Equipped with experience and understanding of Asian societies and processes of development, our team is able to bring people, knowledge and resources together, and make change happen.
Chief Executive Officer
Director, Development
Director, Operations
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Dr Wan Chang Da is the Chief Executive Officer at The HEAD Foundation.
Chang Da believes that education and healthcare are key transformation pillars of our society. While healthcare provides the foundation, education nurtures to unleash the real potential of the human person. Only with a healthy body and a learned mind, lives can be transformed in steering our society for a better tomorrow.
Before joining The HEAD Foundation, Chang Da was the Director at the National Higher Education Research Institute, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He also spent a year with Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. As an academic, he has a strong interest in higher education in Southeast Asia and the Global South. Chang Da has vast experience in undertaking research, consultancy, and capacity building projects for UNESCO, UNICEF, OECD, Commonwealth Tertiary Education Facility, ASEF Education, ASEAN Foundation, Department for International Development (UK), Ministry of Higher Education/Education (Malaysia), and Higher Education Leadership Academy (Malaysia).
Chang Da read economics at the University of Malaya and the National University of Singapore. He then went to the University of Oxford to read a doctorate in education. Currently, Chang Da is one of the 200 elected Members of the Global Young Academy.
CD Liang is responsible for the development function at the Foundation.
CD was trained as an engineer and started his engineering career in the late 80s in Kuala Lumpur. He subsequently became a software developer who designed and implemented multimedia solutions for leading hotel chains and major banks in Southeast Asia and Greater China.
After completing his MBA degree in 1998, he worked for seven years in the Greater China region as a management consultant (for Monitor Company, Arthur Andersen and KPMG Consulting) and a sourcing consultant (as Director of Program Management, APAC for FreeMarkets, Inc. and Ariba, Inc.). He subsequently relocated to Singapore to work for eBay, Inc. as Marketplace Development Director for Southeast Asia. Before joining The HEAD Foundation, CD worked for the non-profit division of the IMC Group to manage social investments in education and media projects.
CD had served many family businesses and MNCs throughout his career. Born and grew up in Kuala Lumpur, CD had also worked and lived in Bangkok, Boston and Hong Kong before he settled down in Singapore in 2005.
CD has a bachelor’s degree (architecture & engineering) from Princeton University and an MBA degree from MIT Sloan School of Management.
Vignesh Naidu is the Director, Operations at The HEAD Foundation.
Before joining The HEAD Foundation, Vignesh worked with a large Singaporean conglomerate to strategize and develop a comprehensive learning and development framework. That project sparked his interest in the field of skills and employability; a vexing problem for many economies in the region and beyond.
Through The HEAD Foundation, Vignesh hopes to contribute to the literature and research in the field of skills and employability. Vignesh has also worked at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy as a case writer, focusing on social policies and behavioural economics. He also obtained his Masters in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Michelle Leong is the Senior Manager, Capacity Building Programmes, at The HEAD Foundation.
Before joining the Foundation, Michelle worked in the public and private sector. She has experience in both pedagogy and andragogy as a former Education Officer and as a Trainer for adult learning. She has also guided clients towards making effective decisions with focused, productive, and engaging discussions as a facilitator / consultant.
Michelle is motivated by developing self-sufficiency in self and others. Through Capacity Building at The HEAD Foundation, she collaborates with Institutional Partners to analyse needs and design, develop and deliver programmes with skills transferable to workplace. By collaborating with subject matter experts and researchers, she facilitates knowledge brokering, through ongoing dialogue and exchange, between knowledge producers and those who use the knowledge.
She obtained her Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Caroline Rayney has over 30 years of publishing experience. 23 years of which was with The Economist Newspaper Ltd as one of the pioneers when The Economist started their operations in Singapore in 1984. She helmed the newspaper’s customer service and fulfilment operations for the Asia Pacific region.
Caroline’s experience in publishing also encompass the production and distribution as well as event management of niche lifestyle regional publications. Caroline obtained a Diploma in Administrative Management from the U.K.
Maryann has spent the past 15 years helping businesses set-up and manage their finance and human resources department.
At The HEAD Foundation, she oversees the finance function. Her previous role was Senior Finance & HR Manager for a Singapore-based FinTech start-up where she built the finance team and set up entities across Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia.
She is a member of CPA Australia and graduated with a Bachelor of Accountancy from the University of South Australia Originally from Malaysia, Maryann has been working in Singapore for the past 12 years.
Melody Español is the Communications Manager at The HEAD Foundation.
She previously worked for a multinational ICT company as part of its corporate communications team. She also gained experience in public relations working in a Singapore-based agency, serving clients in the enterprise and consumer tech space, start-ups and non-profits.
Melody obtained her bachelor’s degree with honours at the National University of Singapore.
Xiaoqing is Projects Manager at the HEAD Foundation covering healthcare projects.
Xiaoqing started her career in the Economic Development Board (EDB) and was part of the team responsible for technopreneurship development and info-communications & media industry development in Singapore. She grew an interest in the healthcare sector after working in strategy management at a public healthcare cluster. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was business manager in a local pharmaceutical distribution company covering the day to day operations of the Singapore and Hong Kong market.
Xiaoqing graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (Industrial & Operations Engineering) from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
Hillary’s interest in education began as the recipient of a broad-based interdisciplinary curriculum emphasising inquiry and experiential learning, where she gained an embodied appreciation of the power of education to transform lives. She spent a semester in the Indian Himalayas with rural communities, understanding the intersectionality of education disparity with climate, geography, and gender and social politics.
Previously, Hillary has worked in a design agency as a writer and copyeditor, and in a private art gallery as an operations executive. She obtained her BA (Honours) in Arts and Humanities, with a minor in Anthropology, from Yale-NUS College, Singapore.
Nazira is the Events Executive at The HEAD Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was working in the public and higher education sectors, organising events for all ages. Outside of work, she organises volunteering projects with other likeminded people to bring the community together. She also keeps up with the younger generation through mentoring and volunteer tuition. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she teamed up with other inspiring individuals to spearhead a ground-up initiative for healthcare workers, which is now registered as a non-profit organisation.
Mr Ho Swee Huat is the Founder and Managing Director of Abacus Assets Advisors Pte Ltd. Before starting the company, he had an established career in the banking industry, with 20 years of experience in Singapore, Hong Kong and New York.
He was an Independent Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee of CapitaCommercial Trust Management LTD from 2004 to 2013.
He is the current Chairman of Autism Association (Singapore) which he co-founded with a group of parents in 1992. He is also Vice-Chairman of Eden School, a special school for children with autism.
Mr Ho holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Liberal Arts degree in Economics from Hamilton College, USA.
He has been a member of the Board of the Foundation since its incorporation.
