ASEAN Hands

Jianggan Li, the Founder & CEO of venture building firm Momentum Works, shares his experience in e-commerce and logistics in Southeast Asia. Prior to founding Momentum Works, he co-founded Easy Taxi in Asia, and served as the Managing Director of Foodpanda. Jianggan also shares about the strategies Chinese startups adopt and have to consider when entering the region, the cultural differences he encountered and the current opportunities.

At the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Singapore, we interviewed President of the US-ASEAN Business Council Mr Alex Feldman on how the Council supports US businesses in the region, along with the business opportunities and challenges he sees. Alexander Feldman is President & CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council. Founded in 1984, the Council represents more than 150 of the largest American businesses in Southeast Asia through its headquarters in Washington, DC and its seven regional offices. Mr. Feldman served in the Administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. He has been involved in the ASEAN region for over 25 years in a career spanning both the public and private sectors. Having resided in Asia for more than a decade, he has conducted business in all 10 ASEAN member countries. Mr. Feldman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, an Eisenhower Fellow and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the U.S.-Indonesia Society and serves as Treasurer and a member of Board of Directors of the SEA Spirit Foundation.

Yoong Yoong Lee, Director of the ASEAN Secretariat's Community Affairs Directorate sat down with us on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit last month to share his experience in promoting regional integration and engagement in Southeast Asia. We talked about the differences in attitudes of youth towards ASEAN across the region, the successes of ASEAn so far and the internal workings of ASEAN as an organisation. Before his current role, Yoong Yoong held various positions in Yamato Asia, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Economic Development Board in Singapore, and various other portfolios in ASEAN including as Head of Infrastructure.

In this special episode, we have Ambassador Ong Keng Yong with us to discuss a wide range of topics ranging from the progress of the ASEAN Economic Community, to whether there is a need for binding dispute settlement within ASEAN and even an inside story of how the ASEAN Declaration on Migrant Workers came about. Ambassador Ong Keng Yong is Executive Deputy Chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Concurrently, he is Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, non-resident High Commissioner to Pakistan and non-resident Ambassador to Iran. Mr Ong also serves as Chairman of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF). Mr Ong was High Commissioner of Singapore to Malaysia from 2011 to 2014. He served as Secretary-General of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), based in Jakarta, Indonesia from January 2003 to January 2008.

Chaik Ming, CEO of Forchn International, joins us in a conversation about Forchn International's unique business in ecommerce logistics real estate, and his experience doing business in Southeast Asia. Forchn Holdings is a founding shareholder of Alibaba’s Cai Niao Network, and through Forchn International has made private equity investments into Southeast Asian real estate entities that facilitate logistics for the growing ecommerce market in the region. Before his current role in Forchn, Chaik held positions as General Manager at Shell and as Shanghai Chief Representative at Temasek Holdings.