Homecoming: Singapore Management Festival returns to our SIM Campus

Singapore Management Festival 2016 @ SIM Campus

The annual Singapore Management Festival (SMF) returned to the SIM campus for the 2016 edition. Boasting a strong lineup of industry experts and leadership experts such as Prof. Gordon Hewitt and Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, the festival aims at bringing together business leaders from all management levels to discuss the latest trends in management practices, especially so in an unpredictable business landscape.

The theme for this year’s SMF was “Leaders of the future”, with the focus on the prominence of “millennials” in the current business world. One good example would be Mr. Paul Teng, a “millennial” Group CEO of Six Capital, an FX trading company that incorporates the aspects of data analysis as well as even gaming elements into its business model. Other local start-ups such as Carousell and NinjaVan serves as a further testament to how the “Millennials” are shaping the business world that we see today.

However, with the impact of globalisation, market transformation as well as technological advancements, the business world is becoming increasingly unpredictable. As a result, the term “VUCA world” is coined and discussed often throughout the festival. As a student attending the festival, this led me to thinkk, what does the term “VUCA” actually stands for?

A management lecture given by two distinguished members, Mr. Hsieh Tsun-Yan and Ms. Kong Hui Jin of consulting firm, LinHart Group, gave the audience a deeper insight of “VUCA”, which is the short abbreviation of “Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity”, and how leadership in the VUCA world is distinctly different from the traditional forms of leadership. In their opinion, leadership should come in the form of “humility”, not just in the sense of being humble, but also in the aspect of accepting constructive feedbacks from your subordinates. By giving their employees the courage to take up roles beyond their job scope, not only would such leaders be able to foster a more effective team, but at the same time, they are also playing a significant role in shaping the leaders of the future. A humble leader is one that takes responsibility for mistakes that were made, and also one that is capable of making calculated decisions, many of which ensure their company’s sustainability in a VUCA world. In summary, their sharing session was one that was highly relevant to all who attended, given how the role of a “humble leader” can be applied in all leadership positions, even in an academic setting.

Another management lecture that struck a chord with me would be the sharing session done by Mr. Yoshioka Tatsuya, founder of Peace Boat, the world’s first and only cruise ship that advocates on global causes such as environmental protection, human rights as well as sustainable development. The session was highly relevant to the students from UniSIM, given our involvement in service learning, Peace Boat was the perfect example of how an individual’s dream of a “borderless world” can be achieved from scratch. Almost 30 years since its culmination, Peace Boat has now hosted more than 80 “round the world” trips, sustaining only by the funding from participants and volunteers around the world. In the near future, Peace Boat intends to bring its advocacy one step further by developing an “eco-boat” that is powered by wind and solar energy, reducing its carbon and fuel emission by a further 40%. It would be a fascinating prospect if our school partners with Peace Boat in providing overseas service learning opportunities in the near future!

The Singapore Management Festival has been a rather fruitful one. In fact, given my participation in the previous edition of the SMF, I must say that this year’s theme resonates even stronger with the general student population. As such, if any of you are given an opportunity to participate in the SMF next year, I would highly recommend you to take up such an opportunity, and gather invaluable insights that are certainly not taught beyond our classrooms!

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