breaking down the silos between singapore's business schools.
started with Paul Tan · cross university series · 2025 to present
THE IDEA
Singapore has one of the densest concentrations of top business schools in the world, and almost no traffic between them. NUS, SMU, ESSEC, NTU, INSEAD, and SP Jain run in parallel and rarely in the same room. Leadership in Asia exists to change that.
“Your hard skills got you here. Your soft skills will get you ahead.”
I started the series with Paul Tan from SMU. The premise is simple: get postgraduates from every major school together around one honest question — what actually differentiates talent in Asia — and bring in leaders from finance, tech, and policy to answer it without the usual career talk polish.
The series has grown from 100 attendees at the first event to 180 in the room at the third, with close to 400 signups across five universities. It is run with a small cross university team rather than a single program. It is less an event series and more an attempt to make the ecosystem behave like one network instead of six.
EVENTS
EVENT 01
What differentiates talent in Asia?
Hosted at ESSEC Business School Singapore · February 2025 · 100+ students · 3 speakers
The first event put over 100 students from NUS, ESSEC, SMU, NTU, SP Jain, and INSEAD in one room. The thesis that emerged: in Asia, most graduate talent already has the technical credentials. What separates the people who break through is harder to quantify — the ability to build trust across cultures, read a room, and lead with empathy while still driving results.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
01Humility wins — in how you treat people and how you approach problems
02Linearity is dead — pivoting is no longer optional
03Boldness matters — take opportunities even when they are imperfect
SPEAKERS
Amit Morya, Shankar T S, Gabriel Seow
CO-ORGANIZERS
Paul Tan (SMU MBA ELC), Louis Lupescu (ESSEC Connections), Nathan Glickman, Pareena Gupta
01 / 02 · use arrows or keyboard to browse
EVENT 02
Are you afraid AI will take your job?
Hosted at SMU Connexion · Part 2 · 110 postgraduate students
Part 2 confronted AI anxiety directly, moderated by Vered Konijnendijk, focused on what employers actually look for now and how to evaluate a company before accepting an offer. The throughline: a human plus AI beats either alone, and the job is shifting from being a doer to being a thinker who asks the right questions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
01Learn to do what AI does, so you can direct it rather than be replaced by it
02Ask companies what success with AI looks like — vague answers are a red flag
03Credentials like the CFA now signal perseverance more than knowledge
SPEAKERS
Olivier d'Assier, Tse Wen Leong, Ben Charoenwong
CO-ORGANIZERS
Paul Tan, Louis Lupescu, Jatin Gupta, Pranav R Nambiar, Pareena Gupta, Nathan Glickman
01 / 01 · use arrows or keyboard to browse
EVENT 03
The New Map of Capital
Hosted at Hon Sui Sen Auditorium, NUS · 180 attendees in the room, 30 waiting outside, close to 400 signups across five universities · 4 speakers
The third event was the largest yet. 180 people filled the Hon Sui Sen Auditorium with another 30 waiting outside and close to 400 signups across five universities. The panel, The New Map of Capital, dug into where money and infrastructure are actually flowing in the AI cycle, and whether the current build out is a bubble. The throughline: the financial side looks overheated, but the underlying infrastructure will outlast the froth, just like it did after the dot com bust. The concern is what gets starved of capital in the meantime.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
01Semiconductors and data centres are the real bottleneck, and it stretches well beyond AI into robotics, defence, and automotive, everyone queuing for the same supply
02Bigger models may not be the answer, smaller ones are proving good enough while token burn keeps climbing because answers keep getting longer
03The dot com parallel holds: financially overheated, but the infrastructure survives. The worry is capital pulled away from other founders because investors chase what they already recognise
SPEAKERS
Bill Fong (Micron), Naveen Dhar (Google), Vivek Agarwalla, CFA (MSCI), Shi Mei Chin (CFOi). Moderated by David Hansson.
CO-ORGANIZERS
Paul Tan (SMU), Louis Lupescu (ESSEC), Damandeep Singh (SMU), Veenashree Ganesan (NTU), Satvik Sachdev (ESSEC), Romanshi Gupta (INSEAD), and the NUS team
01 / 03 · use arrows or keyboard to browse
WHAT'S NEXT
ESSEC hosted the first. SMU the second. NUS the third. We are just getting started.
