Archives: Authors

Duncan Hewett is an industry champion for the representation of women in business and technology. He is focused on driving actionable results for gender diversity in the workplace and has consistently driven acceleration for women across leadership levels. Duncan is currently the Senior VP and General Manager for VMware’s business in Asia Pacific & Japan and has previously led IBM’s Asia Pacific software business.

With a passion for driving greater participation of women in the workforce, Duncan developed VMinclusion Taara, a program that VMware leverages to help women upskill and regain the confidence to back work in the technology sector in India. More than 11,000 women have benefitted through the program so far, and over 1500 have returned to work. The program has been awarded by ‘Women Leading Change Awards 2020 for Asia Pacific’, India’s reputed Economic Times’ ET Now – CSR Program of the Year 2019, JobsForHer’s – Top 20 Most Innovative Practices Women Returnee Programs and Zinnov VMware India’s Inclusion & Diversity Award.

Duncan’s philosophy on diversity takes an inside out approach by equipping women to succeed, helping with skills, practical tools to navigate the corporate world and help build their confidence. He believes this turns them into lifelong athletes in the workforce and allows them to forge their chosen path. An advocate for mentoring, Duncan mentors more than 30 women today. His vision for the workplace is to be representative of society, which is 50:50 participation. As he says, “If it is not, we have work to do.”

Marina Mahathir is a writer, women’s rights and HIV/AIDS activist. She served as the President of the Malaysian AIDS Council for 12 years from 1993-2005 and was a member of numerous international and regional committees on HIV/AIDS.

From 2010-2016, she served on the Board of Sisters in Islam, which advocates for justice and equality for Muslim women, and remains a member of the Finance and Fundraising Committee.

Marina has written a column in a local English-language daily for more than 20 years, and writes and speaks regularly on current issues particularly where it relates to gender, human rights and religion. She is active on Twitter (@netraKL) and Facebook and has authored three compilations of her newspaper columns, In Liberal Doses (1997), Telling It Straight (2012), and Dancing on Thin Ice (2015).

In 2010, Marina was named the UN Person of the Year by the United Nations in Malaysia. On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day in 2011, Marina was one of only two Malaysian women named to WomenDeliver.org’s list of 100 Most Inspiring People Delivering for Girls and Women. In 2016, Marina received France’s highest award, the Chevalier de la Legion D’Honneur in recognition of her work in HIV and women’s rights. This is in addition to receiving the Dato Paduka Mahkota Selangor (DPMS) from the Sultan of Selangor in 1997 which carries the title ‘Datin Paduka’.

Marina’s abiding interest in education especially for young women has led her to be appointed to the board of the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh. In 1997 she received an Honorary degree from Universiti Sains Malaysia for her work in HIV/AIDS education, in 2014 from Wawasan Open University, Penang for her work in human rights and in 2018 she received an Honorary Doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Sussex, UK. Previously she also co-produced an award-winning TV programme for young women, 3R -Respect, Relax, Respond which ran for 10 years on TV3.

Marina’s latest venture is a website for women travellers in Asia and the Middle East, Zafigo.com and ZafigoX, an event on women and travel that features inspiring women who have faced challenges and barriers while travelling and overcome them.

In 2019, Marina completed with Distinction a Master’s Degree in Biography and Creative Non-Fiction from the University of East Anglia, UK.

Michael O’Sullivan is a writer and academic based in Hong Kong. He has published 12 books on literature, philosophy and education. His most recent book Cloneliness was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. His poetry and essays appear in Times Higher Education, Voice and Verse, Asian Cha and PEN Hong’s Kong’s recent Hong Kong 20/20.

Edilberto C. de Jesus served as president of: Far Eastern University (1995-2002); the University of the Cordilleras (2008-2009); and the Asian Institute of Management (2009-2012), where he now holds a Professor Emeritus appointment.
In 1987, President Corazon Aquino appointed him Deputy Peace Commissioner, on secondment from AIM, where he was Chair of the Rural Development Management Program. In 1988, he received a concurrent appointment in the Cabinet as Presidential Adviser on Rural Development (1988-1992). Returning to AIM, he served as Associate Dean for Research and established its Policy Center.
He was president of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities and a board member of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations when he was appointed Secretary of Education (2002-2004). He was President of the Council of Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) in 2003, later serving as its Secretariat Director in Bangkok (2005-2007). He served in the Asia-Europe Education Hub established by the Asia Europe Foundation for the ASEM (Asia Europe Ministerial Meetings) and has been on the Advisory Committee of the Philippine Business for Education since its inception in 2006.
He obtained a B.A. Honors Course in the Humanities, cum laude, from the Ateneo de Manila University and the M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in History from Yale University. He is the author of The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines: Bureaucratic Enterprise and Social Changes, 1766-1880 (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1980) and co-edited, with Alfred McCoy, Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations (Ateneo de Manila University, 1982).

Sheng Keyi is the author of several novels and short stories. Northern Girls, the first of her full form works to be published in English, was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Death Fugue is her latest novel to be translated into English. She currently resides in Beijing, China.

Born in 1976, Natasha is a creative communications specialist with 19 years in education, creative arts and the media industry. Her work was instrumental in creating the communicative arts curriculum design for Taylors’ Design School under the School of Architecture, Building and Design at Taylor’s University from 2004 – 2010. She also designed and taught the Performing Arts module at Taylor’s School of Communication for over 6 years that paved the way for its first Performing Arts Conservatory launched in 2019. A signature of her work fuses performative, visual and fine arts with strong advocacy on cultural preservation and cross-culture literacy, as powerful expressive and therapeutic tools having collaborated with Kakiseni, the Malaysian Invention & Design Society and UNESCO under the Venezuelan embassy.
Her work under the BAC Education Group from 2014 – 2019 includes spearheading IACT College with a series of high-impact industry projects centered on social development targeting marginalized communities and controversial issues such as LGBT, rare diseases and Humanitarian work creating a strong alliance with the Make It Right Movement (MIRM), Mercy Malaysia and SEED Foundation. Her role includes redesigning the entity’s communication curriculum programmes to facilitate increased youth employability and to promote innovative teaching and learning.
Natasha was part of the UNICEF team with HELP University in 2006 to conduct two meaningful research: the traumatic effects of the 2004 Aceh tsunami on children and a nationwide research on bullying across Malaysian schools. Her exposure in these areas intensified her passion to travel across the country to create, provide and promote workshops on creative pedagogy based on trauma, emotional constructs and performative design.
In 2019 Natasha served as COO at Tandemic, a regional innovation firm specialising in Design Thinking (DT) training and Agile management, consultancy on innovation lab work, and social research. Her portfolio covered business development and strategy, and as a DT trainer with clients such as MyXpats, CIMB, UOB FinLab, Coca-Cola, TalentCorp, Penang Council, and Novo Nordisk.
Natasha is currently the CEO of a social impact batik company that produces batik textile Gahara focusing on its domestic and international corporate strategy; Executive Committee member of the Malaysia Craft Council in pushing for education on and advocacy in artisanal representation for local arts and crafts; Industry Advisor for the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM), and is pursuing her doctorate in Business Administration specializing in the areas of organizational behavior, design and transformational leadership.

A recipient of multiple leadership coaching awards and voted 2020 Executive Coach of the Year by Singapore Prestige Brands, Marcel Daane is a thought leader who believes that if we want different results in life, we need to possess the capacity to do things differently.

A Mind-Body Leadership, Life- and Executive Coach, Marcel is considered one of the world’s authorities in mind-body leadership, a combination of mindfulness and body-awareness to inspire authenticity, openness and trust in leadership, strategy, teamwork, change-management, and communication. He is the author of his critically acclaimed book and App called: Headstrong Performance and is a renowned neuroscience and leadership researcher exploring the link between physical and mental wellness and their impact on leadership and performance capacity in individuals, teams, and organizations.

Marcel is a life-long practitioner of Martial Arts and is the son of a celebrated Political Activist who taught him early on that life has greater meaning when we are of service to others rather than merely to ourselves. This value shines through in everything Marcel has done in his 30-year professional evolution ranging from serving in the military, to developing elite athletes, coaching chronically ill patients, conducting ground-breaking neuro-leadership research, and in his executive coaching work transforming today’s top managers into tomorrow’s top leaders.

In his free time, Marcel volunteers as a Mental Health & Wellness advocate supporting professionals struggling with mental wellness challenges and loves to spend quality family time traveling with his wife, Ursula, and Daughter, Kilani.

Marcel holds a post graduate degree in the Neuroscience of Leadership from Middlesex University an Undergraduate Degree in Complementary Medicine from Charles Sturt University coupled with advanced certifications in Executive Coaching, Fitness, and Sports Performance.

R. G. Peter was born in Singapore in 1988. He studied at the Anglo-Chinese School and Raffles Junior College before reading law at the University of Cambridge. He is a practicing lawyer who focuses on contentious construction litigation before the Singapore Courts. His literary influences include Evelyn Waugh, Eileen Chang, Graham Greene, Jack Kerouac and R. K. Narayan.