Events

Overview

Participants will learn to identify signs of mental health issues in themselves and those around them, understand to begin to tackle these issues and the resources available. Participants will also have the opportunity to have theirs questions on all things relating to mental health taboo or otherwise answered by the speaker.

Speaker Profile

Anthea Ong

Nominated Member of Parliament | Author | Impact Entrepreneur & Investor | Life & Executive Coach | Strategy (Innovation, CSR) Consultant | Board Member | Yoga Instructor & Wellness Facilitator

Summary:

Anthea Ong is a Nominated Member of Parliament who champions mental health, social inclusion and climate change as her key areas of work in Parliament. She's also appointed by the Minister of Health to be a member of the Tripartite Oversight Committee for Workplace Safety & Health, co-chaired by MOH and MOM. She's a social entrepreneur and impact investor having founded several social initiatives and community projects including Hush TeaBar, A Good Space, WorkWell Leaders Workgroup, Playground of Joy and others. She was previously President and board member of WINGS, Singapore's only registered charity that deals with women and ageing - and have contributed on the boards of charities such as Daughters of Tomorrow and UN Women Singapore.

Full profile:

Anthea was appointed by the President of Republic of Singapore as one of the nine Nominated Members of Parliament on 26 September 2018 and will serve for two and half years in this public service role. Shortly after, her book 50 Shades of Love was published in December 2018.

A former banker, Anthea was most recently a regional Managing Director with a UK-listed company where she also double-hatted as the Asian Lead of the Global Corporate Responsibility Board. Prior to that, she held key leadership roles with multinational organisations: Pearson Plc, New York Institute of Finance, Terrapinn Group and United Overseas Bank.

From 2002-2008, she was Founder/CEO of education consulting and technology company, Knowledge Director Group, and Inventor of its award-winning rapid authoring technology. In this, she was also Principal Consultant for strategic education transformation projects with the governments of Singapore (FutureSchools@Singapore), Taipei and Kaohsiung (School of the Future).

In Dec 2013, she took her final corporate paycheck to fulfill her aspirations, full time, in active volunteerism, impact entrepreneurship/investment and coaching. Formerly a board member of Unifem (now UNWomen) and founding board member of Daughters of Tomorrow, Anthea is Immediate Past President of Society for WINGS. A member of the Social Services Innovation Advisory Council with National Council for Social Service, the Steering Committee for the ACE Capstone Leadership Programme at the Social Service Institute Singapore, the Futures of Giving Expert Panel and Company of Good initiative at National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) and Cedar Girls’ Secondary School Advisory Committee, Anthea has also been an active mentor with Institute of Technical Education since 2013.

In the last 9 years, Anthea founded several groundup initiatives/impact businesses– most notable is Hush TeaBar, Singapore’s 1st silent teabar (a social movement) that empowers and employs only the Deaf and persons-in-recovery from mental health conditions to bring self care and social inclusion to every workplace and community. In May 2018, She came together with a group of 25 C-suite leaders across different industries to form the WorkWell Leaders Workgroup to champion workplace mental health and employee wellbeing as a leadership priority. In 2017, she cocreated A Good Space, a community of community builders, to expand perspectives across a wide range of social issues. In 2014, Playground of Joy was founded to deliver integrated values-based development programmes for children, especially those with special needs. She started Project Yoga-on-Wheels in 2010 as a community of certified yoga instructors who bring inclusive yoga to the beneficiaries of non-profits.

A Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation to business leaders and high potential professionals from Russia, Portugal, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, France, UK, USA and Singapore, Anthea is an alumnus of National University of Singapore Business School, US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Programme (5 Cities, 2013), Global Entrepreneurship Summit hosted by President Obama (Stanford, 2016), the Social Leadership Singapore Programme (2016), Leadership on the Edge Antarctica Expedition (2018) and Presencing Foundation Programme (MIT, 2018).

Anthea is also a Certified Yoga Instructor, a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader, Certified Reiki 1&2 Practitioner, Certified Natural Therapy Practitioner and a Certified Microfinance Trainer (WorldBank/ADBI).

Anthea finds wisdom through her intrepid travels that have taken her to all seven continents and over 75 countries including Antarctica, Mt Everest Base Camp, The Amazon, Siberia (Trans-Siberia), Machu Picchu Mt Sinai, Iran, Tibet, Peru, Guatemala and Patagonia. She believes that the farther out she explores, the deeper in she travels.