Closing the Loop: Unlocking Singapore’s Plastic Materials Flow

Mr Andy Sim

Vice President & Managing Director Singapore,

Dell Technologies

Andy Sim oversees the company’s growth and operations in Singapore, with primary responsibilities for leading the sales strategy, go-to-market, business development and enhancing relationships with customers across public and private sectors, partners and alliances.

Andy has over 30 years of industry experience with global companies including Dell Technologies, Samsung, Cisco Systems, Silicon Graphics, 3M and HewlettPackard. His unmistakable passion, coupled with experience across a wide range of regional leadership roles, puts him in a unique position to drive the business in an ever evolving and dynamic technology landscape. He has held multiple roles at Dell Technologies in the last eight years, most recently heading up the corporate, enterprise and public sector business in Singapore.

Andy has also led the enterprise solutions business in South Asia1 and Korea and the networking business across Asia-Pacific and Japan, making him well versed in priority technology areas including hybrid cloud, edge, telecom, AI and as-a-service offerings.

An industry veteran, Andy has been an active member of SGTech since 2013, a premier trade association for the tech industry in Singapore. He is passionate about sustainability issues and serves as a council advisor to the SGTech Sustainability Committee, while also serving as SGTech’s first vice-chairman. Andy is also the Singapore IT Standards Committee (ITSC) Green IT Chairman and a board member of ITE Electronics and Infocomm Technology Academic Advisory Committee. He was also appointed to the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Advisory Committee for e-waste management led by Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) for a two-year term (2021-23).

Ms Carolyn Poon

Director Sustainability,

Textile and Fashion Federation (Taff) Singapore

Carolyn is passionate about sustainability and the transformative value of tech to help businesses and people become better versions of themselves.

Carolyn held various senior management roles as regional strategy and product management for a Fortune100 MNC and as a principal consultant. Her key expertise is in bringing together the right balance of problem-solving rigour, people skills and pragmatism to influence key decisions and strategy with key stakeholders and across different levels of the client organisations, to deliver outcome-based programmes.

Mr C Rohith Thatchan

Vice President, Digital Wealth Product Management 

OCBC

C Rohith Thatchan is a Digital Wealth Vice President at OCBC Bank who envisions solving the inefficiencies in the world of wealth through sustainability & artificial intelligence. He is also a member of the OCBC GCFS Sustainability Committee and an expert member at the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network where he formulates solutions to a myriad of global sustainability challenges. He relishes his passion with students from various universities, which he frequents as a guest speaker. 

He completed his Master of Finance from the University of Hong Kong and holds a Bachelor of Financial Markets from the University of Mumbai.

Mr Pankaj Bhardwaj

Vice President, Marketing, Asia Pacific,

Labels and Packaging Materials

Avery Dennison Asia Pacific

As the Vice President of Marketing at Avery Dennison Asia Pacific, Pankaj is responsible for driving strategic marketing, product portfolio, innovation, sustainability and superior customer experience.

Pankaj joined Avery Dennison in 2012, and until mid-2021, served as the VP/GM, South Asia. Previously, Pankaj has served in different commercial and general management roles. He is known for his exceptional business performance and was recognized as ‘The Most Promising Business Leader Of Asia’ in 2020 by Economic Times. He has also received the highest internal global recognition of ‘Business Leader Of The Year’ in 2019.

Prior to joining Avery Dennison, Pankaj has worked at Asian Paints, 3M, and AkzoNobel, and has over 22 years of professional experience.

Pankaj is an INSEAD alumnus with an education in industrial chemistry.

Dr Li Xu

Senior Scientist, Institute of Sustainability for Chemicals, Energy and Environment

A*STAR

Dr Li Xu is a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Sustainability for Chemical, Energy and Environment (ISCE2), A*STAR, where he leads a research team dedicated to studying hybrid polymer materials for food packaging.

The main research focus of his team is 1) design and synthesis of high-performance polymer material and functional filler and 2) incorporation of functional filler into polymer material with controlled filler distribution and tuned interfacial bonding between filler and polymer matrix.

As an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Food Science and Technology, NUS, his study is on hybrid polymers for food preservation. His oxygen barrier and oxygen scavenging technology have been successfully integrated with polyolefin to produce recyclable mono-polyolefin food packaging.

Dr S. Viswanathan

Director, Centre for Business Sustainability,

Nanyang Technological University

Vish S. Viswanathan is a Professor of Operations Management & Corporate Sustainability at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University. He also serves as the Director of the Centre for Business Sustainability and as Cluster Director of the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N). He has previously served as Associate Dean (Research), Head of the academic division of Information Technology & Operations Management, Director of the PhD Program, Program Director of MBA specialization in Technology & Operations and Program Director of MDP@Nanyang.

Vish’s expertise is in Corporate Sustainability, Sustainable Operations & Supply Chain, Operations Management, Inventory Theory, and Optimization. He currently teaches in the Masters, PhD, MBA, EMBA and Executive Programs. His research interests are in Inventory Management, Corporate Sustainability, Sustainable Operations, Business Model Innovation, Closed Loop Supply Chain, Manufacturing Systems, Urban Mobility, Optimization, and Scheduling.

His research has been published in Financial Times and BusinessWeek ranked top tiered Business journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Production & Operations Management, and Journal of Operations Management; and other top journals in the field. He is serving or has served as Senior Editor, Editorial Board Member, or Associate Editor in top journals. He has made several appearances in Who’s who in the World, Who’s Who in Asia, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry and Who’s Who in Science and Engineering lists. He was awarded the prestigious Nanyang Award for Research Excellence in 2010.

Mr Lloyd Lowe

Senior Regional Manager, Biopolymer Sales Management Asia Pacific,

BASF

Lloyd received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree (with High Honor) from Auburn University in the United States.

Lloyd has been based in Asia since 1998 and is currently responsible for Biopolymer Sales Management Asia Pacific for BASF. He is also Chair of the EuroCham (Singapore) Packaging Committee.

Dr Han Zhang

APAC Sustainability Director, Packaging & Specialty Plastics,

DOW Chemical

Han Zhang, Ph.D., global sustainability director for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, is responsible for collaborating with the entire value chain to promote and improve the sustainability value of plastics. He works closely with the global sustainability team to drive progress against Dow’s Stop the Waste and Close the Loop targets and leads external engagement with key partnerships and thought leaders.

Zhang joined Dow in 2013 as a sustainability manager in the Sustainability Program Office. In this role, Zhang was responsible for Dow’s global sustainability reporting, which included Dow’s Annual Sustainability Report. In 2015, Zhang was named sustainability and advocacy manager for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, North America. In 2017, Zhang was named sustainability director for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Asia Pacific and relocated to Singapore, before assuming his current position leading Dow’s global plastics sustainability efforts