Kevin Tan, Founder
Growing up in Singapore and having lived in Hong Kong, Kevin founded Third Sector Asia to help develop new ways for the public, private, and people sectors to work together in improving governance throughout the Asia-Pacific.
He previously served in the Boston office of Third Sector Capital Partners, where he led PFS engagements in the areas of early childhood, workforce, public health, homelessness, and criminal justice, including the first “PFS Portfolio” in Salt Lake County that allowed investors to spread their risk across multiple PFS projects. He also helped contribute to the development of the Social Impact Guarantee, a variant of PFS beyond the Social Impact Bond.
He holds an MPP (Business and Government) from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA (First Class Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.
Akshar Saxena, Program Evaluator
Akshar is a Singaporean who is a final-year doctoral student in global health economics at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He is interested in economics of aging, non-communicable diseases and primary care provision in Africa, Asia and the USA. He has previously worked for Ministry of Health in Singapore, and as a consultant for USAID (via Abt Associates), Partners in Health, and the World Bank. He holds a B.A. in Economics from the National University of Singapore and a Master in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Samantha Lee, Project Leader
Samantha is an experienced social sector consultant specializing in Healthcare, Children & Family, Education and Eldercare. Most recently the President of Conjunct Consulting, a social change consultancy firm that works with public and private institutions to strengthen the non-profit sector, Samantha has overseen the successful completion of more than 80 projects for social sector organisations. Her social sector experience includes helping a regional bank launch a CSR initiative to support social enterprises across 6 countries in Asia, leading a program evaluation project for a regional foundation in Cambodia and developing a fundraising strategy spanning Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong-China and Australia-New Zealand for one of the largest environmental organizations globally. Samantha was also formerly an Assistant Director at the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry, where she analysed macro-economic trends to develop and implement trade policies and represented Singapore at the WTO in Geneva and the APEC Forum, focusing on Environmental Goods and Trade Facilitation.
Samantha has done volunteer work in Honduras, India and Vietnam and spoken on topics such as Tri-Sector Partnerships and Social Innovation. She graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) and spent a year at Yale as an International Visiting Fellow.
Eugenia Lo, Consultant, Hong Kong
After a well-established career in M&A financial and investigative due diligence with a Big Four Advisor and a US risk-consultancy firm, Eugenia re-focused her professional efforts on strategic and venture philanthropy, social innovation and social entrepreneurship in 2016. As the former CEO of a Hong Kong non-profit organisation focused on venture philanthropy and impact investment, Eugenia advised social enterprise start-ups, addressing environmental, social inclusion and active ageing challenges in Hong Kong. Eugenia remains actively involved in the local social sector through supporting a number of incubators, Hong Kong Social Enterprise Challenge, B-Corp Consulting Group members and private foundations. She has a keen interest in impact projects involving business strategy, social finance and due diligence, programme design and fundraising.
Chia Kee Seng, Senior Advisor
Dr. Chia is the Founding Dean and Professor in the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore. He is also Adjunct Senior Group Leader, Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), and Adjunct Professor, Universiti Kebansaan Malaysia (UKM) Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI), Malaysia.
His current research focuses on the study of how genetic and lifestyle factors interact to cause chronic diseases (cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes mellitus) and the translation of these findings to preventive measures at the population level.
He also serves as a Council Member of the Workplace Safety and Health Council, Board Member of the Health Promotion Board, Member of Diabetes Prevention and Care Taskforce of the Ministry of Health, and Member of the World Health Organization Working Group on health education and health literacy for noncommunicable diseases.
He received his medical degree in 1981, Masters of Science in Occupational Medicine in 1985 and Doctor of Medicine in 1995.
Hsieh Fu Hua, Senior Advisor
Mr. Hsieh Fu Hua is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National University of Singapore (NUS). Active in the community, he also serves on the boards of a number of non-profit organisations. He is the President of the National Council of Social Service, chairs the National Gallery Singapore as well as the Stewardship Asia Centre, and is also Chairman-Designate of the National University Health System.
In business, Mr. Hsieh is the Chairman of ACR Capital Holdings Pte Ltd and adviser to the Prime Partners Group, which he co-founded. He is a board director of GIC.
Mr. Hsieh started his career in merchant banking and capital markets in 1974 when he joined Morgan Grenfell Asia Holdings upon graduation, eventually rising to head the organisation. He subsequently served as Group Managing Director of BNP Prime Peregrine Group Hong Kong, CEO of Singapore Exchange, President of Temasek Holdings and Chairman of United Overseas Bank.
Mr. Hsieh is an alumnus of the NUS Business School.
Nicholas Lee, Senior Advisor
Nicholas is the Chief Executive of Trybe Limited, a charity organization serving youth, youth-at-risk and youth offenders. He first began his journey in the social service sector when he started tutoring underperforming children during his university days as a volunteer.
In 2005, Nicholas left his job at the Singapore Exchange and joined Trybe as a full time staff. He’s led Trybe in its successful bid for the managing agents of two youth institutions, rehabilitating young offenders and young drug offenders in Singapore and helmed numerous portfolios as the head of the two institutions. Armed with his experiences, genuine love for the youths and earnest passion for the sector, Nicholas strategizes how Trybe can serve their clients and the social service sector as a whole to the best of their abilities.
Nicholas holds a post-graduate degree in International Political Economy from Nanyang Technological University. He worked in the public service sector and financial sector before joining Trybe. He also attended the Impact Investment Program at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School and helped to organize a Social Impact Bond module at the Singapore Management University. Nicholas’ latest interest involves looking out for alternative funding strategies as well as starting up a Social Impact Bond in Trybe.
Pierre Lorinet, Senior Advisor
Pierre Lorinet is a non-executive Director of Trafigura Group Pte Ltd, Puma Energy Holdings Pte Ltd, Impala Terminals, COFCO International Ltd and the National Art Council of Singapore. He is also an active investor in a number of business ventures across Asia and Europe. Until September 2015 Pierre was the Group Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director Asia-Pacific for Trafigura. Before joining Trafigura in 2002, Pierre worked in the banking sector in the UK and the Middle East.
Pierre’s personal philanthropic journey is centred on expanding the work of his family foundation. Lorinet Foundation’s mission is to support pioneering, impactful, and sustainable initiatives promoting education, employment, and access to clean water and energy for vulnerable communities in Mongolia, South East Asia, and France. To date, the Foundation has deployed a variety of impact investing tools such as affordable working capital loans, educational loans, and venture philanthropy investments.
In 2017 Pierre also joined the board of the Trafigura Foundation. Since its launch in 2007 the Trafigura Foundation has partnered with organisations across the world in carrying out and strengthening programmes in its three areas of focus: sustainable development, education & integration, and health. From 2017 the Foundation concentrates on 2 key areas: social entrepreneurship and clean and safe supply chains.
Pierre graduated from Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris in France and holds an MSc in Finance with distinction from Lancaster University in the UK. He lives in Singapore with his wife and 3 children.
Patsian Low, Director Project Advisory
Patsian brings 23 years of cross-sector, cross-industry experience to help clients with breakthrough strategies for social and environmental impact. Her work at Third Sector Asia is focused on advising on Pay For Success projects that deploy innovative impact investing and data analytics tools to deliver better social outcomes.
She was previously Senior Vice President and Head of DBS Foundation and DBS Bank CSR. Prior to this, Patsian was the Director of Philanthropy at Singapore's National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), which promotes and engages philanthropy from different donor sectors.
Her journey into the civic sector began by starting a social enterprise advisory service in the early years of Asia' social economy. Before this, Patsian held senior executive roles in Bankers Trust Company, Deutsche Bank and State Street Bank based out of New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.