Contributors

Merry Riana

Merry Riana is a Millionaire Entrepreneur, Best-Selling Author, and Asia's No.1 Female Motivational Speaker.

Michael Brisbane

Michael Brisbane is the Managing Director of Scandinavian Business Seating in Singapore. He is an experienced global movement expert and leader of Scandinavia's three leading seating brands, Hag (pronounced Horg), RH, and RBM in Asia Pacific headquartered in Singapore.

Michael Cluzel

Born in Germany in 1973, Michael has enjoyed a multinational career as a business leader across 4 continents and 4 industries.

After graduating from the oldest university in Germany (Heidelberg University) with a Master of Arts in Economics in 1999, Michael went on a journey that took him to Switzerland, Germany, Thailand, China, Paraguay, Lao PDR, Vietnam, the Caribbean and back to Thailand.

After accumulating a wealth of experience working for Global Fortune 500 companies, like Coca-Cola (Food & Beverages), Henkel (Cosmetics) and Vimpelcom (Telecommunications), Michael became a CEO at just 33 years of age. He quickly carved out a reputation for himself as a creative, charismatic and highly successful business leader running businesses that had yearly turnovers of up to 700M USD.

Michael is currently the co-founder and CEO of Eatigo, the leading online reservation platform for restaurants in Thailand and Singapore. Eatigo connects empty stomachs with empty tables via time-based discounts and with the help of yield management algorithms. A relentless visionary in business, Michael unwinds by playing golf, running Marathons and spending time with his wife, Aimee, and his two children, MJ and Aiana.

Michael Frigo

Michael Frigo is the Regional Manager for Southeast Asia at Atradius.

Michael James Rich

As the Executive Vice President, Michael oversees advertising sales and content partnerships for FOX Networks Group Asia (FNG) throughout Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Michael has more than 25 years of experience in the media, sports and entertainment industry. Working on both the client and agency side, as well as consulting for a multitude of rights owners, he has gained experience across a variety of major international projects in Europe and Asia. Prior to joining FNG, Michael was the Founder and Managing Director of Station12 Asia in 2014 and the Founder and President of Publicis Content Ventures (PCV) in 2015. 

He previously held a role of CEO GroupM’s branded content division in Asia Pacific, growing of integrated content solutions for brands across the entire GroupM client portfolio.

Michael Jenkins

Michael is the Chief Executive at Roffey Park Institute (Europe and Asia). In 1999 he joined INSEAD, based in France, as Regional Director for Japan and Korea. After two years, Michael transferred to Singapore to become Director of the business school’s Executive Education Department before joining a leadership development organisation as Managing Director and Vice President Asia Pacific in Singapore.

Michael Podolinsky

Michael Podolinsky CSP, CSPGlobal is CEO at Podolinsky International Pte Ltd. He is Singapore's first resident Certified Speaking Professional. Known as Asia's Productivity Guru, Michael is also author of 15 books including his McGraw Hill Education Productivity Series.

Michael Smith

Michael Smith was appointed Singapore Director of specialist recruitment & HR services company Randstad in 2012. With a focus on employee potential, productivity and deeper market specialisation, Michael is responsible for setting the overall strategic direction for the Singapore operations and driving business growth.

Michael Velten and Junwei Han

Michael Velten

Michael is a real estate tax partner with Deloitte Singapore and is the firm’s Southeast Asia Investment Management and Real Estate Leader.

He has 35 years of tax experience; almost 30 years of which have been spent working in Asia having been based in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Michael started his career in Melbourne; he was a senior associate with a leading Australian law firm.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Michael had held senior tax roles with global financial institutions and leading professional firms in Asia. He has also held academic appointments at the University of Melbourne and National University of Singapore.

Michael is a recognised real estate tax expert and has worked on real estate transactions across the region over the past 20 years; including post exit tax audits. Michael’s work includes real estate fund structuring, Singapore and Asia Pacific regional real estate transactions and supporting the tax compliance requirements of Asia real estate funds and investment platforms in Singapore.

He is qualified as both a Solicitor (Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia) and a Certified Public Accountant (Australia). Michael is an Accredited Tax Adviser: Income Tax and GST (Singapore), a Certified Tax Adviser (Hong Kong) and a Trust and Estate Practitioner. He is a Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Hong Kong, and an Associate of the Chartered Tax Institute of Malaysia and The Tax Institute (Australia). Michael is a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Laws and Master of Taxation from the University of Melbourne. He also holds a Master of Laws from the National University of Singapore and a Master of Business Administration from the University of New England. Michael recently completed Comparative Tax Policy and Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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Junwei Han

Junwei is Financial Services Tax Senior Manager at Deloitte Singapore. He is a Singapore-qualified tax lawyer with deep tax technical expertise in Singapore, and broader experience across APAC.

Junwei advises clients across a broad range of matters, including international tax planning, wealth management, fund structuring/formation, M&A, corporate restructurings, CRS/FATCA, amongst others. His growing areas of specialisation include structuring investment funds via Singapore vehicles (including the recently introduced VCC), Singapore principal structure planning, and trust/family office structuring. In addition to advisory work, Junwei has transactional experience, having been involved as tax counsel/advisor in multiple M&A deals value at over $1B. He has acted for both sell-side and buy-side, and has also advised W&I insurers.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Junwei was in a leading international law firm, specialising in tax law. He is a member of the Law Society of Singapore and the Singapore Academy of Law. He is also a committee member of the Tax & Trusts Committee within the Law Society of Singapore.

Michael Velten and Matthew Lovatt

Michael Velten is Deloitte’s Asia Pacific Financial Services Industry Tax Leader.

Michael has over 30 years tax experience; 25 years of which have been spent working in Asia having been based in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore. He advises on all areas of Singapore financial services tax (including indirect tax, information reporting, M&A tax and transfer pricing); and is a recognized industry tax expert. Michael works across all sectors including banking and securities, insurance and investment management.

Michael is qualified as both a Solicitor (Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia) and a CPA (Australia). Michael is an Accredited Tax Advisor: Income tax and GST (Singapore), a Certified Tax Adviser (Hong Kong) and a Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP). Michael is a Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Hong Kong, an Associate of the Chartered Tax Institute of Malaysia and a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors.

Matthew Lovatt is a Director in the Southeast Asia Financial Services Industry Tax Practice. Matthew provides Singapore and international tax advice to multinational enterprises in the financial services sector on a variety of direct tax and stamp duty issues, and to a large number of clients concerned with applications of blockchain technology.

Matthew is an England and Wales-qualified solicitor and a Singapore Accredited Tax Advisor (Income Tax). He joined the Deloitte team in July 2017, and previously worked at Baker McKenzie London, where his practice focused on both UK- and Europe-inbound and outbound advisory work and the full range of UK corporate tax and stamp duty issues, including, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, UK real estate investment, facility agreements, structured financing and derivatives. He frequently represents clients with the design and implementation of complex cross-border projects.