Newly elected Member of Parliament of Sengkang GRC Jamus Lim is among 6 individuals elected to Economic Society of Singapore’s council.
Five other new council members were announced, namely — Credit Suisse team leader Kent Choi, Dean of NTU Business School Professor Christina Soh, head of the NUS economics department Professor Satoru Takahashi, SMU Associate Professor Tan Swee Liang and head of international banking at Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Franky Tanudjojo.
With the new 64th council announced, what is the Economic Society of Singapore for and what does appointing Jamus Lim and these individuals as new members mean?
What Does The Council Do?
The Economic Society of Singapore (ESS), formerly the Malayan Economic Society, was established on 28 July 1956, as a result of an initiative by graduates and staff from the Department of Economics from the then University of Malaya in Singapore.
On 28 March 1969, the Society changed its name from the Malayan Economic Society to the Economic Society of Singapore, in response to the new independent and sovereign status of the Republic.
Today, ESS has expanded to include members from the academic, government and business sectors.
The Society organises conferences and networking sessions to foster discussions of current economic issues relating to Singapore and the region.
Council members include private-sector economists, think tank representatives in the business and financial industries, as well as senior academicians.
Its honorary fellows include Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and former prime minister Goh Chok Tong.
Professor Euston Quah, Head of Department of Economics at NTU continues to head the society’s 64th council as its president, a post he has held since 2009.
Who Are The New Faces?
Jamus Lim, Associate Professor and Sengkang GRC MP
Adding on to Jamus Lim’s already impressive CV is a seat to the 36-member council at the society’s annual general meeting held on Wednesday (23 July).
The associate professor at ESSEC Business School is also part of the 4-member Workers’ Party team which contested for Sengkang GRC against the PAP team led by NTUC Chief Ng Chee Meng.
The WP won, clinching another GRC and Jamus Lim secured a seat as an opposition MP.
The economics professor has spoken out on the minimum wage, with the Workers’ Party advocating for a $1,300 minimum wage in their GE 2020 manifesto.
In Singapore, we do not have minimum wage at the national level. What we do have is the Progressive Wage Model (PWM), which is essentially minimum wage (and more) by sector.
Lim has argued that 100,000 workers remain below minimum wage even with Progressive Wage Model.
Kent Choi, Team Leader at Credit Suisse
Kent has experience working with Credit Suisse, Bank of Singapore, Asia’s Global Private Bank, ABN AMRO Bank.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he is the Team Lead for the Singapore-Malaysia market “whereby he is responsible for expanding and developing the growth of his team and market”.
He was a relationship manager and have had year-on-year success in achieving significant growth in AUM and revenue from HNW clients across Asia.
Professor Christina Soh, Dean of NTU Business School
Christina is known for her work on the management of large scale package software implementation and organisational transformation.
Her work has been published in leading journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, European Journal of Information Systems and others.
She was involved in the design of NTU’s first cross-disciplinary undergraduate double degree in Business and Computing, the Renaissance Engineering Program, and most recently the business school’s new specialisation in business analytics.
She served as Associate Dean of undergraduate business programs from 2004 to 2008, and worked with colleagues to transform student recruitment, placement and experience.
She continued to serve as Associate Dean assisting the Dean’s office from 2008-2012, and returned as Head of ITOM from 2014 to 2017 to lead the Division in new directions given the rise of digital and analytics.
Internationally, she has served as co-chair or faculty mentor at many doctoral consortiums and faculty development workshops at the International Conferences of Information Systems, OCIS Division of the Academy of Management, and Pacific Conference of Information Systems. She was program co-chair for ICIS 2017. She was made a Fellow of the Association of Information Systems in 2013.
Professor Satoru Takahashi, Head Of The Economics Department At NUS
Takahashi has a Ph.D in Economics from the Harvard University.
His research areas are in Microeconomic Theory and Game Theory and he is currently a professor at the Department of Economics, NUS.
He has been published in journals such as the Econometrica, Japanese Economic Review and Journal of Economic Theory.
Tan Swee Liang, Associate Professor at SMU
Tan is an Associate Professor of Economics (Practice) at SMU.
Her research interests are in financial sector development, country risk assessment and pedagogy research and development.
She is also the Director at the Centre for Teaching Excellence at SMU, where she heads a team that engages stakeholders to advance teaching and learning at SMU, through its various programs such as Professional Development Programme, Assurance of Learning Programme and Teaching Innovation Programme.
She has written several cases related to financial sector liberalisation, for example, on Dunia, a finance company setup in the UAE during the 2008 global financial crisis, and on State Bank of India expansion into the Singapore market.
Franky Tanudjojo, Head of International Banking at Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore)
Tanudjojo is the managing director and head of international banking at Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore).
There isn’t much information on the Internet about him but it seems that he worked his way up from a general manager to an executive in the British bank.
What Is Expected Of Jamus Lim And Other Members?
According to its website, the ESS’s job is to provide insightful commentary and in engaging and educating the public on economic issues. This is important in advancing our understanding of Singapore’s challenges, and in lending credence to economic decisions.
In 2013, then Minister of Education Heng Swee Keat had said that “the ESS will remain a valued partner in forging a better Singapore in today’s complex operating environment.”
With the election of economics expert Jamus Lim and new members, it could mean that they are getting fresh blood in for more robust debate on economic issues.
Featured Image Credit: Screengrab from Channel 5 / ESS