Your Way Home with Hongbin Jeong

Singapore shares opened lower today after Wall Street booked overnight gains on improving sentiment.   The Straits Times Index (STI) was down 0.1 per cent to 3,183.55 points in early trade after 92.4 million securities changed hands in the broader market. In terms of companies to watch today, we have Thomson Medical Group after the Singapore-based healthcare company was reported by Bloomberg to be in advanced talks to purchase a controlling stake in Vietnam’s FV Hospital.  Elsewhere, investors continue to keep their eyes on the US market after a forecast busting jump in jobless claims figures cemented beliefs that Federal Reserve officials would pause interest rate hikes this month.  Also worthy of note is the broad based S&P 500 entering a bull market after rising over 20 per cent from its October low. On Market View, the Drive Time team unpacked the developments with Benjamin Goh, Head of Research and Investor Education, SIAS.

Generation is a global non-profit organisation that has a very unique mission which is to provide underserved individuals with job opportunities that would otherwise be inaccessible.  And since 2014, they have been closing the skills gap and creating career pathways, with a key focus on empowering women, especially mothers, to break barriers and become leaders in their communities. Nadirah Mohamed Rifaat, Generation Singapore’s Patient Service Associate Programme Graduate shares her experience with making a mid life career switch and how Generation was part of it. 

We’re going to talk all about succession and business leadership development today.  While departments such as human resources may be labelled as cost centres, effective talent development and management can reap tangible outcomes for businesses when it comes to the dollars and cents.  According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group in 2015,” talent magnets” – or companies that rated themselves strongest on 20 leadership and talent management capabilities – have increased their revenues 2.2 times faster and profits 1.5 times faster than their peers with weak practices.  On this front, the Singapore Business Federation’s Alliance for Action on Business Leadership has released a report to call out opportunities in the local talent development landscape and put forth recommendations on what key stakeholders can do to help Singaporeans earn their place at the corporate leadership table on a global stage.  But really, what is in it for businesses to train locals for leadership positions? How will local leaders make strategic decisions differently given their understanding of the local market, and how will training local leaders position firms for longer-term growth? On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian spoke with  Frank Koo, Head of Asia - Talent and Learning Solutions at LinkedIn and  Albert Tsui, Executive Director, Advocacy and Policy at the Singapore Business Federation for more. 

A recent scam saw a visitor visited a bubble tea shop and saw a sticker pasted on its glass door, encouraging customers to do an online survey to get a free cup of milk tea. The victim scanned the QR code and downloaded a third-party app onto phone. Scammers later via the app, took over her device and moved $20,000 from her bank account. Hwei Qiang Tan, Fraud Protection Solution Engineer, Group-IB helps us understand QR Code scams better using the bubble tea QR scam case as an example. 

Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has offered himself as a candidate in the upcoming Presidential Election. This will also mean he will stand down from his government positions including Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore on July 7. But with a political heavyweight like Mr Tharman running for the presidential election, will it deter others from contesting now? Dr. Felix Tan, Political Observer, Nanyang Technological University shares his views. 

Research has shown that in 2018 and 2019, it was found that two out of three persons with disabilities, aged between 15 and 65, were unemployed with disability and poor health were the most common reasons for not working. Aaron Yeoh, Director, Fortitude Culina shares with us on how his social enterprise aims to offer fair employment opportunities and career advancement for the visually-impaired. 

Leading Philippine conglomerate Alturas Group has unveiled a bold new vision for development on the island of Bohol with the launch of Panglao Shores, a 50-hectare mixed-use project that marks sustainability, community and local culture as its guiding principles. Hope Uy, Managing Director, South Palms Resort Panglao, Bohol shares more with us on what we can expect from Panglao Shores and how they managed to not lay off anyone during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

From EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell attendance at the Shangri-La Dialogue and UK's PM Rishi Sunak visiting US President Joe Biden in Washington.  Cedomir Nestorovic, Professor of Geopolitics, ESSEC Business School, Asia-Pacific gives us an analysis of those headlines and more. 

India’s retail scene is at the heart of our conversation, with the country being the fifth largest global destination in the retail space and expected to reach US$2 trillion in value by 2032 based on an analysis by the Boston Consulting Group. So how do international brands get a slice of the booming Indian market? Well perhaps the answer lies in licensees who operate and manage the brand in their place.  Our guest for today is Ace Turtle is a tech-native retailer who holds the exclusive licences to brands such as Lee, Wrangler, Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us for India. What is unique about the firm is that it adopts a vertical retail model, where it controls the entire supply chain of brands, from design, manufacturing to distribution, both online and offline.  This has helped it respond to customer needs more efficiently and effectively, and we will find out whether that is the company’s secret sauce to being able to sink its roots in the Indian retail scene.   On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sat down with Ervin Lim, Chief Strategy Officer, Ace Turtle to find out more about the opportunities in the Indian market and how Ace Turtle is positioning itself to seize them. 

There are various methods of app monetization in the mobile gaming industry. Understanding users through efforts, such as analyzing player profiles, allows developers to target these adds to specific demographics. We speak to Valentina Petrova, Head of In-App Partnerships, Asia, Yandex more about this.