Reimagining the Future of Special Needs Education in an Uncertain World

Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer

Professor Julia Connell is currently the Acting Pro Vice Chancellor and CEO at the Newcastle Australia Institute of Higher Education. Previously, Julia held Director, Dean and Assistant Dean roles at Universities in Australia, the UAE and Indonesia. She has published over 100 refereed journal articles/book chapters, co-edited 17 special issue journal volumes and 9 books. Many publications focus on change, people development and, more recently, new technologies. She has consulted for various public and private sector organisations, taught in 11 different countries and lived in 4. Julia just led a team to create and facilitate a Senior Leadership Program for the New South Wales Community Justice Department and will shortly begin a new project researching skills, education and development in Singapore.

T: +65 6992 2368

E: julia.connell@newcastle.edu.au

Jaspal Singh started his career with the Singapore Government Administrative Service (1978-2004), serving in the Ministries of Transport, Finance and Trade & Industry and on the Boards of various statutory bodies and Government-linked corporates.

Key appointments held include Director of Budget and Deputy Secretary in the Ministries of Finance and Transport. He was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 1998 and the Long Service medal in 2003 for 25 years of service.

This was followed by a 14-year stint in the private sector based in London as CEO, ComfortDelGro (UK & Ireland), where he led the growth of ComfortDelGro’s network of bus, coach, taxi, private hire and engineering businesses in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. For his corporate accomplishments abroad, he was voted “Outstanding Overseas Executive of the Year, 2017” at the Annual Singapore Business Awards in April 2018.

Jaspal was born into a Sikh family in 1953 in New Delhi, the 5^th child of Gurbachan Singh and Amrit Kaur (refugees from Pakistan in 1947). He grew up in Kuala Lumpur prior to under-graduate studies on a Colombo Plan scholarship at the University of Newcastle, Australia (1973-77) and post-graduate studies (sponsored by the Singapore Government) at Harvard University (MPA, Kennedy School of Government, 1984-85, and AMP, Harvard Business School, Fall 2003).

Jaspal is currently Senior Advisor to SMRT Corporation Ltd and SPH Group. He sits on the Governing Council of the Singapore Institute of Directors and is also Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at the LKY School of Public Policy.

Dr Lee Kwok Cheong, popularly known as KC, retired in 2019 after a 41-year career in IT and education, of which 23 years were in the CEO role.  He has been active in shaping Singapore’s IT, education, and talents development landscape.  He was in charge of the Singapore civil service’s use of IT from 1989 to 1996.  In 1996 he was the founder CEO of NCS Pte Ltd, which grew to be Southeast Asia’s largest IT services provider. In 2005 he joined SIM Pte Ltd as CEO, again growing SIM to be the region’s largest private education provider. In that role, he partnered several leading universities from Australia, UK and US to bring their diploma and degree programs to Singapore, for local as well as international students.

KC was the founding President of the Singapore Association for Private Education, the industry association.  He was the President of the Singapore Computer Society, the IT professional society.

Due to his prominent role in IT and education, KC was invited to be on many of Singapore’s national-level committees in these areas. He has served on the Board of various public and private organisations.

He was Adjunct Faculty at NTU and UniSIM.  He was conferred honorary doctorate by RMIT University, University of London, and University of Stirling. For his public service contributions, he was conferred National Day Medals in 2010 and 2016 by the President of the Republic of Singapore.

Currently, he is on the Board of an education company in Vietnam, an IT services company listed on Singapore Exchange’s main Board, a government-owned gaming operator, a music ensemble, and a mental health charity.

Lee Meng started her legal career in private practice after obtaining her Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree from the National University of Singapore and after being admitted as an Advocate & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.  She was handling real estate legal work in a leading law firm in Singapore before she moved to in-house legal counsel work.

She has extensive experience in corporate matters and legal compliance across different industries. She was Vice President of the Legal & Corporate Secretarial department of the Ascott Group Limited which was then a hospitality company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. She was Counsel (Projects)/ Director, Legal & Corporate Secretariat of Singapore Power Limited and had also served as Vice President of the Administration & Governance division of SATS Ltd.

She had worked with the Pre-Professional Education Office of a Singapore restructured hospital, which office coordinates education programmes relating to the clinical training of medical, nursing, allied health and pharmacy students and she holds a Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education.

Bill Chua has served on local and foreign boards for the past twenty years. He is currently an Independent Director on the boards of IES-INCA Pte Ltd, United Hampshire US REIT Management Pte Ltd, Sunseap Group Pte Ltd, Citibank Singapore Limited, and BoardRoom Executive Services Pte Ltd, and a Managing Partner and Director of Green Sands Equity Inc. Previously he had served on the boards of Singapore Technologies Electronics Limited, Jurong International, Clearing and Payments Services Pte Ltd, DSO National Laboratories, Defence Science & Technology Agency and Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd, and CLS AG.

Bill retired from United Overseas Bank (UOB) as the Managing Director and Head Global Financial Institution Group in November 2014 after thirty-four years of a successful and distinguished career in the financial services sector. He was also on the boards of several affiliates and subsidiaries of UOB. Given his extensive banking experience, and engineering background, he is often called upon to provide the oversight for the Governance, Risk & Compliance functions on the boards he is on, and to advise on business and financial strategies, and issues relating to technology, operations and processes.

Bill is active in the financial, education and social communities. He chaired the sub committees on operations at the Association of Banks in Singapore, and the Singapore Foreign Exchange Markets Committee. He was a member of the Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian School of Business Advisory Board, a resource member of the Parliamentary Committees for the Ministries of Finance and Trade & Industry, and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence. He is currently on the Board of Governors at SAFRA National Service Association, and the honorary advisor to the Investment Committee at the Association. He is also currently a member of the Investment Committee at the Singapore University of Technology & Design. He was awarded the Public Service Medal (PBM) in 2004, and the Public Service Star (BBM) in 2016 by the Government of Singapore.

Bill was a Colombo Plan Scholar. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, and a Bachelor of Engineering Hons Class 1 from the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is a Fellow at the Singapore Institute of Directors, and at the Institution of Engineers, Singapore.

Ms Sandra Davie, Senior Education Correspondent of The Straits Times joined the newspaper after teaching English Literature and General Paper at a junior college for a few years. As a young reporter, she covered a range of topics from health to religious cults and education, given her background. She honed her investigative journalism skills further at The Philadelphia Inquirer on a Knight Ridder fellowship. Upon her return she joined a special report team and went on to write many award winning stories on a range of issues. She was made education correspondent in 1998 and has since written extensively on education issues from pre-school to higher education. She has won several in-house awards including Feature of the Year and Story of the Year for her education stories.

Sandra shares her expertise with educators and parents through university boards, school talks and informal meet-up sessions. She fields parents’ queries through the regular Ask Sandra columns, produces video clips to explain schemes and help parents make informed decisions in addition to her regular opinion pieces on education.

Sandra has a BA from the National University of Singapore and a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Chair of the Board

Professor Kent Anderson is an international lawyer who specialises in Asia and the Pacific. He recently returned to the University of Newcastle as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Global Engagements and Partnership. He has an eclectic background, having completed tertiary studies in US, Japan, and the UK in Law, Politics, Economics and Asian Studies. He also worked as a marketing manager with a US regional airline in Alaska, a commercial lawyer in Hawaii, and most recently senior adviser for higher education to two Commonwealth Ministers of Education.

Within universities, Kent was Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Newcastle, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Engagement) at University of Western Australia, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) at the University of Adelaide and Dean of the then Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University. He started his academic career as an associate professor at Hokkaido University Law School in Japan. Kent has been on a number of boards, including the National Library of Australia Council, Ministerial Council for International Education, Higher Education Standards Panel, New Colombo Plan Advisory Board, Board of Canberra Grammar School and Shenton College (Perth), and President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia and Japanese Studies Association of Australia.