The Stewardship Advantage - May 2023

Mr Rajeev Peshawaria

CEO, Stewardship Asia Centre

Rejecting platitudes and theoretical models, Rajeev combines 22 years of global Fortune 100 experience with research-based insights to provide unique and practical approaches to personal leadership, ethics, governance, sustainable business growth, and stewardship. A sought-after speaker and consultant, he is the CEO of Stewardship Asia Centre, Singapore, and President of Leadership Energy Consulting, Seattle, WA, USA.

Author of the Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller Open Source Leadership (McGraw Hill), Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Simon & Schuster), Sustainable Sustainability (Penguin Random House), co-author of Be the Change (McGraw Hill) and a regular contributor for Forbes, he constantly challenges conventional wisdom on leadership, management, stewardship, sustainability, and corporate governance.  He has pioneered unique practical concepts such as Leadership Energy and Emotional Integrity for personal growth, the Brains-Bones-Nerves model for enterprise leadership, and the Steward Leadership model for driving sustainable business growth in the 21st century.

Rajeev is a high-energy, inspirational speaker who provides coaching, consulting and advisory services to corporate and public sector clients globally. He also serves as guest faculty at leading US, Europe and Asia business schools.  He has been widely featured in international media such as CNN, Bloomberg TV & Radio, National Public Radio, Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Fast Company, Leader to Leader, American Management Association magazine, Leadership Excellence magazine, The Times of India, The Straits Times, Business Times, and many more.

Before joining SAC and starting LEC, he was the CEO of the Iclif Leadership & Governance Centre.  He was formerly the Chief Learning Officer of Coca-Cola and Morgan Stanley and has also held senior positions at American Express, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs. At Goldman, Rajeev helped found Pine Street − the firm’s acclaimed leadership academy − and headed Pine Street for Europe and Asia. In his early career, he was a banker and currency trader.

In 2014 and 2017, he was named one of the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders for Trustworthy Business by ‘Trust Across America.’  

A few of Rajeev’s videos and articles can be found on the links below:

1. CNBC Interview
2. Overview
3. Interview on CNN’s Quest Means Business
4. Forbes Article: Will G Save Us from E and S Challenges
5. TED Talk
6. TED Talk

Dr Flocy Joseph

Programme Director and Head Commercial, SMU Executive Development, Singapore Management University

Dr. Flocy Joseph leads her team of Client Directors and Business Development Managers at SMU Executive Development. As a leadership researcher, she has designed and delivered bespoke learning journeys for her clients across business sectors and geographies – focusing on senior leaders in the public and private sectors in Asia. Through her professional and academic experiences, she has successfully forged business partnerships with several overseas business schools in Europe, the Americas,
and Asia, and maintained through uniquely curated Singapore-basedbimmersion programmes for the executives from these partner schools.

Flocy has authored and published several case studies on leadership and remains an active participant in the ecosystem. Her work has won awards and recognition – most recently earning the Runner-Up award for her case on Bold and Responsible Leadership at the FT Awards in 2021. She has also won the inaugural ‘Dissertation Impact Award’ from SMU which assesses the impact of the thesis of Doctoral students in real life. She has co-authored the book “Living the Corporate Purpose: Insights from Companies in Asia” which is a collection of case studies of purpose-led organisations operating in Asia.

Prof Arnoud De Meyer

Chairman, Stewardship Asia Centre

Professor De Meyer is a global academic leader with more than 35 years of experience in top academic institutions in Europe and Asia. Until December 2018, he served as President of Singapore Management University (SMU). Before joining SMU, Professor De Meyer was from 2006 until 2010 Director (Dean) of the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.

Earlier on he was a faculty member at INSEAD and assumed several management positions, among others as founding dean of INSEAD’s Asia campus in Singapore. He has additionally been an Independent Director of various international companies and non-profit organisations. He is currently Independent Director of Viva Energy Pty Ltd, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited and upGrad Tech Pte Ltd.

Professor De Meyer is an internationally recognised researcher in the areas of Research & Development and Innovation Management, Manufacturing Strategy and International Management. He has published more than 100 academic articles and 12 books. His most recent books are “Ecosystem Edge: Sustaining Competitiveness in the Face of Disruption” (Stanford Business Press) and “Building Excellence in Higher Education: Singapore’s Experience” (Routledge).

Ms Annisah Smith

Senior Research and Advocacy Manager, Stewardship Asia Centre

Ms Annisah Smith is Research and Advocacy Manager at Stewardship Asia Centre (SAC), where she helps lead and develop sustainability-related engagements and content. With a background in environmental policy and sustainable agriculture, she brings experience in conducting sustainable development research, preparing due diligence and policy analyses, and building public-private partnerships.

Before joining SAC, Ms Smith was based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a Fulbright Research Scholar. She examined the inextricable challenges linked to sustainable and equitable palm oil development in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Her research interests have further explored the nexus between environmental governance and private sector engagement and has enabled her to work and live in the US, Costa Rica, Indonesia, and now Singapore.

Ms Smith is a graduate of American University’s School of International Service, where she pursued a BA in International Relations and an MA in Global Environmental Policy.

Dr Hao Liang

Programme Faculty and Associate Professor of Finance & Lee Kong Chian Fellow, Singapore Management University

Dr. Hao Liang is an associate professor of finance at Singapore Management University (SMU), where he also holds the BNP Paribas Fellowship, DBS Sustainability Fellowship, and Lee Kong Chian Fellowship. He also services as the Co-Director of Singapore Green Finance Centre. He is a research member of European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and an extramural fellow of Tilburg University. His research interests include sustainable finance, impact investing, corporate finance and governance. He has published on prestigious academic journals such as Journal of Finance. He is the Section Editor (Finance & Business Ethics) of Journal of Business Ethics (a FT50 top business journal), and is on the editorial boards of Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies, British Accounting Review, Journal of Industrial and Business Economics and Strategic Management Journal.

Hao is the recipient of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Emerging Scholar Award in 2020, and two-time winner of the prestigious Moskowitz Prize for Socially Responsible Investing (2014 & 2019). At SMU, he teaches Sustainable Finance and Entrepreneurial Finance at undergraduate, masters, DBA and PhD levels. He is a frequent contributor to Harvard Law School Forum of Corporate Governance and Oxford Business Law Blog among many other media. He is a member of the China ESG 30 Forum nominated by Caixin Magazine.

Professor Archan Misra

Programme Faculty and Vice Provost (Research) Professor of Computer Science, Singapore Management University

As SMU’s Vice Provost (Research), Prof. Archan Misra is responsible for defining and executing the university’s research strategy and engaging partners for large-scale externally funded strategic research initiatives. At SMU, Archan has provided leadership to multiple large-scale research initiatives, including (a) SMU’s Center for Applied Smart-Nation Analytics (CASA) and LiveLabs (which pioneered new technologies for mobile/wearable computing), and (b) the Living Analytics Research Center (LARC) (which develops urban sensing and analytics technologies).

Archan has extensive contributions, across both academia and industry (via substantive careers at IBM Research and Bellcore), in the broad areas of wireless networking and mobile computing. Notable past accomplishments include working on the world’s first Mobile IP testbed, patented work on highthroughput WiFi networks, and wearable sensing techniques to track human lifestyle activities. His current research focuses on ultra-low power sensing and AI models for embedded/IoT devices.