Sharon Sim is a Singapore-born author, family office leader, finance industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience across capital markets, wealth management, and private investing. Her work brings together money, power, and investment, with a particular focus on how women navigate influence, responsibility, and decision-making within families and institutions.
Her career spans senior roles in global financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and J.P. Morgan. She holds senior leadership roles at a Global Multi-Family Office and was a CEO of a Single Family Office, working closely with entrepreneurial families on legacy planning, investment strategy, and the stewardship of multi-generational capital.
Sharon is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Purpose Venture Capital, where she invests in technology ventures that seek to deliver commercial returns alongside positive social and environmental outcomes. She is also the co-author of Why Women Don’t Talk Money and producer-host of the Why Women Don’t Talk Money podcast series, exploring women’s complex relationship with money, agency, and financial empowerment. Sharon is a frequent speaker and commentator on investing, leadership, and financial wellbeing, and has been featured on Bloomberg, Tatler Asia, The Business Times, The Straits Times, and Channel News Asia.
Beyond investing and writing, Sharon is passionate about uplifting and empowering women across different stages of life and career, and continues to advocate for a purpose-driven approach to capital. She is Co-Founder and Chair of Women in Family Offices and a Board Member of Daughters of Tomorrow, a Singaporean charity supporting under-resourced women in upskilling and building sustainable careers.
Stephen (“Steve”) Thomas has over 25 years of experience leading strategic programs to earn, protect, and enhance corporate reputations.
He is currently a Partner at The Civic Partnership, a leading strategic communications and public affairs advisory firm.
From 2012 to 2021, Steve served as Head of Group Brand and Communications at AIA Group. In this role, he worked closely with the CEO and senior leadership to define and safeguard the company’s reputation as a publicly listed entity on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Before joining AIA, Steve was Managing Director and Head of Corporate Affairs for Citigroup in China, based in Shanghai. He began his career at Burson-Marsteller, contributing across their Melbourne and Hong Kong offices.
Steve’s professional achievements include multiple listings in PR Week’s Power Book as one of the world’s most influential PR professionals and inclusion in Provoke Media’s Influence 100, which recognizes the top in-house communicators globally. In 2020, he was honoured as the Asia-Pacific Association of Communications Directors’ In-House Communications Professional of the Year.
He was a Board Trustee of the Institute for Public Relations from 2014 to 2020 and chaired the Hong Kong chapter of the Arthur W. Page Society.
Rogelio R. Sicat left his hometown San Isidro, Nueva Ecija in the 1950s to work on a degree in journalism at the University of Santo Tomas. After serving as a campus writer and literary editor of The Varsitarian , Sicat went on to become one of the greatest pioneers of Philippine fiction by deliberately choosing Filipino for the language of his prose, and by veering away from the concerns and conventions of the Western modernist writers.
Sicat’s work, which rejuvenated Philippine literature’s tradition of social consciousness, first appeared in the Tagalog literary magazine Liwayway . He gained recognition in the Palanca awards in 1962, and in 1965 came out in an anthology, Mga Agos sa Disyerto , alongside like-minded young writers. Sicat wrote on through the decades, establishing his position in literary history as fictionist, playwright and professor, eventually accepting deanship in the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Impeng Negro and Tata Selo, both of which have been interpreted into film, are only two of Sicat’s acclaimed stories. His other works include Dugo sa Bukang-Liwayway , Pagsalunga: Piniling Kuwento at Sanaysay , and the play Moses, Moses. Sicat died in 1997, but was honoured a final time through a posthumous National Book Award the following year for his translation of William J. Pomeroy’s work into the title Ang Gubat: Isang Personal na Rekord ng Pakikilabang Gerilya ng mga Huk sa Pilipinas.
Ma. Aurora L. Sicat earned her Bachelor of Arts in Filipino degree at the College of Arts and Letters in the University of the Philippines Diliman. She has worked for GMA Worldwide, Inc. as a freelance translator where she translated their Tagalog television programs and movie shows to English.
Jin Young Lim is a PhD student at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Prior to that he was a Schwarzman Scholar class of ‘22 at Tsinghua University and Program Coordinator at the Berggruen Institute’s China Center. He is the co-founder of Spawo Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to nurturing holistic education, sustainability, health and wellness, and culture in the Himalayas. Jin Young completed his undergraduate dual-degree from Waseda University and Peking University, majoring in liberal arts and international politics. He has led multiple mindfulness-based expeditions to the Himalayas and has been engaging in various contemplative practices throughout his life. During his free time, he moonlights as a writer, Taijiquan instructor, yoga teacher, Pu’er tea enthusiast, and content creator.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834) and his elder sister, Mary Anne Lamb, collaborated on three books for children, of which Tales from Shakespeare is the best known. It was the first book to clarify Shakespeare’s stories and played a major part in raising people’s awareness of the great playwright.
San Lin Tun is a poet, writer, lyricist, literary translator, literary guide, writing coach and editor. He was a former short story instructor and literary translator of Hidden Words/Hidden Worlds short story project and a former coordinator-translator of My Yangon My Home Art and Heritage Festival and a former translator of Gothe Institute Yangon web page.
His writings appeared in local and international publications such as Asia Literary Review, Borderless, Countercurrent, Global Poemic, Kitaab, Litehouse, Litterateur, Mad in Asia Pacific, Mekong Review, Myanmar Times, My Yangon Magazine, Myanmore, New Asian Writing Anthology (NAW), PIX, Ponder Savant, Pure Haiku, South East of Now, Strukturriss, Trouvaille and several others.
He was an editorial member of Beyond Words issue 5, a guest fiction editor of Ambrosial Literary Garland online magazine, a guest editor of Open Leaf Press Review and a reader at Prism International.
His academic qualifications are a certificate in AmPox.3, a certificate in Start Writing Fiction, B.E (Metallurgy) and M.A (BDh). He is the first prize winner of poetry of Wales National Day in 2015. His other keen interests are photography, playing guitar and drawing cartoons.
His debut novel “An English Writer” is at Goodnovel and he is now working on his second novel titled “A Classroom for Mr K.T”.
He lives in Yangon with his wife and two sons.
Blog – www.writersanlintun.blogspot.com
Emily Lim-Leh lost her voice to a rare voice affliction Spasmodic Dysphonia in 1998. In her journey to recover her lost voice, she found a God-given voice in writing when she was a winner in Singapore Book Council’s Publishing Initiative in 2007 for her debut picture book, Prince Bear & Pauper Bear. She followed this with three more Toy titles, and her Toys series has since been translated into four languages and published in six countries.
Emily has authored over forty children’s picture books. She is the first person outside North America to win three IPPY Awards in children’s books, and the first in Southeast Asia to win the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.
Emily was named Mediacorp’s Singapore Woman Award Honoree for inspiring readers through her books. She is also a recipient of the Covid-19 Public Service Medal (from the Prime Minister’s Office in Singapore) for her voluntary collaboration with private and public healthcare professionals to produce informational e-books for the community during Singapore’s Covid fight.
Little Hero is Emily’s first adventure in writing a children’s chapter book, as inspired by her family’s stories.
Emily blogs about books and parenting her son (and her muse) at her blog https://mummumstheword.wordpress.com/
Jansen Lim is the author of two fiction novels: The Ties That Bite and In Rio You Love a Little More. His essays and feature articles have appeared in a range of publications from travel and lifestyle magazines to The Straits Times. He has also worked as a global project manager, lecturer, and videographer, and he lives in Singapore.
Kenneth Yu is an award-winning author from the Philippines whose short fiction has seen publication in his home country as well as overseas in the USA, Canada, Malaysia, and Taiwan. His work has been lauded and recognized by renowned speculative fiction editor Ellen Datlow, bestselling author Neil Gaiman, and popular fiction podcaster LeVar Burton. In the 2010s, he was a major contributor to the growth and current popularity of genre fiction produced by Filipino writers. He was a judge at the 41st Philippine National Book Awards, is a staunch reading advocate, and has ceaselessly pushed literacy to the Filipino youth. He was born, raised, and currently resides in Metro Manila.
Douglas James Limpe Candano holds a BA in Development Studies from the Ateneo de Manila University (Development Studies Departmental Award, Loyola Schools Awards for the Arts in Fiction), and a Masters of Urban Planning degree from McGill University. His fiction has won several national level awards, including the Philippines Free Press Literary Award and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, and have been published and anthologized in numerous publications and books in the Philippines. He has also written for film and theater, co-writing Orphea, which premiered during the 2020 Berlinale, and Love is a Dog From Hell – the closing film of the 2022 Berlin Critics Week, as well as the maximalist musical Super Macho Anti Kristo! (SMAK!): A Headless 100-Act Opera to Mend All Broken Bicycles of the Universe According to Jarry and Rizal, which had a run at Berlin’s iconic Volksbühne Theater in 2022. Aside from a side career as one of the country’s top competitive eaters, he works as a freelance research consultant for development programs, having worked for initiatives of bilateral and multilateral development institutions, National Government Agencies, Corporate Foundations, and Civil Society Organizations. He lives in Metro Manila.
