE Association in 2021. He graduated from Trinity College, University of Cambridge with BA (1st Class Honours), MA and M Eng. (Honours). He completed National Service in Singapore as a commander of a Brigade Reconnaissance Team in the Singapore Army.

OUR 2025 ADVISORY BOARD

This program was created with input from:

•Ayako Kageyama, Head of Innovative Sustainable Finance, Nippon Life Insurance Company
• Bryan Goh, Chief Executive Officer, Tsao Family Office Pte. Ltd.
• Chii Fen Hiu, Centre for Impact Investing and Practices (CIIP)
• Diana Watson, Head of Sustainability and Impact Investment, Tsao Family Office Pte. Ltd.
• Eliza Foo, Director of Impact Investing, Temasek
• Hui Hsing Ma, Co-Founder, Blue7
• Kavitha Menon, Director, Singapore Sustainable Finance Association (SSFA)
• Sook Yee Tai,Chairman, NO. 17 Foundation
• Vikas Arora, Chief Impact Investing Officer, AVPN

GET INSPIRED BY OUR PAST SPEAKERS

INDUSTRY LEADERS & IMPACT PIONEERS

Scilla Elworthy

Peace Builder, Three-time Nobel Prize Nominee

Connect UK Keynote

Dr Scilla Elworthy turns vision into action. Today her full attention is on developing Business Plan for Peace, resulting from her 2017 book: The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World Without War. She has been three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for developing effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policymakers worldwide and their critics, with the Oxford Research Group she founded in 1982. Peace Direct, voted ‘Best New Charity’ in 2005, goes from strength to strength under brilliant young leadership, founded by Scilla in 2002 to fund, promote and learn from local peace-builders in conflict areas. Scilla was adviser to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sir Richard Branson in setting up ‘The Elders’, and was Awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003. She co-founded Rising Women Rising World in 2013, and FemmeQ in 2016 to establish the qualities of feminine intelligence - for men as for women - as essential for building a safer world. Her TED talk on non-violence has been viewed by over 1,400,000 people on TED and YouTube. Her book Pioneering the Possible: awakened leadership for a world that works (North Atlantic Books, 2014) continues to receive critical acclaim from experts in the field. She’s Ambassador for Peace Direct, a Councillor of the World Future Council and patron of Oxford Research Group; adviser to the Syria Campaign and the Institute for Economics and Peace. She advises the leadership of selected international corporations as well as young social entrepreneurs. Scilla is a mother, stepmother, and grandmother and loves messing about in her garden near Oxford in the UK.

Sir Ronald Cohen

Chair,
The Global Steering Group (GSG)

Connect UK Keynote

Sir Ronald Cohen is a pioneering philanthropist, venture capitalist, private equity investor, and social innovator, who is driving forward the global Impact Revolution. For nearly two decades, his ground-breaking initiatives have catalyzed global efforts to drive private capital to serve social and environmental good. He serves as Chairman of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment and The Portland Trust. He is a co-founder of Social Finance UK, USA, and Israel; and co-founder Chair of Bridges Fund Management and Big Society Capital. He chaired the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce (2013-2015), the UK Social Investment Task Force (2000-2010) and the UK’s Commission on Unclaimed Assets (2005-2007). In 2012 he received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Innovation Award for Social Finance. He was a co-founder and Executive Chairman of Apax Partners Worldwide LLP (1972-2005), a global private equity firm. He was a co-founder and Chairman of the British Venture Capital Association and a co-founder of the European Venture Capital Association. He is a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School; a former director of the Harvard Management Company; and formerly a member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers and the University of Oxford Investment Committee. He graduated from Oxford University, where he was President of the Oxford Union. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School to which he was awarded a Henry Fellowship. Sir Ronald was born in Egypt and left as a refugee at the age of 11, when his family came to the UK.

Fran Seegull

President,
U.S. Impact Investing Alliance

Connect New York, USA Keynote Speaker

Fran Seegull is the Executive Director of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance which works to increase awareness of impact investing in the United States, foster deployment of and demand for impact capital across asset classes globally, and partner with stakeholders, including government, to build the impact investing ecosystem. The Alliance is being accelerated by the Ford Foundation and supported by a range of philanthropies and individuals.

Fran was the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director of Investments at ImpactAssets where she headed investment management for The Giving Fund—an impact investing donor advised fund. She also oversaw product development for and managed the Global Sustainable Agriculture and Microfinance Plus Notes.

Prior to joining ImpactAssets, Fran was Managing Director at Funk Ventures, an early-stage impact venture capital and acceleration firm. She also served as Vice President of Business Development at Novica, an online retailer of products made by artisans in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Fran has consulted to National Geographic and NPR West as well as a number of family foundations and offices.

Fran has a BS in Economics from Barnard College at Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She serves on the Investment Committee of Align Impact. Previously, Fran taught a graduate-level course on impact investing at USC’s Marshall School of Business and served on the Investment Committee of the Goldhirsh Foundation and on the G7 Social Impact Investment Task Force Working Group on Asset Allocation. She tweets on impact investing at @franseegull.

Hazel Henderson D.Sc.Hon., FRSA,

Founder, Ethical Markets Media,
Certified B Corporation

United Kingdom Keynote

Hazel Henderson D.Sc.Hon., FRSA, founder of Ethical Markets Media, Certified B Corporation. She is a world-renowned futurist, active environmentalist, syndicated columnist, and author of award-winning Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2006); Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age (2014), and other books in 800 libraries, in 20 languages, including “Planetary Citizenship “co-authored by Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda. Ethical Markets is the publisher of Henderson’s forthcoming textbook, “Mapping the Global Green Transition: 2009-2020“.

She is the producer of the global TV series “Transforming Finance“ and the Ethical Markets TV series. She created in 2004 the EthicMark® Awards for Communications Uplifting the Human Spirit & Society, showcasing positive messages to raise the ethical bar on global advertising and in 2009 the annual Green Transition Scoreboard®.

She launched the EthicMarkGEMS®.com, the first global standard certifying only gems NOT mined from Mother Earth, to phase out unnecessary global gem mining, now chemically- identical gems are cheaply available worldwide and also co-created Ethical Biomimicry Finance®. Henderson served as a cabinet-level science policy advisor to the US Office of Technology Assessment, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Engineering.

Her over 400 articles appear in Harvard Business Review, New York Times, LeMonde Diplomatique, and journals in Japan, Britain, Venezuela, China, France, Australia. Honorary Member of the Club of Rome, Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society for Arts and of The World Academy of Art & Science, Henderson shared the 1996 Global Citizen Award with Argentinian Nobelist Pérez Esquivel. She has many honorary degrees.

Eva Halvarsson

CEO,
AP2

Connect Greater Gothenburg Metropolitan Area, Sweden Keynote

Since 2006, Eva Halvarsson has acted as the CEO of the Second Swedish National Pension Fund -- AP2. She heads up an organization with more than SEK 345 billion (approx. USD 43 billion) under management in virtually every asset class, and one that is active in all parts of the world; AP2 is one of northern Europe's largest pension funds.Ms. Halvarsson began her career as an accountant, progressing to the point that before joining AP2, she spent ten years working for the Swedish Government where she was responsible for the governance and management of the large and extensive portfolio of state owned companies. Eva Halvarsson has had a distinguished and varied leadership career. She took part in the working group that put into effect the Swedish Corporate Governance Code in 2004. She also spent several years, serving on the Swedish Corporate Governance Board. Eva has been a board member of several large companies and has chaired the nomination committees of some of Sweden’s largest listed companies. She recently left after serving for ten years as the Deputy Chairperson of the board of the University of Gothenburg.Presently, she is board member of the UN-PRI (the United Nation´s Principles for Responsible Investments), Vasakronan (the largest real estate company in Sweden), The Gothenburg Award for Sustainable Development and The Royal Swedish Opera. In addition, she serves on the advisory board of the Women Entrepreneur´s Opportunity Facility, the first-ever global finance facility dedicated exclusively to women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises.Eva Halvarsson was born in 1962 and holds an MSc in Business and Economics from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg.