The entire finance world is transitioning from a 'bean counter' role to being a critical business partner. The increase in automation has already allowed finance to move away from being solely a reporting function, to becoming an insight-driven role. In the next 5 to 10 years, the reliance on data will be more important. That's where the finance role, with its deep understanding of numbers, combined with financial technical knowledge, will allow the function to become a decision enabler as well as a decision maker. Some roles will become redundant as more processes fall under a RPA (Recurring Processes Automation) charter. This would also allow finance professionals to think of themselves as business leaders and have an important seat at the table in driving company strategy and results.

It's thrilling to witness first-hand the growth in the financial ecosystem world-wide, especially the fast growth in the South-East Asian region. Finance had long been considered a monotonous, recurring, reporting function. Moving away from this notion is what personally excites me the most. Getting the chance to build teams from scratch, who can leverage on various automation tools from Day 1, allowing them to bring their insights and analytics rather than only financial reports, is a massive value-add to the function and the business as a whole. The finance team has the most visibility on numbers. Growing that team to use data visibility to deliver tangible business results is the best part of being a finance leader.

Auro is the Head of Finance and FP&A at ULA, where he has built the finance and legalfunctions from a Pre-Series A to a Series B+ company. Prior to that, Auro was the Head of Finance, Southeast Asia at Bookmyshow, having joined them after having stints at IBM and EY, where he started his career. Auro specializes in building teams and scaling companies from the ground up, having done the same across Indonesia, Singapore, India and Malaysia. He also leads the legal and compliance functions across these geographies. Apart from being a huge fan of everything finance, Auro is also a sports fanatic and indulges in playing football whenever possible.

At the Carbon Trust, our mission is to accelerate the move to a decarbonised future. We see finance as playing a key part in this. In the next 5/10 years, it is critical to help financial institutions deliver genuinely green outcomes. We envisage that this will become increasingly important to navigate the risks and opportunities of climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy.

The transition to a low carbon future can be realised through different trajectories but unlocking capital is the common ingredient for successful and impactful outcomes. In this rapidly evolving landscape of sustainable finance, I’m excited by the challenge of identifying new possibilities across South East Asia and how I can spearhead partnerships to channel financing where it is most needed.

Xin Yi is Green Finance Lead, South East Asia at the Carbon Trust. She is a passionate and committed advocate for the role of Green Finance in the journey to decarbonise. She advises and performs assurance for a range of Green and Sustainable Finance projects involving bonds and loans. She further provides capacity building related to the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), including managing and delivering a series of climate risks workshops for financial regulators and banks in Taiwan. Her writing has been featured in various local and regional media outlets such as The Business Times, The Straits Times, The Myanmar Times, TODAY, The Nation and The Jakarta Post.

Finance leadership is probably the only role in the company where you not only get to work with great people, but also get to see the whole business and its place in the wider economy. CFOs are uniquely positioned to advise the board, protect investors interests, support managers and employees as a business partner and understand the implications of business decisions on the wider community in which the business operates. Many CFOs are overworked precisely because their position makes them the obvious choice to pick up many other responsibilities. Thankfully there are an increasing number of solutions to make the CFO's life easier, because most of the data we work with is structured and hence, ideal for automation.

Richard is the Group CFO and a Board Member of Nutrition Technologies, a VC backed biotech and agritech company. Richard sets International Valuation Standards (IVS) as a member of the Standards Review Board of the International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC), where he was also a founding member of the Social Value and Glossary subcommittees. He was previously a Big Four Accounting Firm Senior Partner and listed US Consulting Firm Senior Managing Director. After leaving professional services, he helped set up a USD1.5billion international charity addressing plastic waste. Richard also held the post of Honorary Treasurer and Board Member of an international dispute resolution charity for seven years and was an Adjunct Faculty member at Singapore Management University Law School.

I believe Finance will play an increasingly critical role in crafting a company’s long term strategy and bringing discipline to decision making.

What’s exciting to me about leading Finance in an organisation is we play an integral role in virtually every major decision a company makes.

Will Vaya is currently the Chief Financial Officer at Love, Bonito. He oversees finance, strategy, capital formation, accounting, tax, and legal teams. Prior to this, Will spent almost a decade in private equity and investment banking. Most recently, he was at Affinity Equity Partners, where he focused on consumer and healthcare investments within Southeast Asia. Before that, he was at La Mer (Estee Lauder Companies) in Global Marketing. Will completed his MBA at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

To maintain pace and evolve alongside the rapidly changing business environment, businesses need to embrace hybrid finance functions, digitize their processes and focus on high value-added activities. To enable this, finance functions need to be wholeheartedly embedded within the business, which requires those in finance to broaden their responsibilities beyond core finance.

Nothing makes me happier than to be able to influence and encourage changes within a corporation in a meaningful way. I always provide my best support in ensuring we build a strong bedrock for the company to achieve its purpose.

Christine Tan is the current Senior Vice President of Financial Control at Chope. With over 20 years of experience across both start-ups and multi-million dollar corporations, she has been applying her versatile accounting and finance skills in helping bring to life Chope’s ambition to become the next leading dining platform in Asia. Christine deploys her array of skills across Chope’s multifaceted business that serves both merchants and end consumers, ensuring that her expertise in cash flow management, strong financial controls ensures operational efficiency and provides a strong and solid foundation on which Chope can build its growth from. With a proven track record in implementing complex and large-scale Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Christine makes integrating business and financial processes across functions into a centralized ecosystem appear almost easy. A proud mother, Christine graduated from Curtin University with a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting, and currently holds Board positions for Project Consultancy firms.

With the continuous evolution of technologies that make finance professionals more efficient, the function would evolve from predominantly focusing on reporting and operations, to becoming partners of planning, business intelligence, strategy, and business development functions. Finance needs to keep up with the pace at which corporations need to make decisions. Financial data needs to be available to key decision makers as close to real-time as possible

I am excited by the opportunities to look into new solutions that may help team members become more efficient and effective. As with any company, systems and processes in our company were first done manually, but as the company scales in terms of revenues, expenses, employees and transaction velocity, we need solutions that can support our envisioned growth.

Mark is the Chief Financial Officer of Kumu. He led the execution of its US$73m Series C funding round, which closed in November 2021. Before joining Kumu, Mark had more than 13 years of investment banking experience, executing M&A and capital markets transactions across Southeast Asia. Previously, he was the Head of Corporate Finance for ING Bank in the Philippines and Vice President in the Corporate Finance team of Credit Suisse in Singapore. Mark is a CFA charterholder, a member of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Engineering from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2007.

The finance function will no longer be seen as a “back-office function”. It will be an “all-of-office” function, an integral part of everything that an organisation does. This is achieved by having the finance function as an essential member of a multi-disciplinary team of professionals responsible for the running of the organisation. Finance will lead the way in areas and matters where it is in fact the subject matter expert. It is as important as any member from the other functions of the organisation in this multi-disciplinary team. It will change and it must change. It is up to us today to make that change happen.

Samuel is Assurance Director at CLA Global TS Public Accounting Corporation. He is also currently the Chairperson of the Governing Board of World Outreach Singapore. His experience in public accounting at international accounting firms includes litigation support matters and providing assurance services to listed companies, multi-national companies, small-medium enterprises and not-for-profit organisations. His industry expertise includes asset management and private-equity, construction, engineering, food and beverage, energy and resources, hospitality, education, advertising and media.

I hope finance will be able to adapt at congruous pace, balancing the transition between human and machine competencies and closing skills gaps within the workforce. I see a function much more focused on addressing a company’s needs in a faster and more concrete way, by confidently navigating market contexts and changing landscapes. This would allow finance leaders to anticipate market trends and drive the company in their decision making process.

I feel more empowered to act as a strategic business partner, having the chance to contribute actively to the performance of my organization through leveraging on technology and AI. This will change the perspective of our jobs, allowing finance professionals to gain deeper insights and commercial involvement, while breaking the usual bias front-end functions have towards Finance. This change will come hand in hand with renewed and increased employee satisfaction.

Ida is the APAC Regional FP&A Manager at Campari Group. She is a Finance professional with extensive experience as business partner achieved in multiple FMCG companies across geographies. She has enjoyed different positions in cross-functional teams, participating in major transitions and strategic evolutions. She currently focuses on business development and JV initiatives, proven in driving change on transformational projects, collaborating successfully with non-finance stakeholders and external partners to support shaping their vision.

The finance function will be increasingly core to building a strong data culture in organizations. Businesses will move away from overly technical tools that make retrieving, communicating, and understanding data across functions take more time than it should. Those who win will be the ones who successfully facilitate data literacy to empower agile decision making at all levels.

Alvin Ip is the Chief Financial Officer of Aspire. Alvin has been involved in Southeast Asia's startup scene for four years, previously as the CFO of a tech mobility start-up and the CEO of a foodtech startup focused on plant based food. He is also an angel investor in several startups in the region. Prior to that, Alvin spent 12 years in investments at Varde Partners, an US alternative investment firm, M&A transaction service at PwC Singapore and EY France, and external audit at EY France. He graduated from HEC Paris (France) with a Master in Audit, Advisory and Evaluation, and also holds a Master in Aeronautics engineering from ISAE-SUPAERO (France).

To be successful, the finance function of the future will have to become even more agile. It has to demonstrate the ability to leverage real-time predictive analytics to spot trends and opportunities. Most importantly, they must have a clear fundamental understanding of how value is created in their business, allocate resources more dynamically to strengthen the business, and innovate at an increasingly rapid pace. The quality of decision-making is only as good as the quality and speed of information. This starts with a robust management information system. In the design of dashboards and KPIs, we have to always understand that simplicity is always profound.

The CFO is the only party, apart from the CEO, who has a comprehensive vision and understanding of the company’s overall performance. As the only impartial business advisor, I am excited to be able to use the lens of value creation to challenge the effectiveness of the current operating model, re-shape priorities, and drive the execution of various agendas for the business unit to deliver on the Season Goals. The CFO's strategic importance to any organisation becomes even more critical during such VUCA times.

Darren is an accomplished CFO with over 22 years of professional experience. He has held senior global and regional leadership roles across Fintech, Private Equity and International banks, including HSBC, Stanchart, OCBC and DBS. As a strong advocate of Finance Transformation, Darren had implemented several high impact finance change agendas across the companies he worked for, including the first RPA deployment at OCBC. Darren is currently the Managing Director, CFO & COO at Taki.app, a leading global Web 3.0 social network. He is responsible for defining and executing the Finance and Operations strategy to support Asia operations. Prior to joining Taki, Darren was the Chief Performance Officer at Clermont Group - an international Private Equity Group managing a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio.

Finance will evolve into a more analytical role, making active adaptive business decisions that drives marketing, sales, production, inventory processes.

Finance leaders create balance between different branches of  the business. The process teaches me to be able to visualize issues from multiple perspectives.

Andrew Djauhary BA., MMT., FMVA., CMSA., CIMA. CIEM., is the Chief Financial Officer at Duitku. With 30 years of experience in the finance industry, he possesses in-depth knowledge in asset management, corporate finance, banking, capital market, estate management, hedge funds, financial advisory, fintech, and business advisory. He had previously worked in the property, manufacturing, finance, logistic, SRO, and education sectors.

The role of finance professional is moving much closer to business operations than ever before. We will still need to be the "numbers person", but we are also expected to actively participate in and lead organisation decision-making. I think the most exciting thing is being in this rapid transition period from traditional accounting to becoming a more strategic business partner. With the help of COVID-19 and the economic down turn (yes, a bad economy increases the need for finance professionals), this transition is accelerating rapidly.

Jeremy Li is Senior Director Finance, Asia-Pacific & Japan at Veeam Software. A passionate finance professional and business partner, he has spent entire professional life helping organisations to build their foundations and scale business operations. He studied, worked and lived in many countries across APAC, bringing rich experiences in both culture and business practice.

Finance plays a very significant role in today's technology-oriented world. More and more CEO's are relying on their top Finance Executive's insights in terms of business expansion, market expansion, growth strategies, investment opportunities and mergers and acquisitions. As they say, "CFOs are the best CEOs".  Especially now that FinTech is huge globally.

At the moment, Sprout Solutions doesn't have a sitting CFO, which makes me the highest ranking Finance personnel in the company. Because of this, while my experience is mostly within the Controllership function, I am able to provide strategic finance and tax insights to our CEO, which is truly fulfilling. As part of my professional practice, I am also able to consult for other companies outside Sprout, assisting them in terms of financial decisions related to closing big projects for their companies.

Geoffrey A. Ogang, CPA is the Director of Finance of Sprout Solutions Phil. Inc., a Series A-funded HR and Payroll Solutions Ecosystem and the biggest SaaS company in the Philippines. He joined Sprout in August 2019 as the Head of Finance, and advanced as the Director of Finance in October 2021. Geof has more than 12 years of corporate experience including as an external auditor of KPMG Philippines for three years. On the side, Geof has a professional practice as a Finance Consultant to small and medium-sized companies from different industries such as Advertising, BPO, Healthcare, Insurance, Leasing, E-commerce, Logistics, Wellness and Entertainment. He graduated from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines - Manila, and is a Certified Public Accountant registered under the Professional Regulation Commission.

The future of the finance function is much to be excited about. We can expect to see accounting and finance professionals be much closer to the business than ever before. Innovation in the area of transaction processing, such as robotic process automation, and enterprise software that provides greater transparency and visibility to businesses will enable the finance function to become more efficient. Consequently, this would enable finance professionals to spend more time partnering with the business on critical discussions like unit economics, product profitability, and scenario planning.

Veerapat joined Ajaib as its CFO in July 2021. Prior to joining Ajaib, he was an executive at Bangkok Bank's Investment Department where he was responsible for private investments in startups, growth-stage companies, and fund investments. He moved back to Southeast Asia 6 years ago after spending over 10 years in the US. While in the US, he worked as an IT auditor and a business consultant focusing on finance strategy, organization, and technology. Veerapat holds Bachelor's Degrees in Accounting and Decision Sciences & Management Information Systems from George Mason University. He also holds an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is passionate about traveling and technology.

Artificial intelligence and robotics processing automation become more accessible. As the operational burden is gradually eased, Finance professionals’ value would be realized by combining accounting knowledge with other skills, such as project management, data analytics and data visualization. This allows the Finance function to be a better connector within organizations, supporting cross-department collaboration. With the privilege to handle a company's most sensitive data, Finance is in a unique position to marry financial and non-financial data to produce deeper insights of interest to investors and senior management. Such a mission would require constant collaboration with the Data and Finance System functions. The challenge would be to keep up with critical business actions happening at a faster pace. Getting sufficient context would allow Finance to interpret data and maximize the value created. Finance will need to be closely integrated with the business, actively informed or involved in key business decisions, finance or non-finance.

Jasmine Chung is the Regional VP of Finance at Tabsquare, an AI-powered in-restaurant solution provider, overseeing financial analysis, reporting and transformation initiatives of four countries. Prior to that, she led the CFO Office of foodpanda APAC Regional team driving strategic projects such as OKR process, go-to-market strategies and profitability initiatives. Being a thought-leader, she set regional standards and initiated data-driven solutions to resolve persistent organizational issues. As Head of Finance of foodpanda Hong Kong, she guided the FP&A team in producing from scratch investment proposals supported by sound financial models. During her tenure, the company achieved an exponential growth of 17x in 2.5 years through cross-departmental collaboration and strong team work in Finance. She started her career at EY, a Big Four, with audit and management consulting experience.

I dream of a finance function free of data entry and manual work, tedious data management, multiple sources of truths, all requiring human data massaging. I dream of finance professionals of all levels assisted by AI and intuitive analytics helping them focus on the decisions that matter most to the companies they serve, shaping their very future.

What gets me up in the morning is the challenges we face every day as finance professionals and the multifaceted complexity of our roles. Ultimately, I want to be proud of the positive impact we, as a profession can have on the sustainability of our businesses and the world at large.

Davy is currently the Group CFO of upstream data provider UnaBiz, overseeing all aspects of finance, HR, legal, compliance and general administration of the group. He has helped the founders grow the company from inception to over 250 people in 6 countries and US$25M in revenue. From 2009 to 2013, Davy was Head of Operations and Investment Banking Lead at Makara Capital, a Singapore-based boutique investment firm. During his time there, he also oversaw the creation of IP-focused investment fund Makara Asia Development Fund. Davy started his career as Myanmar country head for French banking group Natixis in the late 90’s before joining international wealth management firm Meyado as senior advisor in Singapore and staying there for eight years.

Finance shall always be one of the most critical functions within an organization. In the past, finance functions were typically bean counters or gate keepers, when we record and report numbers to safeguard assets or cash flow. We have now evolved to become business partners. In the next 5 to 10 years, I would imagine that all reporting and recording can be seamlessly automated and integrated to give live numbers, even for SMEs, not just large corporations. The finance functions would switch to validating or helping achieve forecasted numbers, instead of making and controlling budgets.

May is the CFO at Yummy Corp. She is an experienced operational CFO who has experience in different industries such as manufacturing, distribution and retail, across business sectors including automotive, plastic injection, pharmaceutical, watches and F&B. She graduated from the USA and has working experiences in the USA, Malaysia and Indonesia. Beyond typical Finance, Accounting & Tax roles, she has managed Customer Service, IT, and supply chain functions, from Procurement, Logistics & Warehouse, Production to Quality Management & Assurance.

Finance will take significant role as an active business partner. The function would prepare, guide and provide conviction on executing a business’ vision through a rational investment strategy and sustainable financing, with the ultimate goal to increase the business value.

Budiyanto is a capital market investor in Indonesia. He has established his footprint in capital market for 24 years as auditor, management, and shareholder in public companies. Budiyanto is also a public speaker for investment and financial topics. Budiyanto started his career in PwC Indonesia audit services for 11 years, before joining Eagle High Plantations (public listed palm oil company) to spearhead its downstream operation & performance improvement divisions. He was appointed as CFO & Interim COO/CHRO for Taman Safari Indonesia Group (Indonesia's World Class Award-Winning Safari & Wildlife Conservation). He graduated from Tarumanagara University Jakarta, and is a CPA holder.

From a function which was known to be a custodian of the business which ensures controls are in place, Finance will become a business enabler.
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1. Advisor to CEO: Finance will be a single source of truth. All decision making will be driven by numbers provided by Finance.

2. Real time data analytics: Finance will use AI or other tools to provide real time insights. Business will know the outcome of an action in real time, and when I mention real time, I mean live Profit & Loss Statements.

3. Automation: Using SaaS products, automation will be achieved in end-to-end processes. Data entry will become irrelevant and systems would be integrated with each other. Not more than 5% of entries will be processed manually.

4. Data repository: Finance will be a self-service data repository. Any user depending on access will be able to get information instantly. Chat bots will cater to all users, external or internal.

Ashish is currently the CFO at Jiva Indonesia. He has worked across multiple countries across Africa, with over a decade of experience in accounting and financial management within the agriculture and FMCG sectors. Ashish originally joined Olam, one of the world’s leading agricultural companies, in 2011 where he was a Management trainee in Nigeria. Ashish worked across several FMCG companies within and external to Olam, taking on the role of CFO, and ensuring strong and growing performance of each. His career journey has given him in-depth experience in managing digital transformation in emerging markets, in particular in setting up integrated 360-degree finance functions to drive profitability and sustained growth. At Jiva, Ashish’s core mandate has been to setup the core Finance & Data teams to ensure adherence to regulations and data integrity, while driving the organization to transition from Excel-based data capture to automation.

The finance function is shifting from being comprised of "bean counters" to value creation proponents. Its role will become substantially more active, specifically in decisions relative to business growth and strategy.

This is thanks to multiple and invaluable characteristics:
i) granularity (It collects, processes and makes sense of a growing amount of data);
ii) cross-functionality (It interacts with each part of any business. It can therefore produce an invaluable birds eye view);
iii) awareness (It is very well aware of business performance, hence uniquely positioned to drive change and growth);
iv) resourcefulness (It is able to pull the necessary resources to make things happen within pertinent constraints);
v) client-facing (It is the main interface with markets and investors).

These characteristics are being supercharged by rapid and pervasive digitalisation, which will further boost this transformative trend.

Federico currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer, Asia Pacific at EDF Group International Division, responsible for transaction structuring, asset management, financial planning and control. He has experience as a board member across seven portfolio companies. His expertise is in infrastructure investing, construction and asset management, ranging from small-cap to billion-dollar tickets across Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific. Frederico is a CFA charterholder, a PhD holder, and past Visiting Scholar at University of California at Berkeley.

As businesses get more holistically involved in managing risks, the direction of the finance function should eventually focus more on serving the company as a key business partner. Finance will need to increasingly create value through data-driven insights and decision making, participating as a key driving force in business transformation.

I like being part of the journey to transform the finance function into a more agile and commercially engaged partner within the business, as well as to nurture best practices in this function, which other businesses can look to follow.

Xiang Jie Chung is the Vice President Finance at Carro Group, an automotive marketplace unicorn in Asia. A chartered accountant, Xiang Jie covers various key areas within the finance function, including financial reporting, corporate finance, business partnering, transformation, fundraising, M&A and tax planning. Prior to Carro, Xiang Jie has spent 10 years covering the APAC region, including regional finance and transactions at WPP Group, transactions advisory services at EY, and audit and advisory services at KPMG Singapore. He holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and a Master of Professional Accounting from Singapore Management University.

The future finance function would be more focused on consulting than data operation and generation. Finance operations would primarily be digitised, with minimal manual intervention.

What excites me is the opportunities which have been created by disruption in the finance industry due to digitisation. The new challenges which we have to deal with as finance leaders provides us with new learning opportunities.

Jagariti is Director of R Accounting Solutions, which provides a one-stop solution to SMEs for their financial needs. She is a Chartered Accountant (India) and Associate Management Accountant (Australia). She is also the Secretary of the Indian Women's Association (Singapore) and a member of the Expat Professional and Business Women’s Network (EPBWN). She has been invited as a speaker for promoting financial literacy amongst women by various International and government forums like My Voice, Cairnhill WEC Singapore, and ATO Partners. She received the International Achievers Award 2022 from the Indian Achievers Forum.

In today’s environment, the Finance department is no longer just a bean counter. I see Finance being a strategic partner of the business development team in a risk-controlled environment. We are likely to see large scale employment of big data. Business decisions would be largely data driven, and Finance would be the gatekeeper of data, naturally helming the role of crunching data in setting the company's direction. In terms of assurance, the quality of reporting will become more robust, particularly in the area of sustainability reporting. As more investment is focused in the ESG space, the financial reporting regime will need to catch up with the demands of such frameworks. Overall, Finance as a function is no longer a supporting role, but at the forefront of growing businesses.

Redefining, resizing and reshaping.

Redefining the scope of a finance function: from semi-back office to contributing directly in the frontline towards corporate objectives.

Resizing: decreasing the size of the individual team member’s scope of work through automation and API connections across various platforms to simplify reporting.

Reshaping: driving mind set changes. Encouraging business development to engage Finance as early as possible and finance professionals to step out of their comfort zone, to accept new and rewarding challenges

A CFO and a seasoned treasury practitioner with over 20 years experience.

With innovative new technologies like AI, machine learning and accelerated digital transformation, traditional finance roles as we know it will largely be automated. Future finance leaders will be:
(1) Catalysts of change – finance will lead corporate change initiatives. Current retrospective reporting will not be sufficient. With predictive software tools, reporting will be more customer-centric, with forward insights and supporting data.

(2) Business partners – CFOs will spend more time in the business with true cross-functional engagement. They will be in a better position to advise, challenge, influence and provide alternative perspectives to relevant stakeholders.

(3) Compliance & governance drivers – this will become more sophisticated at a time with ambiguous regulations. Especially in newer industries, good governance ensures stakeholders are protected. CFO voices will be vital in this area.

Being a finance leader in a fast changing business world is challenging yet very exciting. Changes bring new expectations and new responsibilities. As a CFO, my role is becoming more business focused. This requires good understanding of the business and the industry, the ability to identify opportunities and threats, to prioritize organizational resources, and most importantly, good communication skills. Another interesting aspect is driving digitalization. The reward is shorter information processing time. Data is now available real time and transparent to all.

The CFO then becomes the custodian of data, deciphering voluminous financial and non-financial data to provide relevant insights that facilitates decision-making and setting strategies.With upgrading of skills in areas like IT, leadership and soft skills, the CFO role is more diversified, dynamic and respectable.

Ingnee is the Managing Director of Axora Advisory, a corporate advisory firm focusing on CFO & Finance outsourcing services and digitalization. Axora works with companies of various sizes in the areas of financial management, advising clients in their funding and expansion journeys. Ingnee began her career in PwC before moving to Oracle Systems. She subsequently worked as APAC CFO in several Nasdaq & ASX listed companies, including Fisher & Paykel, Manugistcs (now JDA) and MicroStrategy. She was instrumental in the start up and scaling of their APAC operations. Graduated from UNSW Australia, Ingnee is a Committee Member and a FCPA Australia. She is also a qualified Practising Management Consultant. Ingnee is an active speaker in various events, sharing her experience on the impact of technology to businesses.

As the financial sector is becoming increasingly complex, the finance function of the future will be required to be more flexible and adaptive. Near real-time reporting, automated and embedded controls, and real-time forecasting will be enabled by emerging technologies.

Randy A. Simbolon is the VP of Finance, Accounting, and Tax of Dekoruma.com, a technology startup that offers furniture and full interior design & build services for an affordable and transparent price. Dekoruma is Indonesia's largest One Stop Solution home and living platform aiming to put a stop to the inefficiencies that have long occurred in the home and living industry by integrating and digitizing the entire value chain of the home and living industry. Before joining Dekoruma in 2018, Randy was the Accounting Manager at Gojek in 2016 during the Unicorn Round, and previously was a Senior Auditor at Deloitte. During his tenure in Dekoruma and Gojek, he helped the companies build their finance team, system, planning, budgeting, and controlling procedures from scratch.

What excites me is the ensuring financial capability of a company to grow strong and firmly in the rapidly changing economic climate of the world.

Cynthia is the Vice President of Business Support at Majoo, Indonesia. She is a Finance, Accounting and Operational enthusiast for startups, SMEs and E-commerce businesses (B2B and B2C) with more than 15 years in end-to-end process of FAO in the retail, manufacturing, hospitality, information, technology industries. She began working as a Finance and Accounting Staff at a retail company in Jakarta in 2001, while continuing her studies at LAP Trisakti University. Her working experiences taught her about retail, consumer health, and jewellery. Most importantly, it introduced her to the digital world we all know today. Her first digital company was in the online games industry. She moved on to an online travel agent, and finally to a technology company.

I see the future of the finance function as taking the lead in service process automation and data analytics. Externally, the finance function will use financial and business data to provide value-added insights, becoming finance partners to the business, driving top line growth and margin improvements. Internally, the finance function will serve as an advocate for the business units, to provide better justification for the allocation of resources.

What excites me is the opportunity to synthesize the abundance of data within the organization and to use these insights to help the business units to drive data-driven business growth.

Kenny is currently VP Finance at Crayon Data, spearheading its entire finance operations and corporate strategy capabilities from scratch, scaling the business in S.E.A. markets by threefold within 2 years. An accomplished Senior Finance Leader, Kenny has over 13 years’ experience in driving financial and operational excellence in diverse industries from info-communications to fintech. He previously held P&L responsibilities of USD20M–USD1B, led multiple successful M&A plans with deal size up to USD200M, and directed strategies for prominent high impact projects. Beyond the core functions of financial reporting, financial modelling, budget forecasting, audit and compliance, as a firm believer that finance can be an enabler of business growth, he has found his true calling in the role of a business partner.

As business models become more complex, companies would need a finance function to steer performance holistically and objectively. Finance will take on extended responsibilities, engaging with new and different stakeholders to drive new business models and outcomes. Each business decision entails making the optimal trade-off of resources between business units and functions. Finance will solve this multidimensional problem of resource allocation holistically by taking into account the interest of multiple stakeholders and company business objectives. Finance career paths will be more diverse and flexible, as finance professionals gain more transferable and business skills. Finance will be a lean and digital driven function with a focus on value creation.

Rajeev is the Chief Financial Officer at UNO Digital Bank, a Singapore-headquartered financial technology company. He focuses on fund raising, investor relations, strategic partnerships, corporate strategy, and group finance. He is a finance professional with 22 years of demonstrated experience, delivering strategic financial leadership across treasury, strategy, corporate finance, financial reporting & analysis, compliance and taxation in multinational companies and start ups. A strong and decisive leader with notable team building acumen, he has the ability to collaborate effectively with executive management to ensure results align with strategic objectives.

I see a finance leader as a leader first, with the finance function coming second. Being a leader is about inspiring, supporting and encouraging your team, and all those you interact with professionally.The scope and influence of being in a leadership role excites me, in how I can help those around me become better versions of themselves as we map out strategies, make tactical decisions and accomplish tasks together. I hope to be a leader who people say has invested into their professional lives in a meaningful way.

Raymond Lim is a finance leader with 20 years’ experience working across different industries, from family businesses to MNCs. In his current role at Lifetrack Medical Systems, Raymond leads the Finance, HR, and Commercial functions, and exemplifies how a finance leader should also be a commercial leader, driving revenue growth and partnerships. He is experienced in establishing effective structures aligning the finance function, operations and processes to business strategies, having led the implementation of cloud solutions and digitalization of accounting & administrative processes. In recent years, Raymond has leveraged his expertise to advise early-stage start-ups and build the financial and administrative foundations of post-funding scale-ups, supporting them in accelerating growth.

There will be greater reliance on tech to further increase the accuracy and productivity of the finance function. More solutions will arise to bridge the gap between finance and business operations. This would in turn allow for greater alignment in terms of KPI and metrics tracking between Finance and the rest of business. With increased technology sophistication, I am expecting to see a reduction in hours over areas such as data compilation, reporting and transactional accounting. More time would then be channeled into greater value adding tasks such as analysis, reviewing of statistics & data, strategy & advisory. Finance professionals will find themselves having to up-skill to keep up, as there will be greater demand for finance professionals with technical knowledge beyond just the spreadsheets and regulations.

Emelia Long is the Financial Controller of Circular Now, a high growth start-up with a vision to accelerate the adoption of the circular economy by radically extending the useful lives of physical products and turning consumption into custodianship. At Circular, Emelia works alongside the CEO in managing financial and management reporting, forecasting models, investors' data room, due diligence and more. Prior to Circular, Emelia spent a significant part of her career at a Big Four accounting firm in Singapore, gaining exposure as a management consultant and audit manager in the Energy & Technology sector. She also founded Blaze Global, a Singapore incorporated accounting consultancy company, focused on working alongside founders and finance leaders to level-up their accounting and finance function.

All routines will be robotised end-to-end. The focus will be on value creation and addition by embracing technology.

What excites me is the opportunity to collaborate with divergent functions in growing the business and cash. I continue to learn from Gen Z, with their unique way of figuring out brilliant solutions to any situation.

Surya Balasubramanian is the CFO at iWise Group and Chairman of the MDIS Audit Committee. He has extensive experience in fintech, blockchain, healthcare, wellness, retail, F&B, services, entertainment, tech software, tech hardware, oil and gas, consumer products, and commodity trading. Surya has led digital transformation with SAP, NetSuite, and NAV implementations and change management interventions. He is an ACRA Singapore registered filing agent and provides outsourced corporate secretarial, accounting, and tax services. Surya has served as MD/CEO/COO/Group CFO/Board member of companies with global footprints in the US, Australia, and Singapore. In addition to being an ACLP certified instructor, he teaches CFA. Surya is proud to be a Singaporean.

In the past 5 years, finance departments have undergone tremendous changes, from being unwilling to accept Cloud-Based Technology to adapting to the new norm. COVID-19 sped up business innovation and stress-tested the concept of 100% remote work. It lead to an average cost reduction of 20% to 30%.The finance function will focus on using data for predictive analysis to aid business strategy decisions. Mundane tasks will become easier to automate as applications start talking to each other via integrations, freeing up staff to focus on the macro environment.

The ability to have strong influence beyond the finance function and drive strategic growth initiatives for my firm and my customers.

Elisha is the founder of EBOS Cloud Accountants. She has more than 20 years of experience in creating ideal business models for various industries.She is extremely knowledgeable in incorporation, cloud accounting, and corporate restructuring. "Incorporate technology today to grow your business today" is what she preaches to business owners who want to build an efficient business model.

I believe many of our current functions in finance will shift from people to machines, most specifically RPA and blockchain. In e-commerce, the industry I belong to, huge efficiency gains are being reaped from automations, integrations, and omnichannel. Although this may seem to jeopardise the job security of many people, the revolution actually gives huge opportunities for finance to further create value. I see finance becoming trail-blazers in value chain transformations, moving from bean counters and resource custodians to strategic business partners of organisations.

Finance is the backbone of every organisation.This is true specifically in recent years, where the world has seen another pandemic, a period of roller-coaster series of events from market dips in 2020, to expansionary economies in 2021, to the recessionary environment this 2022. Finance being an integral part of the business, my team and I were put under the spotlight in spear-heading efforts in both scale and survival. It excites me to see the value that I create in navigating the business through the ups and downs of the market.

Joscel is the Director of Finance at etaily. He is an enabler for build-to-scale start-ups in Asia and Europe, and has led multi-million funding rounds, and M&A deals. He also serves as a volunteer at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA®), where he held various positions in Philippines Chapter including its President in FY21, before taking on the challenge as one of the Southeast Asians on the IMA Global Board of Directors. Joscel is a recipient of the Outstanding Leadership Award from IMA - Philippines Chapter, Young Professional Leadership Experience from IMA®, and Outstanding Alumnus for Professional Service from Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan.

In the next 5-10 years, I see the finance function much more tightly integrated with the businesses of the organisation. Not just at the operational level, but at the managerial and strategic level. Finance professionals can no longer remain purely as a back office or support function but an integral part of the business planning and execution. Hence, there may not be a pure finance function in the future, but one that uses data and analysis holistically to derive insights to manage the operations that delivers on the business.

Clement is currently the Director of Corporate Services for New Life Community Services overseeing Finance, Human Resource, Operations and IT functions. In the more than 25 years of finance and administrative experience in MNCs, Institute of Higher Learning and NGOs, he has a track record of successful business partnering with senior leadership in driving organisational performance and administrative excellence. Clement is a Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants and has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Adelaide.

The speed of transformation will be unprecedented, the future of finance has never been brighter. Cloud-based analytics tools equipped with automated workflows, simulations, allocations, what-if scenarios will take precedence over the existing, traditional "running the business" approach. As cloud becomes the norm for ERP, finance applications and other ancillary micro services will increase rapidly. Decision-making will be powered by Machine Learning, AI, and RPA. Predictive and prescriptive data analysis are the need of the hour and will definitely remain in the years to come. Clean, accurate, high-quality data and reliable business intelligence can't be undermined; finance teams can't rely on scattered, siloed financial data to make informed decisions. With transformation, rebalancing of skills and expertise is warranted. A large proportion of the finance function will consist of data scientists or business analysts. You need to know how to use data, understand its underlying IT systems and gather meaningful results.

I have always been driven by the wide scope and dynamism of the finance profession. While rendering duties across multiple roles, I have been considered a valued business partner and my voice is given importance in key business decisions. These instances amplify the relevance of finance professionals to any organisation, signifying how the finance function will play a prominent role in shaping the growth of industry as a whole. It is my responsibility to instill vision into my team and make sure they work towards the company's long term goals. I play a prominent role in getting my team equipped with new skills and technologies while managing a finance transformation project. Finance leaders collaborate with other senior stakeholders, such as board members, investors and suppliers. The role allows you to communicate complex information effectively and handle challenging questions or situations with ease.

Anurag is a competent Director of Finance at Vela Diagnostics. He is a Chartered Accountant (India) and a CPA (Australia)  with extensive experience encompassing financial planning and analysis, group financial statement preparation and closing, external & internal audit closure, tax matters, internal controls, safeguarding company assets and shareholders’ value. He is an experienced finance transformation director and a global process owner in managing and leveraging ERP best practices, industry standards, methodologies and frameworks to define and execute on the digital transformation vision and strategy. He has served as a strategic consultant to CFOs for Finance & Operations digital transformation, spearheading end-to-end ERP implementation using Agile methodologies.

We are already experiencing the integration of many new value-added features within our financial operations from new fintech players in the market. Notable ones include data automation and expense management platforms. We would expect to have these both features to become more integrated as time progresses. Data would become more abundant and easily available at any time, aiding us in our analytical reviews of the company's financial performance. It goes without saying that there would also be improvements in the financial processes in daily operations such as payments, receipts, and tracking. This would prove highly beneficial to the finance team, allowing more time to provide value-added and meaningful work. I believe we are headed towards a system-oriented financial process, so that people can focus on work that contributes towards the growth and profitability of the company.

Brian Teoh is currently the Regional Finance Lead at Wagely. He has 6 years of industry experience that includes experience gained in a Big 4 Accounting Firm and Spenmo (YCS20).

There have been many changes to the finance industry since the start of my career. Being part of these changes, guiding and leading various businesses towards implementing them and seeing how they are benefiting is inspiring for me. These experiences enabled me to learn and grow, professionally and personally, into a better leader as I progress. I am excited to see how much we can achieve together as we continue embracing and adapting to changes to come in the future.

Ting Zhi is a chartered accountant with 9 years in the financial industry. She began her career in audit, then joined the Finance team of a marketing technology start-up. In 2020, she founded the digital accounting practice Spoon Elves, with the goal of providing customised bookkeeping and accounting solutions to businesses through digitalisation and automation. They have grown to serve over 30 clients to date and are a proud Silver Champion Xero Partner. They aspire to grow their presence: to serve more businesses in the future and create value for them through the professional services they provide.

Many research points towards a couple of transformation themes like digitalization, technology and big data. However, I prefer to look at what will remain constant; what expectations of finance, and particularly FP&A, that will not change. Our business will always want faster reporting, deeper insights and more agile forecasting. These will not change and will be worthwhile investing energy into.

Finance leaders today are both empowered and emboldened to leverage our unique perspective, position and skillsets to play the whole field, from defence to offence. It is exhilarating to see finance transforming from primarily goal-keeping, as is our traditional role, to also goal-assisting and goal-scoring. I often see myself as a coach and champion of change; taking great pride and joy from seeing my team continuously growing and improving.

Benjamin is a proven strategic finance leader and business partner with 17 years of global experience across the full spectrum of FP&A activities, financial governance and commercial co-piloting. His unique thought leadership is a product of a career that spans multiple industries including telecommunication, technology and retail; from agile start-up environments to complex MNC matrix organisations. Prior to his current role as APAC Finance Director for ECCO Shoes, Ben held a variety of senior finance and commercial roles with Crocs, Grab, Singtel, Maxis and IBM. Ben holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Manchester, and is an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK.

The future of finance function definitely lies in the use of big data. This is to mitigate operational risk and combat fraud while significantly alleviating information asymmetry problems and achieving regulatory and compliance objectives. This shall also lead to minimizing human interference in tasks that can be automated. Senior executives and human resources must lead the change and encourage employees to develop the competencies and mindset that will prepare them for finance transformation and the digital world. By leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, analytics, and other emerging technologies, businesses can make better decisions and scale faster.

Over the last decade, with the advent of technology, the finance function has evolved drastically, from traditional accounting, tax management and FP&A to predictive analysis, active fundraising and building scalable operational systems to match business hyper-growth. Senior teams are getting nimble. That means my role as a finance leader requires me to look closely into other functions that are outside my comfort zone. If you're not thinking at least a year ahead, nobody else is, and that's what keeps me excited and going.

Gagan is the CEO of WOWS, an investor matching platform that assists startups across South-East Asia in their primary fundraising and secondary transactions. Prior to WOWS, he built a B2B tech logistics platform, Deliveree, in the capacity of Group CFO, raising over US$120 million for the company in equity and debt financing. Apart from being an operator, Gagan also managed a VC fund of US$40m and was closely involved in 6-7 deals. In his free time, he enjoys making Youtube videos, playing poker and travelling.

Software and tools have provided easier paths to gather, manage, and visualize financial data. However, only having access to those is no longer enough. We'll need to be able to create actionable insights and take the right step at the right time. On top of it, we are currently in a downturn, which makes finance function criticality at its highest. It's not only about counting what's there, but driving business decisions on what's going to be the growth levers of the near future.

Problem-solving with real, actionable numbers and financial data.

Alex Jatra is the Chief Financial Officer at Ayoconnect, Southeast Asia’s leading open finance API platform. Founded in 2016, Ayoconnect is an Open Finance platform building full stack solutions with the mission to power leading companies of today and tech unicorns of tomorrow. Alex joined Ayoconnect in 2020 to lead its finance, legal, compliance, and risk functions. He oversees the overall growth strategy for the business in partnership with the founders. Prior to joining Ayoconnect, Alex held CFO roles at a big data analytics and an agritech company. He started his career in private equity in San Francisco, California, USA, and then continued his experience in venture capital in Jakarta, Indonesia.

I am excited that the role of finance leader has evolved from number crunching to business partnering, navigating a complex digital landscape to help clients free up their time so that they can focus on more important matters, like growing their business. Technology has certainly changed the way we work. With digital tools like cloud-based software and communication platforms, one can work from anywhere in the world. By leveraging on technology, we can help businesses become more agile and adaptable by converting data into insights, enabling business owners to make informed decisions in a timely manner.

June is a Portfolio CFO with Stepping Stone, passionate about helping SMEs clients free up their time so that they can focus on growing their business. She has more than 25 years of experience in both MNCs and SMEs across various industries, including fintech, digital health, manufacturing, retail, services, hospitality, engineering and others. She is skilled in leadership, business partnering, mentorship, as well as stakeholder and team management. June is an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Fellow and member of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants. She also volunteers as a member of the Singapore National Paralympic Council Audit Committee.

Lines between the CFO, CIO, CTO and COO functions will continue to blur. This will create massive opportunities for the finance function to move up the value chain. From transaction processing to decision support; understanding numbers to driving insights; reporting results to anticipating performance; implementing controls to proactively managing risks; and from forecasting numbers to scenario planning. Beside mainstream finance and accounting skills, programming, data visualization, analytics, statistics, and ESG accounting will become essential skills of the finance function.

Pankaj Kabra works as Senior Vice President Finance at Traveloka. His role covers strategizing, defining, influencing and implementing actions to drive growth, increase margins, maximize cash-flow, automate processes and develop high caliber teams. Pankaj’s career has covered FP&A, M&A, Controllership, Accounting, Pricing, Consulting and Commercial management across big 4, technology and high growth e-commerce companies. He is a Chartered Accountant from the Indian Institute and a Certified Public Accountant from the American Institute. Running, playing badminton, volunteering, spending time with his family and honing his investment skills fuel his energy and balance.

Finance leaders must be willing to embrace digital tools, innovation and cultural change.Finance apps will become more prevalent, leading to redistribution of work and tasks in the finance function. There is a need to optimize your tech stack to support remote workers and upsill your existing workforce to be more productive with digital solutions.Finance will be expected to create value and drive digital transformation in the organization. This will require new skills and levels of understanding of both financial and non-financial data and insights.The demand for real-time reports will increase as a result of automated data aggregation and increasing business intelligence. Decision-makers will ask for faster turnaround time to their questions. They want answers to be accurate, timely, and reliable.Finance must push for relevance and influence in the boardroom. Especially in relation to sustainable business growth, budget approvals and optimizing cost and capital.

The many people who have inspired and empowered me to lead keep me moving forward.Skills alone cannot help someone to excel, thrive and transform. You get to where you aspire to be with the help and empowerment of people around you.It excites me to drive positive change and champion digital transformation and innovation. I’m inspired to create an environment of cost and cash consciousness with the belief that everyone contributes to the bottom line. I drive value with the following considerations:(1) Focus on culture, not solely on optimizing processes, growing top line and cost efficiencies(2) Understand broader technology trends and how to translate them into core businesses(3) Continuously invest in learning and people developmentTo exercise leadership in Finance should be on the premise of nurturing respect, kindness and humility. This perspective will drive and sustain a highly motivated and high performance team. It provides me greater excitement to build and empower the next generation of leaders.

Raymund is the Regional Chief Financial Officer & Head of Tax, Compliance and Procurement at airasia. He was awarded “FinTech CFO of the Year” at the Global CFO Excellence Awards 2019 and was recognised on LinkedIn's Philippines’ Top 30 Leaders List 2022.A seasoned senior finance executive with an Executive MBA degree (2nd highest in AGSB History at 3.96/4.00) & Diploma in Financial Technology from Said Business School, Oxford University, he has over 18 years of business finance and business management experience, both global & domestic.He previously held various finance operations management, investment management, enterprise wide risk management, corporate governance, business finance & controllership positions in large & diverse corporations spanning various industries such as FMCGs, QSRs, media & advertising, service industries and more.

Telling compelling stories using numbers to help the business navigate through this ever changing world.

Eileen is the VP of Finance at LingoAce, a leading Global Edutech. Being the custodian of performance, she spear headed initiatives to enable data driven decisions, smart cash management and drive business viability unlocking greater company value. Prior to that, Eileen spent 7 years in Microsoft and Twitch (a subsidiary of Amazon). She held International Finance Leadership positions managing portfolios exceeding $6b across 100+ countries, and led real time finance as well as predictive analytics projects. Earlier in her career, she was a Regional IA Manager in DHL and Risk Advisor in KPMG. Eileen is passionate about mentoring. She guides finance students from local universities and young professionals to better navigate the evolving tech world. Eileen graduated from Nanyang Technological University with a degree in Accountancy. She is a Charted Accountant (Singapore) and Certified Internal Auditor.

In 5-10 years time, the finance function should be capable of going beyond its finance designation. This will include implementing a hybrid finance function, where finance team could co-exist with the digital ecosystem seamlessly. For instance, robotic scanning for frauds, misstatement, and capital shortfalls that provides stakeholders a realtime report, would give finance teams a huge leverage in their work-efficiency.  Finance team would then take on a sustainable business approach, where finance skills are implemented towards the business, unlike the traditional practice.

Jeffry is a chartered Accountant, Certified Tax Consultant, Experienced CFO & Finance Controller with over 14+ years of experience in Internal Audit, Taxation, Corp. Finance, Accounting, Forensic Audit. Proven track record of successes & passionate about creating & delivering value to entities.

Finance over the recent years has become a key function driving enterprise-level performance of an organisation. The future of finance will combine the intellectual expertise of finance professionals with technological advancement. Implementing the right automated tools into business processes and maintaining one source of truth will increase efficiency and productivity, helping business owners to make informed decisions. The future of finance is ever evolving. We have already seen the transformation happening manifold in the past few years. Digital finance will be the new norm.

What excites me about my role as a finance leader is contributing towards the financial health of my organisation, providing strategic insights which can help them achieve growth targets and accomplish the mission behind the vision. Finance is ever-evolving and I am excited to see myself as a successful leader in this challenging and fast-paced industry where technological advancements will help shape the future of finance professionals.

Shivani Jhaveri is the financial controller at Blackpanda. She has extensive experience in finance operations, accounting, budgeting & forecasting and management accounting with organisations relating to technology, cybersecurity, SaaS-based businesses and professional services. She has enjoyed success driving all-new finance processes in the organisation like expense management and implementing automated tools for better efficiency and productivity with an outstanding track record in setting up finance teams across multiple regions. Over the course of her career, she has developed professional experience across the UAE, Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore markets and is well versed with local statutory requirements in these regions.

The modern finance leader needs to be multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional. That means to be able to be strategic, be operationally-sound, be digitally-savvy, and be good with people, so as to manage a multi-generational workforce. He or she will need to have the relevant breadth of experiences and a good range of skillsets to wear different hats at different times. This is what excites me about my role as a CFO.

Shilong is the CFO and Chief Risk Officer (CRO) at EM Services, a JV between Keppel Land and the Housing & Development Board which offers an integrated suite of real estate management solutions. He comes from a management consulting, financial services and technology industry background, having previously served in regional leadership roles (Head of Strategy, Head of Customer Discovery & Innovation, Senior Vice President, COO, Director level) in MNCs, financial institutions and consulting firms. Shilong has been appointed to the Executive Committee in the NTU NBS Alumni Association and is a venture building mentor at NTU's innovation and entrepreneurship startup launchpad. He also does adjunct teaching at Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS).

I’m passionate about my work and enjoy various aspects of my job, especially when working with various stakeholders to understand their business objectives, provide financial insights and achieve objectives together. The world is changing rapidly, and cross-functional teams who work well together are in a strong position to navigate these changes.

James is the VP of Finance EMEA and APAC at IAS. He is responsible for the financial strategy and management of IAS’s EMEA and APAC finances. Currently, he leads financial planning and analysis, accounting and treasury. James has more than 17 years of financial and operations experience at global tech, media and professional services companies. Previously, he spent three years at Young & Rubicam Group as Regional Financial Controller. He also held leadership positions at Jungle Ventures, eBay and PricewaterhouseCoopers. James holds 2 Bachelor's degrees in Accounting and Business Management from Singapore Management University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.