Yesterday, 2 Members of Parliament (MPs), Minister of State for Manpower and Mayor of North East CDC Teo Ser Luck, and MP for the MacPherson SMC Tin Pei Ling announced their entry into the private sector once again.
More significantly, both of them would now be direct contributors to the tech and startup space in Singapore. Tin would be moving to Jing King Tech Group and Teo plans to “build, create, invest or help start-ups and businesses“.
Details of their new duties are still not clear, but both have assured that they would still be serving in their public sector roles.
Here’s what you need to know about both of them, and what they could bring to their new appointments.
Tin Pei Ling
In a Facebook post, Tin, the only full-time MP from the People’s Action Party, announced her return to the private sector as group director of corporate strategy of Jing King Tech Group, a Singaporean company with a focus on FinTech.
Founded in 1984, the Group has 20 offices in Singapore, China and Hong Kong, and is said to be worth “nearly US$250 million”.
With a focus on providing smart cards, cloud computing, biometrics technology, and data cryptography (just to name a few) to customers, Tin’s experience as a consultant at Ernst & Young is slated to come in handy for her new duties.
A mother of a 2-year-old, Tin has also been a strong advocate for the empowerment of working mums like herself. As such, it would certainly be interesting to see how her added appointment can bolster her efforts as well.
Teo Ser Luck
Teo is known more for his contributions in the Public Service, but he has rich corporate experience as well.
Having worked at Nike Singapore, Coopers & Lybrand, Menlo Worldwide and DHL in various positions, he was also recognised as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in 2007 for his contributions to the business and community services sectors.
As Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry (2011-15) and Minister of State, Ministry of Manpower (2015-present), Teo is also known to be active in the promotion of SMEs and the setting up of SME centres, which provide assistance to entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses.
Exactly how, and in what position Teo will be executing his new duties is still unknown. However, the perspectives he has gained working in the public service would definitely be helpful to SMEs seeking his advice.
The Links Between Government, Tech, SMEs, And Startups
It’s already known that the Singapore government sees a bright future in tech, SMEs and startups, but beyond financial assistance and creating networks, these announcements are a sign that they truly mean serious business.
With the presence of figures in both the public and private sectors, we could potentially see grants and policies better tailored towards what businesses actually need, and not just what the government thinks is best.
After all, you have to put yourself in others’ shoes in order to learn how they think.
And that’s exactly what these two MPs are doing.
