Our Trainers
Meet our trainers and find out what they envision for the future of Southeast Asia.
Trainer Environmental, Social, Governance Programme
Antony Simon
Trainer ESG
Antony is the Country Representative of Sustainable Living Lab in Indonesia (PT. Nusa Aksara Teknologi) offering sustainability consulting services locally. With a strong background in Business Management, Information Technology and Construction, Antony has also established an ecosystem of engineering and technology companies since 2011 in wastewater treatment, civil engineering, and steel works. He has been also been appointed as the General Secretary of Indonesia Artificial Intelligence Society, Permanent Committee of KADIN Sumatera Utara (Chamber of Commerce of North Sumatra) and was the past chapter president of Junior Chamber International and Lions Club in Medan. Antony is a certified GRI Sustainability Professional.
Veerappan Swaminathan
Trainer ESG
Veera is the Founder & Director of Sustainable Living Lab, a sustainability consultancy. He has a keen interest in addressing sustainability challenges through foresight methods, community development and technology. Through his organization, he is currently working on electronic waste, corporate sustainability transition, active aging and digital divide issues. He holds advanced degrees in Intellectual Property Management and Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore. He is a recipient of the NEA Eco-Friend Award 2016, was a representative of Singapore at the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in 2018 and was nominated as the Co-Chair of the Climate Action Singapore Alliance (a Singapore Government-linked climate collective) in 2022.
Kristine Teoh
Trainer ESG
Kristine is a corporate sustainability consultant at Sustainable Living Lab. A graduate fromthe University of Leeds majoring in Sustainability and Environmental Management, she has developed a keen interest in ESG and sustainability education. Kristine has also been trained in carbon credit management. She has prior experience working in Marina Bay Sands’ Sustainability department focusing on sustainability related engagement with internal and external stakeholders including the certification of ISO 20121. She is also the project lead for the organisation’s sustainability projects and innovation lab workshops offerings.
Trainer Green House Gas Programme
Antony Simon
Trainer GHG
Antony is the Country Representative of Sustainable Living Lab in Indonesia (PT. Nusa Aksara Teknologi) offering sustainability consulting services locally. With a strong background in Business Management, Information Technology and Construction, Antony has also established an ecosystem of engineering and technology companies since 2011 in wastewater treatment, civil engineering, and steel works. He has been also been appointed as the General Secretary of Indonesia Artificial Intelligence Society, Permanent Committee of KADIN Sumatera Utara (Chamber of Commerce of North Sumatra) and was the past chapter president of Junior Chamber International and Lions Club in Medan. Antony is a certified GRI Sustainability Professional.
Stella Septania
Trainer GHG
Stella is the lead trainer with 16 years of professional experience as a strategic, operational, ESG, sustainability, corporate action & financial communication consultant. Her forte is in operational management, business ethics, ESG & sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, and strategic corporate communication, especially related to market-related financial communications, as well as sustainability and ESG communications. She obtained her Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Engineering from Pelita Harapan University, Faculty of Science and Technology, specializing in Robotics and Industrial Automation.
She then pursued her post-graduate degree in business Process Re-engineering and Management Consultancy at Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK. Over her professional career, Stella had the opportunities to work and collaborate with some of Indonesia’s, Japan’s, UK’s, and Europe’s prominent companies from various industrial sectors, namely: FMCG, Finance & Banking, Mining, Oil & Gas Manufacturing, Real Estate & Property, Telecommunication, Transportation, Legal, and many more..
Trainer Commodity and Trade Finance Programme
Walter Tan
Trainer CTF
Walter Tan is a senior banker with more than 38 years of banking experience. The bulk of his experience relates to Trade Finance Banking. His last senior position before he retired in December 2016, was Managing Director and head of Corporate Sales for Trade & Supply Chain, Transaction Banking Singapore at UOB Bank.
He has held a few regional positions including Regional Head for Trade Finance for Asia and Regional Trade Product Management Head for Asia while working for ABN Amro. He has also held positions of Deputy Country Manager and GTS Head of ABN Amro Singapore.
He was the Global Transaction Services (GTS) Head for Singapore while working for RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland). As GTS Head he was responsible for both trade and cash management business. Both trade finance & commodity finance teams in RBS Singapore reported to him. He worked for Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ (now known as MUFG) in the capacity of Assistant General Manager and Senior Sales Advisor responsible for structuring solutions targeting MNC clients and selected US & European Commodity Clients. His trade & commodity finances background includes sales, structuring, product management of traditional trade, open account trade receivables financing, commodity financing, supply chain financing, factoring and structuring of interest and currency arbitrage trade transactions. He was involved in the development of Borrowing Base Trade Finance, Early Payment Discounting (Supply Chain Financing), OAT (Open Account Trade) Financing and Offshore Reimbursement Financing (FI Trade Financing). Walter is currently a consultant with a Local Bank and he provides advice on target operating model designed for the rollout of Financial Supply Chain Management and Open Account systems. He is also freelance consultant and single-handedly designed & developed training module(s) covering open account trade, supply chain financing and factoring. He has developed a training module for a Vietnamese Bank. In his capacity as a consultant, he interacts with various Fintech solutions providers including solution providers for Trade Blockchain and IOT logistics. He has both sales product management experience in structuring commodity finance and supply chain solutions. He is able to add a new dimension to trade & commodity finance by analyzing & calibrating the use of Blockchain, AI and IOT technology.
Albert Lim
Trainer CTF
Currently as a director with the Global Commodity Finance department of French based Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank, Singapore Branch. He has been in this sector as a seasoned practitioner of structured trade for >20 years. Started from a credit and political risk solution provider with British American Aon Insurance Company, he then joined banking arena and has had stints with top notched commodity lenders like Belgium based KBC Bank N.V; French based Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Banks and Dutch based, ABN Amro N.V. To better service portfolio of commodity counterparts, he took on additional tertiary legal learning with UOL and post graduate program on Cross Border Business and Finance Law in Asia with SMU.
In his present role, he has been tasked to transit the existing heavily energy based portfolio into a greener and sustainable pool by aligning financing with a +1.5 degree Celsius trajectory. With this, he is driving the Metals and Agriculture segments with a revenue and asset based budget responsibility. His day to day includes proposing, structuring and delivery of financial solutions for prospects and clients’ trading activities, inventory and balance sheet management. His target clients include International and Asian based commodity trading houses, steel and based metals producers, mining companies. Although Singapore being a commodity hub grants easy access to most counterparts here but pre COVID, he is a regular traveler on inspection trips to smelters, refineries, stock and warehousing facilities in China.
Fundamental thinking process of a commodity banker is to know and use trade facilities that is structured on transactional and inventorial finance supported by traditional products like Letters of Credit, Trust Receipt and Post shipment loans on fully, imperfectly and unsecured operations. More complex financing such as borrowing base, pre-export, advance payments and asset securitization are also regular features. Not just getting the approvals from different level of credit delegations, the banker is then involved in documentation that often engages warehouse managers, exchange brokers/clearing houses, local and foreign counselors to perfect the bank’s security interest. Post drawdown, he has to supervise transactions alongside middle office for adherence to facility parameters, price risks (marked to market and valuation), collateral containment and monitoring of repayment sources. In the recent unfortunate times of Hin Leong and Zenrock, bankers have also been involved in litigative work and debt recovery as part of their responsibilities.
Apart from traditional and European commodity financiers, Albert has also had stints with corporate banking institutions and never far from his roots. He started the commodity portfolio with Royal Bank of Scotland that brought new revenue streams under transaction banking unit as well as team lead in the metals and mining department of DBS Bank Singapore covering non ferrous metals clients. A strong believer in the commodity financier profession, he is passionate and yet practical to mediate between the bank and markets’ expectation, ultimately with satisfying outcomes.
