Speakers

Aanchal Agarwal

Associate Vice President, SPAG FINN Partners

With over 12 years of experience, Aanchal is an accomplished public relations professional with a deep understanding of the Southeast Asia region and India. As Associate Vice President, she leads operations for the Singapore office, drives new business development, and identifies strategic opportunities for clients.

Her expertise spans the full communications spectrum, from traditional media to innovative digital campaigns, and she has successfully partnered with leading organizations across various sectors such as healthcare including pharma, nutrition, disease awareness as well as social innovation, technology, agriculture, and travel. Aanchal’s strategic insights and collaborative approach have guided numerous healthcare executives and C-suite leaders, resulting in impactful campaigns and strengthened industry reputations.

Believing that strong execution is critical to success, Aanchal guides clients in achieving tangible outcomes across brand building, media relations, digital engagement, crisis communications, and stakeholder management.

Kainoa Blaisdell

Financial Lead for Asia Pacific, Sandpiper

HS Chung

North APAC CEO, Burson

As CEO, North Asia-Pacific, HS Chung leads Burson’s business across China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. She is a respected senior advisor, trusted by c-suites across Asia thanks to her deep and broad experience in corporate, integrated and digital communications. Her 30+ year career in marketing and communications spans integrated PR & marketing agencies, in-house roles and a major broadcasting station.

With a deep understanding of Asian conglomerates and their business needs, HS has counselled C-suites from many blue-chip multinational clients across a range of sectors. She has advised on global PR strategy and framework set-up to numerous global companies, including Coca-Cola, LG, Nestle, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Novartis and GSK. HS also spearheads specialized service offerings for the Korean government and has been involved in a number of government projects, including the Olympics. 

HS founded Synergy Communications in January 2000, which became part of Hill & Knowlton in 2002. Before Burson, she served as President, Asia, for Hill & Knowlton.

Earlier in her career, HS held senior roles at marketing agencies DMB&B and McCann-Erickson, and in-house for The Westin Chosun and The Ritz-Carlton Seoul hotels. She spent two years at major Korean broadcasting station, MBC-TV.

HS has been recognized as ICCO’s 2020 PR Leader of the Year; Campaign APAC’s Women to Watch 2020; PRovoke APAC’s 2020 Innovator 25 and PR Week Asia's PR Agency Head of the Year 2021.

Camillia Dass

APAC Editor, PRovoke Media

Suzy Goulding

Head of Sustainability APAC, MSL

Paul Holmes

Founder & Chair, PRovoke Media

Paul Holmes, founder and chair of PRovoke Media, has been writing about public relations for more than 25 years. Paul began his career in local newspapers in the north of England and also worked for a newspaper group in South London before joining PR Week as news editor in 1985.

In 1987 he moved to New York to launch the short-lived US edition of that publication, and after that project came to an inglorious end worked with Adweek and Adweek’s Marketing Week for a year.

In 1989, he launched his own company, initially publishing Inside PR, and later Reputation Management magazine, both focused on providing analysis of critical trends and issues in the public relations industry. He created the annual Public Relations Agency Report Card, which included profiles of the leading PR firms in the US, and the Creativity in Public Relations Awards, which grew to become the largest in North America.

Early in 2000, Holmes launched The Holmes Group, which provides knowledge and insight to public relations professionals across a variety of platforms, including a website, an e-newsletter, events, printed reports, research and consulting assignments, and the SABRE Awards competition. The group’s flagship title, PRovoke Media (p/k/a The Holmes Report), covers the public relations business in the Americas, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the Asia-Pacific region. In 2011, Paul was inducted into the ICCO Hall of Fame.

Nikhil Kharoo

Director, Global Head of PR and Partnerships, Razer Inc.

With nearly two decades of industry expertise, Nikhil currently serves as the Global Head of PR and Partnerships at Razer Inc., the world’s premier lifestyle brand for gamers. In this capacity, he oversees all global PR and partnership initiatives, leading dynamic teams across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including China. Nikhil also spearheads Razer’s worldwide AI partnership strategy, driving innovative collaborations across a broad spectrum of industries.

Nikhil’s previous experience includes senior roles at Google, Fitbit, and nearly a decade at Burson-Marsteller, where he led PR and partnership initiatives across the Asia Pacific region

Anthony Larmon

Managing Director, Southeast Asia, Ruder Finn Era

Bella Ling-Nair

Senior Director, Communications & Patient Advocacy, JAPAC, Edwards Lifesciences

Shouvik Prasanna Mukherjee

EVP Global Creative Innovation and Chief Creative Officer, Asia Pacific, Golin

Reuben Ong

Vice President, Healthcare, DKSH

Professional Experience

Reuben Ong is currently the Vice President, Business Unit Healthcare for Singapore. He currently sits on the board of Directors and is the Chairperson for the Ethics and Business Integrity Committee (EBIC) under the Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (SAPI).

Reuben first joined DKSH as General Manager where he led the Healthcare Alliance Team in Singapore and produced notable achievements during his tenure.

Prior to DKSH, Reuben held various positions at Takeda Pharmaceuticals where he became the Country Head for Singapore and led multiple commercial activities, and drove strategic growth.

With footprints all across the healthcare industry, Reuben brings with him more than seventeen years of healthcare experience where he took on several leadership positions including operations, product management, and commercial excellence.

Education

Reuben Ong has MBA in Business Management and Marketing from Rutgers Business School, The State University of New Jersey, United States, where he graduated as a Valedictorian. He also holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Mechanical Engineering from National University of Singapore (NUS).

Agung Ongko

Senior Partner and Director of Strategy and Insights, RICE, a FINN Partners Company

Agung S. Ongko is a strategist who brings years of experience across the entire communications spectrum — from brand consulting, corporate and brand PR, to public affairs, journalism, and research-driven reputation management. Over the years, through his work at award-winning strategic communications consultancy RICE, Agung has been a trusted partner and adviser to senior leaders and stakeholders at Fortune 500 and FTSE 250 companies like Hilton, Google, Audi, and International Workplace Group, among others.

He regularly provides executive counsel on thought leadership, issues management, and crisis response, including on M&A activities, data crisis, manpower impact, privacy regulation, business continuity, as well as internal communications. As principal strategist at RICE, Agung has also helped such multinational businesses with pan-APAC audits and gap analyses – including stakeholder mapping, landscape analysis, and message planning – that have galvanised strategic advances in their communications and marketing agenda.

Agung has managed public outreach and engagement in areas like international trade and social entrepreneurship, including preparatory work for the Leaders’ Summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and strategic advisory for positioning the Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (raiSE) through such prestigious platforms as the President’s Challenge Social Enterprise Award. Agung’s work in stakeholder research and message planning for the Singapore Workforce Development Agency had also contributed to shaping the narrative of Singapore’s national flagship initiative SkillsFuture.
 
To promote the role of strategy and planning in the industry, Agung has published his perspective on industry platforms like WARC and served as a judge for the industry’s leading awards, including the PRCA Platinum Awards and SABRE. He serves as the Founding Chair of PRCA APAC's Strategy & Insights Network.

 

Stephen Robertson

Managing Director, Singapore, We. Communications, Corporate Advisors

Stephen has 30 years’ experience delivering strategic communications counsel across Asia-Pacific to a diverse range of regional and national corporate organisations, with an emphasis on corporate reputation management, strategy and positioning, crisis and issues management, and stakeholder engagement. He has extensive experience working with clients to navigate complex leadership, reputation and regulatory situations where communications insight, media insight and precision perform a critical role in achieving business outcomes. Stephen has held a range of regional consulting positions and is an established consulting leader and hands-on practitioner who embraces complexity and business communications challenges with logic and creativity in close partnership with his clients’ business and communications leaders. He is a past president of the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce Singapore.

Elan Shou

Global Chief Growth Officer & Managing Director, Asia and Greater China, Ruder Finn

Charu Srivastava

co-founder, chief strategy officer and corporate affairs lead, TriOn & Co

Pia Tyagi

Senior Regional Director, Communications & Sustainability, APAC, Shiseido

Qiyun Woo

Senior Communications Manager, Technical Support Unit, IPCC