2026 Asia HR Conference
Work: Better
Driving exponential performance
A Mercer Asia flagship event
September 1-2, 2026 | Singapore
Keynote Speakers
Ng Tian Beng is the President and Group Chief Executive Officer of Certis, where he leads the organization in advancing its Ops-Tech transformation and driving growth across key markets. He brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in the technology sector, with deep expertise in strategic business development, innovation, and stakeholder engagement across Asia Pacific.
Prior to Certis, Tian Beng was Senior Vice President and General Manager for Dell Technologies Asia Pacific and Japan, where he oversaw a multi-billion-dollar channel business and led strategic partnerships across the region. He has held senior leadership roles across South Asia, Korea, Singapore and Brunei, and led Dell’s Global Accounts business in Asia Pacific and Japan. Tian Beng has also contributed to national initiatives in Singapore, through roles he held in the Singapore Manufacturing Federation, Singapore IT Federation, and Workplace Safety and Health Council.
Tian Beng holds a bachelor’s degree in science from Santa Clara University, California, and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Western Australia.
Jepson is an AI founder, technical strategist, inventor, and enterprise AI speaker with nearly two decades of applied machine-learning experience across semiconductors, quant finance, HR analytics (HireVue), AutoML, and generative AI. He has 14+ patent references from prior AI product work and has built machine-learning systems across speech, video, image, text, and enterprise automation.
Jepson co-founded Zeff.ai, a deep-learning platform for multimodal enterprise AI, which was acquired by DataRobot in 2020. He later served as Chief AI Evangelist at DataRobot and Chief AI Strategist at Dataiku, helping executive and technical audiences adopt AI at scale. Jepson is currently Co-Founder and CEO/CTO of VEOX Inc., where he is building a generative AI platform focused on automating AI research and replacing human-invented optimizers and machine-learning workflows with generative algorithms.
Jaclyn is a seasoned HR professional with nearly 30 years of experience spanning the full spectrum of Human Resources across Singapore and the region. She has led major strategic transformations and large-scale organizational change projects at local, regional, and national levels.
As Chief Human Resources Officer of Certis Group, she steers the global HR strategy for 25,000 employees worldwide, fostering a high-performance culture built on diversity, inclusion, and continuous learning.
Previously, as CHRO of the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Jaclyn partnered with MIT, the board, and the Ministry of Education to build the fourth public university from the ground up. In recognition of her contributions, she was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver), the Covid Resilience Medal (2023), the SkillsFuture Fellowship (2024), and was named one of Visier's Top 50 Global HR Leaders in 2026.
A published author of two books on organizational culture and people analytics, Jaclyn is also an Adjunct Faculty at SUTD and has spoken at over 300 local and international conferences. She has trained more than 5,000 HR professionals in HR Analytics, Change Management, and digital transformation.
Jaclyn holds a bachelor’s degree in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics from Brandon University, Canada, a master’s degree in Human Resource Management from Rutgers University, a master’s in business from Singapore Management University, and a PhD in information systems from the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
Guest Speaker
Patrick Baltes joined LinkedIn in 2021 and is the Compensation & Benefits Lead for Australia and India, as well as APAC Compensation Lead for the Technology and Product businesses.
He has held compensation and total rewards leadership roles across New York and Singapore with LinkedIn, American Express, Citi and United Overseas Bank (UOB). His experience spans supporting technology, operations and corporate functions across APAC and EMEA, with expertise in compensation strategy, rewards and workforce planning.
Patrick holds a master’s in organisational psychology from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Boston University.
Ferris Chan is a Director at Vistra, where he advises multinational corporations, private equity firms and high-growth businesses on international expansion and cross-border operating strategies.
With more than 18 years of experience spanning finance, corporate advisory, governance and business leadership, Ferris works with C-suite executives and boards to help organisations navigate the complexities of global growth. His expertise includes market entry, operating model design, workforce solutions, corporate structuring, finance transformation and governance, helping businesses scale with confidence while balancing commercial ambition with operational resilience.
Prior to joining Vistra, Ferris served as Chief Financial Officer of an SGX-listed company and held senior leadership roles within global professional services firms. A Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) and a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA), he brings both an operator's perspective and an advisor's insight to the challenges of international expansion.
Ferris is a regular speaker at regional business forums and industry conferences, where he shares practical insights on global expansion, governance and operating models, including perspectives from Vistra's Global Expansion Friction Index on the opportunities and operational realities of expanding across Asia Pacific.
Charlotte is Regional Vice President for EMEA and APAC at Pebl, where she leads go-to-market strategy and growth across international markets. With more than 10 years of leadership experience, she has built and scaled high-performing teams and guided organizations through complex transformation.
She works with global organizations on international growth strategy, including entering new markets, building competitive advantage and optimizing complex entity footprints. She is a strong advocate for Employer of Record (EOR) solutions as a strategic capability, helping organizations move faster, stay flexible and make informed decisions about where and how they grow.
Charlotte also brings a practical, people-focused approach to building high-performing teams through periods of growth and change.
With over 20 years of HR leadership experience, Ruth has partnered with executive teams across financial services, technology and property technology, from start-ups to multinational organisations. Before joining PropertyGuru, she was Global HR Director for Research, Design & Development, Operations and Quality at Dyson, supporting teams across the UK and Southeast Asia. There, she led major organisational transformation initiatives, including project-based organisation design, the establishment of strategic software hubs and the development of global talent pipelines.
Earlier in her career, Ruth held HR roles at Macquarie Group, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, and practised as an employment lawyer.
Ruth holds a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Leeds, a postgraduate diploma in law from Leeds Metropolitan University and a legal practice course qualification.
Abhinav is Head of AI Process Innovation at Grab, where he leads a team driving an enterprise-wide AI transformation across Southeast Asia. His team is redesigning how business functions operate through AI, automation and new ways of working.
With more than 18 years of experience across HR, technology, business services and outsourcing, Abhi has built high-performing teams and delivered transformation across organizations including Prudential, Google, Coinbase and Novartis. At Prudential, he designed and built the HR Operating Engine from the ground up, spanning operations, technology, analytics, AI, transformation, strategy, risk and governance.
Abhi brings together expertise in people, process and technology, combining a systems-focused approach with a strong focus on employee experience. He holds a B.Tech and M.Tech from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.
Tonny is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ Singapore office and a member of Heidrick Consulting. He advises CEOs, boards, and senior leadership teams on organizational transformation, with a focus on strategic leadership development, culture, organizational design, top team acceleration, coaching, operating models, job and career design, and strategic workforce planning.
He brings more than 20 years of strategy and organization consulting experience across APAC, working with governments, government-linked companies, fast-growth businesses, private equity and venture capital portfolio companies, and large conglomerates. Before joining Heidrick & Struggles, Tonny co-led the APAC organizational strategy practice at another leading search firm and led its Singapore public sector practice. He was also founding president of KF Academy, which launched Singapore’s national Human Capital Development programme. Earlier in his career, Tonny led public sector and SOE work for Roland Berger in Southeast Asia and served in the Singapore government, including roles in manpower policy, foreign affairs, and ESG/sustainability work with Singapore’s UN mission.
Phanish is the Roland Berger Chair Professor of Strategy & Organization Design at INSEAD. His research in organization science focuses on how organizations work, and how we can make them work better. His current projects focus on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies shape how we organize.
Phanish leads the Organizations and Algorithms research program (supported by the Desmarais Fund) at INSEAD which has trained several doctoral students who are themselves now faculty at leading business schools, and which involves collaborators from around the world. His research has won him several honours, including the Oskar Morgenstern Medal for distinguished academic work in the area of Business, Economics and Statistics, and the Sumantra Ghoshal Award for Rigour and Relevance in Management Research. He is also co-founder of Ximerai, an AI start-up that is developing new ways to integrate human and machine intelligence to solve strategy and organization design problems, and the author of several critically acclaimed books.
Phanish holds a PhD from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Susheel Sabnani leads Total Rewards for Zurich Insurance Group across Asia-Pacific, advising senior executives and business leaders on reward strategy, governance, organizational transformation, and talent-related investment decisions.
With more than two decades of experience spanning financial services, insurance, technology, and the public sector, he has led complex regional initiatives involving M&A, workforce transformation, executive remuneration, talent strategy, and HR modernization. His career has included leadership roles with Zurich Insurance Group, Bank of Singapore, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan, A*STAR, and DSTA.
Known for combining commercial pragmatism with disciplined governance, Susheel works at the intersection of people, performance, and enterprise value, helping organizations navigate growth, integration, and transformation in an increasingly dynamic business environment.
Saakshi is an HR professional with more than 20 years of experience across the FMCG and technology sectors, with expertise spanning HR business partnership, organizational development, talent management, mergers and acquisitions, digital transformation and change management.
As International Health & Risk Benefits Leader at Microsoft, she helps advance the company’s commitment to equitable, sustainable and globally consistent employee benefits. She supports the design and governance of benefit frameworks that strengthen risk and compliance outcomes while delivering meaningful employee experiences at scale.
Saakshi is a certified coach and is active in internal forums, including Women at Microsoft. She also serves as an HR sponsor for the Disability Employee Resource Group.
Sng Ren Yeong is Chief Executive Officer of Temus, where he leads the firm's mission to accelerate digital and AI transformation for enterprises and the public sector. Ren Yeong has also held leadership roles at Temasek for over more than a decade. He joined Temasek's Portfolio Development team in 2012, partnering major portfolio companies on strategic positioning and value creation for sustainable long-term growth. Later, he took on the role of Managing Director, Artificial Intelligence Strategy & Solutions, where he drove Temasek's AI venture-building efforts, investments and portfolio value uplift through AI adoption.
Before Temasek, Ren Yeong was a pioneer member of a local hedge fund start-up focused on Asian equities for about four years. He began his career with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), having been awarded the SAF Merit Scholarship. He continues to serve concurrently as Board Director of minden.ai, Aicadium, Resaro, and Mediacorp.
Ren Yeong holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the LSE and a master’s degree in international and development economics from Yale University.
Priya Tiruviti is Director of Compensation and Benefits for Asia-Pacific at Meta, where she leads the region’s total rewards strategy across compensation, benefits, and employee well-being. In this role, she partners with business and HR leaders to design and deliver market-competitive, sustainable rewards programs for Meta’s people across a diverse and fast-moving set of APAC markets.
Her work spans compensation strategy and market positioning, benefits design and benchmarking, and retirement and insurance program management, along with the vendor partnerships that bring these programs to life at scale. Priya is especially focused on how the rewards function itself must evolve — streamlining tools and processes, sharpening data-driven decision-making, and preparing teams for an increasingly AI-native way of working.
A practical, people-centered leader, Priya is passionate about reward programs that balance business performance with employee experience.
Brian Weng is currently the Chief Technology Officer at BIPO. Brian works closely with the CEO to lead BIPO’s global engineering and product organization, overseeing teams across Singapore, Indonesia, China, Malaysia, India, Thailand, and other regions. He is responsible for shaping the company’s technology and product roadmap, with a strong focus on building AI-powered solutions for clients and driving internal efficiency through automation and intelligent systems.
Before joining BIPO, Brian served as Head of Engineering for APAC at Stripe, where he built and scaled engineering teams across Singapore, India, and Japan, growing the regional team to more than 70 engineers. Prior to that, he spent nearly a decade at Facebook in San Francisco, where he led multiple Ads Growth and AI/ML teams, including the development of core growth systems and large-scale recommendation engines such as People You May Know.
Brian holds a BS from National Taiwan University and PhD in signal processing and applied math from Caltech, where he received the 2012 Best PhD Thesis Award.
Sophie Xue is the Founder of Oasis River Advisory, a boutique consulting firm specializing in organization, leadership, and people strategy across Asia. Guided by the philosophy “From complexity to clarity. From alignment to momentum,” Oasis River helps leaders navigate ambiguity, sharpen strategic choices, align their organizations, and build momentum for transformation.
Before founding Oasis River, Sophie spent more than 17 years leading HR and organizational transformation at some of Asia’s largest technology companies, including Alibaba Group, Lazada — where as Chief People Officer she led the people agenda for nearly 10,000 employees across seven countries and more than 50 nationalities through multiple stages of integration and business transformation — and GoTo Group.
Sophie is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public administration and management at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She holds a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from Beijing Jiaotong University.
Speakers
Andrew is a Partner at Mercer based in Singapore, where he advises clients across Asia on talent strategy, careers and assessment solutions. With more than 30 years of consulting experience, he has worked with public and private sector organizations across markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Japan and Indonesia.
His expertise spans compensation and rewards, job architecture, organizational and culture change, leadership and talent development, top team effectiveness and broader business transformation. Before joining Mercer, Andrew held senior leadership roles at Kincentric, Korn Ferry and Hay Group, and earlier worked at Towers Perrin, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Maxis Telecommunications.
Andrew holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Malaya. He is also an active volunteer and board member in Singapore’s nonprofit sector.
Vivian is a regional rewards senior analyst with Mercer’s Career business in Singapore. Vivian is involved in a range of rewards consulting activities across the Asia Pacific region and plays a key role in client relationship management, with a primary focus on clients in the energy sector. She handles job pricing analyses, preparation of client deliverables, and the process and delivery of industry-specific surveys. Vivian actively engages with clients to understand their compensation and benefits needs and recommends suitable solutions. She has also gained exposure to workforce metrics and job evaluation through ongoing project work.
Prior to joining Mercer, Vivian worked in-house as a People & Culture Generalist, managing end-to-end human resources functions.
Vivian holds a bachelor’s degree in business (with honours), specializing in Human Resource consulting, from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Lionel is a senior principal in Mercer’s Client Solutions practice, where he oversees the most complex cross-disciplinary projects and puts clients at the core of what we do. He is also responsible for developing innovative solutions for early adopter clients and the development of Rewards consultants in Singapore and the emerging markets. With 20 years of experience in HR consulting, Lionel has deep expertise in long-term incentive design, executive compensation, competencies, training roadmaps, performance management, job evaluation, career architecture, rewards philosophy, compensation and benefits, sales incentives, bonus plans, and M&A integration. His client work has taken him across Asia, Europe and the US.
Before joining Mercer, Lionel led the Rewards Practice at Willis Towers Watson in Singapore, where he managed the Rewards team and provided oversight of the Remuneration Survey team.
Kabir Nath has built a more than 15-year career at the intersection of consulting, strategy, and commercial growth. He spent 13 years in HR consulting, advising organizations across Asia and other international markets on complex people challenges spanning talent, rewards, and workforce transformation.
Over more than 11 years at Mercer, Kabir has held a series of leadership roles that reflect this progression. He spent three years as Regional Chief of Staff to the Mercer Asia President, working at the center of regional strategy and operations to help shape priorities, drive execution, and support business performance across the region.
In the past year, Kabir stepped into his current role as Asia Sales Leader at Mercer, based in Singapore, where he leads commercial growth across Workforce and Rewards, Health and Benefits, and Retirement and Investments in 10 markets.
Ravi is a partner at Mercer, where he plays a pivotal role as a senior leader overseeing Mercer’s regional industries and solutions, including client forums across Asia. He and his team serve as trusted advisors in talent and rewards, collaborating with leading global and regional clients to deliver innovative strategies and insights.
Ravi brings 20+ years of consulting and in-house HR experience, having collaborated with a wide range of organizations across various industries. His expertise spans the spectrum from large multinational corporations to emerging pre-IPO businesses, with a focus on APAC, the Middle East, Africa and North America. Ravi possesses extensive experience across multiple industries, specializing in project management, organizational and people transformation, M&A, total rewards, talent management, skills frameworks, career architecture, and job evaluations. He has a proven track record in designing both global and local people strategies tailored to developed and emerging economies.
Throughout his career, Ravi has had the privilege of working in diverse locations, including India, Singapore, South Africa and the US. Before joining Mercer, Ravi gained valuable experience at Aon and Tech Mahindra, where he refined his expertise in human resources and business strategy through a variety of roles and responsibilities. Ravi serves as a frequent speaker and panelist on people strategies, with numerous insights shared and published in the public domain.
Marieke leads the Centre of Excellence for Mercer’s People Experience solution, based in Singapore. Her team works with consultants across this diverse region to design and deliver employee listening solutions, where they lend their expertise to drive thought leadership and project success.
Marieke’s career spans almost three decades, during which she has worked closely with many prestigious companies, focusing on organizational culture and climate and employee engagement. Marieke started her career in London and has since lived and worked in Hong Kong and Singapore. Her international background and experience help her in her role of understanding culture and working with large, complex multinationals.
Julia has more than 20 years of HR experience across Australia and Asia, with expertise spanning compensation, global mobility, and health and wellbeing.
As Regional Industry Leader for Life Sciences & Benefits Solutions at Mercer Asia, she brings this cross-functional perspective to one of the region’s most dynamic industries. She works with life sciences organizations as they navigate global competition for talent, scarce expertise and rapid transformation.
Julia takes an integrated approach to people priorities, connecting insights across compensation, mobility, health and wellbeing, and the broader talent agenda.
Jacob Tan
Tony Tsui is Head of Advisory for Mercer Hong Kong and has more than 18 years of experience in the health and employee benefits industry across Australia and Hong Kong.
Before joining Mercer, Tony spent 13 years at Bupa. He specialises in using data and analytics to develop cost-containment strategies and design diagnostic-driven employee benefits, medical and wellbeing solutions that help organisations improve health outcomes while managing costs.
He engages in a wide range of consulting projects for major global and Japanese multinational clients in the areas of human capital strategy, organization design, workforce strategy planning, global HRM design, leadership development, HR due diligence and PMI support for M&A occasions.
Before joining Mercer, he worked at Industrial Bank of Japan (currently Mizuho Bank), Bain & Company, and a Japanese major service company as Executive Director and head of corporate planning. He has plenty of business experience in growth markets including Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and ASEAN countries as CFO of its regional business HQ based in Hong Kong.
He holds a BA in Economics from University of Tokyo.