ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS

Keynote Speaker (Day One): Mr Andy Milligan, Managing Director, Interbrand Singapore

Andy has been with the Interbrand Group since 1990 and is now the Managing Director of Interbrand Singapore. Andy graduated from Oxford University and then worked with VNU, a large business publications firm before joining Interbrand in its London head office. Interbrand has many offices in the Asian region, including Shanghai and Andy and the Singaporean team work closely with the Shanghai office on brand development programmes in China. At Interbrand, Andy has led major international and national brand consultancy programmes for blue chip clients, including Jacuzzi Corp, FIFA, ATP Tour, Standard Life, Barclays, BiC, OSIM, Cerebos, Mayer, London Underground and Roche. He is particularly proud that he led our international team in developing the branding for one of the world’s most prestigious events, the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan.

Andy consults and advises the senior management teams, including CEOs and their boards, on strategies for developing and exploiting their brand portfolios. He has also developed training programmes and internal coaching sessions for businesses to help them understand and develop their most important asset, their brand. He is acknowledged as an expert on all areas of the brand creation process. He is one of Interbrand’s principal media spokespeople globally, and has frequently appeared on CNN and BBC.

He is also a regular speaker at conferences internationally on brand issues and has written several pamphlets and contributed chapters to books including Brands: The New Wealth Creators. Andy has also has just published his first book, which examines the link between great brands and their corporate cultures, discovering how companies such as Virgin, Amazon and Harley Davidson are able to deliver such extraordinary customer service, the book is called Uncommon Practice.

Shauna is the Founder and Managing Director of BrandHub, a brand consultancy dedicated to creating and building Leader Brands in Asia. She has over 10 years of experience in brand strategy, business strategy, market research, customer experience and marketing strategy and planning in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to setting up BrandHub, Shauna was the lead brand strategist for the re-branding of Singapore Inc., a project she took on as a freelance consultant at another brand consultancy. As an Associate Director of Brand Strategy at Interbrand, Shauna founded and managed the first Brand Strategy practice in Asia. She created the Brand Strategy Blueprint for many leading Asian brands including OSIM, StarHub and Brand's. She also worked with multinational clients such as Motorola, DuPont, and GM in Greater China and the Asia Pacific region. Shauna honed her strategy development capabilities at A.T. Kearney where she managed diverse strategy engagements for clients such as GM, Deere, ARCO, Chugai Pharmaceutical and Pacific Dunlop throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Shauna started her career as an Account Executive at Leo Burnett. Her clients included Proctor & Gamble, Philip Morris, United Airlines, Chase and HP> SHauna is the creator and author of the Brand Leadership MatrixTM - a framework to analyse brand lifecycle and investment strategies. She contributes brand related articles regularly to The Edge Magazine as well as other leading business and marketing journals in Asia. She is also a frequent speaker at branding and marketing conferences. She obtained her MBA from the Anderson Graduate School of Managemnet at UCLA and a BS in Business Administration from USC.

Ms Jacqueline Thng, Consulting Director: Lexicon Brand Consultants

Jacqueline has over 15 years experience in brand and design consulting. As Senior Partner for LEXICON, an award-winning consultancy, she is actively involved in the areas of brand consultancy, research, strategic planning and management for all major branding programmes. Her role as strategic brand consultant is to direct and participate in the in-depth analysis of client's business and their corporate communications needs.

Major branding programmes in Jacqueline’s portfolio include the development of branding & packaging standards and marketing policy for Sara Lee Bakery; global rebranding of China Airlines; branding programmes for FairPrice encompassing several areas of brand communications including print, retail, packaging and internal staff communications; global branding for United Engineers Limited; brand audit & strategy development for Yeo's; brand naming and strategy development for Octupus Smart Card System for the consortium of MTRC/Kowloon/KCRC (Hong Kong); retail rebranding of Singapore Petroleum Company’s petroluem stations.

Prior to joining LEXICON, Jacqueline was Senior Brand Consultant for UK’s leading design consultant, Addison. Jacqueline graduates as one of the top students from National University of Singapore and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration.

Mr Sugu Karuppiah, Partner: Ravindran Associates

Sugu is a member of various local and international intellectual property associations such as the International Trade Mark Association (INTA), Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APPA) to name a few. He is a member of the EXCO of the APAA Singapore Group and a member of the INTA Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. He is also a member of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators. Sugu also speaks and writes regularly on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights both in Singapore and Malaysia. He has appeared regularly as a speaker in the United States in respect of a seminar series entitled, Intellectual Property Protection In The Pacific Rim Countries, covering Malaysia and Singapore, organised by CLE International for the years 1993 to 2000. Amongst his most significant writing is as a contributor to the chapters on Singapore and Malaysia in the book entitled Intellectual Property Protection in Asia published by LexisNexis and edited by Arthur Wineburg. He was also named as a Patent Law expert for Singapore by the Expert Guide for 2001 published by Euro Money Legal Media Group.

Ms Carol Mok, Senior Consultant: Carlyle Brand Consultants

Keynote Speaker (Day Two): Mr Nigel Smith: Managing Director: DIA Brand Consultants

Nigel studied design at the Southampton Institute UK from 1971-75. He was a Group Director of the Penta Communications Group for 6 years before joining DIA in 1984. He was also Deputy Managing Director and head of Corporate Branding and Communications in London before establishing DIA SE Asia division in October 1995.

Nigel is a recognised expert in branding and has spoken at conferences in Singapore and overseas. He is Chairman of the IDF (Singapore International Design Forum) Conference committee, a member of the Advisory Committee to the Temasek Polytechnic Design School and President of the Designers Association of Singapore.

DIA is a leading international branding consultancy, specialising in the development and implementation of corporate consumer and retail brands. They have developed and implemented programs for some of the world's top brands including Honda, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, IBM, Coca-Cola and many others. DIA has undertaken communications programmes for some of Singapore's leading companies and organisations including Singapore Airlines, Singapore Power, DBS Bank, Asia Pacific Breweries, F&N, SembCorp, OCBC Bank, Economic Development Board, National Science & Technology Board, Ministry of Manpower and Singapore Trade Development Board.

Mr David Shaw, Director - Brand & Communications:

David is Director of Brand & Communications for HP Services across the Asia-Pacific. He leads a marketing communications team responsible for establishing thought leadership for HP Services, and helping to transform that to market leadership across the region. This is achieved through the development and deployment of a marketing communications program that runs the gamut of analyst and press relations, advertising, collateral support, executive, employee and Web communications, sponsorships and events. The team works in collaboration with HP Services’ global and country marcom community, ensuring strategic alignment and maximum leverage of individual expertise and collective deliverables. David is concurrently a passionate brand champion and evangelist, nurturing HP's brand equity by influencing the way the company communicates with its various publics. Prior to the merger of HP and Compaq in 2002, he was the regional brand & communications manager for HP’s consumer business organization.

David holds a business administration degree from the National University of Singapore. He honed his communication skills by spending 16 years in the advertising industry – including a 7-year stint in Canada -- writing ads and building brands for the clients of Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO and J. Walter Thompson, while gaining recognition at award shows in Singapore, Canada and the US. His last position before climbing the fence to become a client in 1998 was head of the creative department at J. Walter Thompson Singapore.

Mr Terry O’Connor, Managing Director: Courts Singapore

Terry assumed responsibility for the company as its Managing Director in June 2000 after a 2-year stint as its Deputy Managing Director. He joined Courts in Singapore in 1993 as Director of Electrical Buying. In 1995, he was appointed to the board of the main-board listed Courts (Singapore) Limited, and in 1997 he was promoted to Commercial Director, with responsibility for the commercial strategies of the Singapore operation. He is credited as one of the ‘driving forces’ behind the re-inventory of the Courts brand in Singapore. In 1998, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director with responsibility for the company’s overall marketing strategy, including merchandising, customer service and logistics.

Terry began his career in retailing with Colorvision Plc in the UK in 1986 where he controlled the purchase of electrical appliances for the chain’s 93 stores. In 1992 he was promoted to Director of Purchasing, responsible for Colorvision’s purchasing and marketing strategies. He holds an MBA in Retailing and Wholesaling from the University of Stirling, and is a regular commentator in the Asian and Singapore media on retail issues. He is also Honorary Secretary of the Singapore Retail Association (SRA).

Mr Lawrence Chong, Chief Executive Officer:

Lawrence is the Principal Founder and CEO of Acivar Brand Consultants. Acivar specializes in helping Asian firms in implementing business strategies and brand positioning. By focusing on the medium and small Asian enterprises (SMAEs), Acivar is able to better at understanding these firms’ needs. Lawrence loves the challenge of nurturing; helping companies to grow in the competitive business environment, and seeing them outshine the market leaders. His passion is to assist visionary leaders in the region to build large Institutional Brands. Therefore, a lot of his time is spent on giving seminars and providing workshops on how small Asian businesses can tap into their latent potential and join the ranks of the outstanding brands.

Currently, Lawrence is holding a one-year term as the chairperson of the Future Brand Delivery Group, an R&D community that gathers professionals from the IT, Business Management, HR and Customer Relation sectors. The group constantly reviews & provides analysis on how complementary technologies can be used to effectively help Asian brands grow exponentially. Lawrence is also the EXCO member of the Designers Association of Singapore DAS, which is actively involved with the various ministries and government agencies such as MITA, SPRING, IE Singapore and EDB in enhancing and promoting the value of branding and design to the local industries in Singapore.

Mr Jonathan Bonsey, Creative & Managing Director: The Bonsey Design Partnership PL
Jonathan started his design career with the UK’s leading exhibition designers, Robin Wade and Associates in London. He then joined Allied International Designers to concentrate upon developing Retail strategies for some of Europe’s major shopping and leisure developments. Jonathan’s responsibilities included identity design and project management of signage and identity implementation programmes. In 1984 Jonathan was appointed as Design Manager to set up Allied’s Singapore office with the mandate to service a growing number of clients in the region. When the Addison Group took over the interests of Allied, Jonathan was promoted to Creative Director with the mandate to build a self sufficient local creative team. The following year Jonathan became Managing Director of a staff that had grown to 28. In 1991 Jonathan moved to the USA as Vice President, Brand Development of Addison San Francisco where he gained experience with Quaker, General Mills, Hewlett Packard and Pacific Bell developing domestic and international strategies to introduce strong US brands into Asian markets.

In 1993 he returned to Asia to form The Bonsey Design Partnership in Singapore. Over the past 10 years BDP has built a solid reputation as one of Asia’s leading brand design companies with major national and multinational client’s spread from India to Indonesia. His firm is responsible for strategic brand identity programmes for M1, Maxis, F&N and Unilever. In 2000 he formed BrandSpeed with Jon Griffin in response to the opportunity that exists in TV and Broadband media and the need to link the online and offline worlds through focussed brand design. In addition to his professional credits, Jonathan is a frequent speaker on design at the Singapore Polytechnic and the National University. He is also an EXCO member of The Designers Association of Singapore.