Singapore as a Regional Commercial Hub in a Post-pandemic Era

Mr Chng was appointed Managing Director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on 1 October 2017.

Previously, Mr Chng was the Principal Private Secretary (PPS) to the Prime Minister (PM) from 1 September 2014 to 30 September 2017. Before his appointment as PPS to the PM, Mr Chng served various roles in the Public Service. He was Director of Communications Group at the Prime Minister’s Office, where he oversaw strategic communications and coordinated communications strategy across Government agencies. He was also Director of Resource Industry at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, where he coordinated the Government’s efforts to drive productivity growth, and Director of the Institute of Public Sector Leadership, which runs leadership development programmes for public sector leaders. Mr Chng also served in the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Communications and Information. Mr Chng was also seconded from 2008 to 2010 as a Senior Management Consultant to Shell in its Downstream Strategy Division.

Mr Chng graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Master in Engineering in 2001, specialising in signal processing. In 2011, Mr Chng was awarded the Lee Kuan Yew Scholarship. He is also a Sloan Fellow with a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

HE Nicklas Kvarnström is Sweden’s Ambassador to Singapore. Prior to this post, Mr Kvarnström was Director in the Department for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Mr Kvarnström was previously the Campaign Manager for Sweden’s successful candidature to the UN Security Council for the period 2017-18, as well as Advisor to the Wallenberg family, a premier Nordic industrial and financial group. In the diplomatic service, he had served at Sweden’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and its Embassy in Beijing. Mr Kvarnström also worked three years in investment banking with Goldman Sachs, in London and New York.

Mr Kvarnström graduated from the Oxford University with an MA and BA in Chinese with a Special Subject in Economics. He also studied at the Taiwan National Normal University in Taipei. He is married with four children.