Professor Neo Boon Siong is the Director of the Asia Competitiveness Institute in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in the National University of Singapore. He was formerly the Dean of the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Prof Neo is a Certified Public Accountant (Singapore) and holds a Bachelor of Accountancy (Honours) from the National University of Singapore, and MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Prior to joining the University, he held professional and management positions in Hewlett-Packard and Shell Petroleum companies in Singapore.

Prof Neo is a leading expert in business strategy, process management and organizational change. He has advised many major corporations, facilitated strategy workshops, and led management development programs for global enterprises, including IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Jurong Town Corporation, and Ministries of Defence, Finance, Home Affairs, and Labour.

His business strategy and IT management research have been published in many international journals. His publications include the book, Exploiting IT for Business Competitiveness (Addison-Wesley, 1996) which was a recipient of the “Highly Commended Award” in the 1996 Singapore Book Awards; a paper on IT Infrastructure that won the “Best Paper Award” at the 17th International Conference on Information Systems in 1996 in the USA, which is the most prestigious research conference in Information Systems in the world; and more recently, the book, Dynamic Governance: Embedding Culture, Capabilities and Change (World Scientific, 2007).

Mrs Pek Siok Ching joined the Singapore Administrative Service in 1975 and has served in several Ministries. She has held various senior appointments at the Ministry of Education, including Director of the then Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore and the Institute of East Asian Philosophies. She was also Deputy Secretary at the Ministries of Finance and Manpower; as well as the Public Service Division where she was concurrently Secretary of the Public Service Commission. Her last position was with the Nanyang Technological University as its Chief Planning Officer and Registrar. Through her different postings, Mrs Pek has developed extensive expertise in planning, policy formulation and government administration.

Mrs Pek was educated at the University of Singapore where she graduated with First Class Honours in Chemistry. She also has a Masters in Management Science from Imperial College, University of London.

Lawrence Wong is currently the Chief Executive (Designate) at the Energy Market Authority. Before being appointed to his present post, Mr Wong was the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister from 2005 to 2008. Prior to that, Mr Wong was the Director of Healthcare Finance at the Ministry of Health, where he was responsible for implementing the reforms to MediShield, the national health insurance scheme.

From 2002 to 2003, Mr Wong was Deputy Director of Budget and Head of Economic Programmes at the Ministry of Finance. He was part of the secretariat team supporting the Economic Review Committee, which proposed strategies to restructure and upgrade the economy. He also led the team overseeing the formulation and implementation of the Economic Restructuring Shares (ERS) scheme, which the Government had introduced to help Singaporeans cope with the impact of restructuring.

Mr Wong joined the Administrative Service in 2002. He was previously a Government economist, in charge of budget policies and fiscal planning at the Ministry of Finance. Before his stint in Finance, he was involved in economic research and forecasting at the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Mr Wong has a Masters in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University, where he was a Mason Fellow. He also obtained undergraduate and masters degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

Donald Low has served in various government ministries, including five years in the Ministry of Finance, where he last served as the Director of fiscal policy. He was also previously the Director of the Strategic Policy Office in the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Director of the Institute of Policy Development at the Civil Service College. His areas of research at the College include economics in public policy, fiscal management, governance and public policy development.

Donald graduated with a first class honors degree from Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1995. He also received a Masters in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in 2006.