2021 shortlist

Farah started gymnastics at age three, competed at age six and joined the national team at age eight. She is now revered as Malaysia's top gymnast, winning medals all over the world. A true believer in the unifying power of sports, Farah inspires the younger generation and has her sights set on competing in the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Lao is a national rugby star from the country’s rural province of Xieng Khouang. She has inspired thousands of children to take up rugby, playing an instrumental role in building and sustaining the sport in rural Laos, all while breaking down stereotypes. She manages 40 coaches who lead over 70 teams across several districts in Xieng Khouang.

Jen is the Founder of Race2Share, an advocacy group promoting sport and fitness for positive change and pioneering structured sports programmes for foreign domestic workers in Singapore. She was a panellist at the UN Social Forum on Human Rights for Sport in 2018 and is a member of the UNESCO Youth and Sport Task Force. Jen’s sights are set on expansion.

Qinthara is a football player, coach and active leader in community development through sport. She’s the Founder of the Kickqin Academy for girls and boys and Co-founder of Sports Legacy, an organisation that empowers women from non-urban settings. At ASA Foundation, she manages coaching clinics and sports-based education development in major Indonesian cities.

Souphaphone is Co-founder and Partnership Manager of STELLA, a social enterprise that empowers youth development in Laos. Established as a unique platform, STELLA builds leadership in young people, opens educational pathways, offers career exploration tools and engages them in meaningful social impact initiatives and business incubation programmes.

Raudhah started Accelerate Global to tackle youth unemployment. The organisation is now generating an annual revenue of RM142,000 and has helped over 500 marginalised youths in Malaysia to become entrepreneurs. Prior to this role, Raudhah was Project Leader of a social enterprise project called SHE Inspires, helping former sex trafficked women in Ghana.

Aida, Wong Wei and Ming Chi met at McKinsey & Company’s Youth Leadership Academy and in 2019 co-founded Ibupreneur, a social enterprise empowering 10 vulnerable mothers to become tech-savvy micro-entrepreneurs. To generate more impact, IbuDigital was launched to facilitate training in running digital businesses. Over 1700 women have participated to date.

Regine specialises in digital transformation and enterprise technology and has worked closely with international clients to revolutionise their businesses – across 10 industries including finance, technology, oil and gas. She played a key role in launching two billion-dollar virtual banks in SEA, has won five hackathons and developed apps for over 55,000 student users.

Annie empowers Southeast Asian enterprises to innovate with modern IT on cloud computing and voice technology. She assisted in creating the inaugural certification for Voice Artificial Intelligence IT and she champions IT projects that improve humanitarian aid. Prior to her current role, she served as a technology consultant at IBM.

Irene is a multi-award-winning engineer at PETRONAS and specialises in water technology and in pioneering the EURO-5 standard fuel production. She’s won numerous awards, including the IChemE Young Industrialist Award, and is collaborating with WWF Malaysia to develop a mobile application, Recycle3Go, to enable users to connect with recycling centres.

Yi Lin started her career as a registered pharmacist before serving as a pediatric and neonatal ICU ward pharmacist. In 2017, she joined Roche as the Drug Safety Manager. A strong believer in patient safety and the great potential of its expansion in Malaysia, Yi Lin doesn’t limit her efforts to improving patient safety within the company but, rather, drives it across the nation.

Wai Cheng started her career as a quantity surveyor before moving into project management. She has worked on a wide range of projects from small renovations to government building developments and has played an integral part in the digital and analytics department, providing award-winning and innovative digital solutions to the built environment industry.

One of the pioneer members of Ohmyhome, Veronica grew her operations and sales team into the most efficient real estate sales team in Singapore, serving thousands of homeowners. The company became the country’s fastest transacting platform, transacting over 8,000 services in the last four years.

Pichmonyka works on leading real estate projects and, being trilingual, is responsible for relationship with Chinese speaking clients. She is also a partner with the Good City Foundation, a multilateral development organisation promoting sustainable real estate development, and a Young Ambassador to the United Nations.

Edwina is Facilities Manager at C&W Services, with 12 years of experience managing large-scale, high-traffic and critical facilities. She is currently also Building Manager for the Ministry of Home Affairs’ training facility, Home Team Academy (HTA), and in this role, she headed up the mobilisation of a government quarantine facility in 2020.

Amalina‘s academic interest is wearable activity monitors and their use in improving outcomes in breast cancer patients. Her meteoric rise from her history-making Malaysian SPM exam results to her current career as a surgeon and medical researcher, positions her as a social media role model where she fights medical misinformation.

As the head of Simmons & Simmons’ regulatory and fintech practice, Grace has over a decade of experience advising banks, asset managers and corporates in Singapore and Hong Kong on these matters. A strong advocate for digital innovation and critical infrastructure transformation, she sits on the board of Singapore’s blockchain association, ACCESS.

A scholar, writer, and development professional, Maria aims to elevate the appreciation and involvement of the Filipino community in research-informed government and civic and business practices. She has published 48 papers and also participates in the Regional Academy on the United Nations and the Philippine Society for Public Administration.

In 2017, Izreen joined the Quality Management Unit of Sungai Buloh Hospital and, within a year, cut outpatient waiting time in specialist clinics by half. She also spearheaded the MSQH accreditation for the hospital and played a major part in developing the COVID-19 hospital action plan.

At the age of 31, Jiraporn won a landslide victory in the general election as her hometown’s Member of Parliament. She is the youngest female member of the Exclusive Joint Committee on Drafting Thai Constitution, and she was selected as Pheu Thai Party’s main speaker during many parliamentary sessions.

Ireen has held key management positions in the information and communications technology industry for close to three decades before joining NTT Philippines as its Chief Executive Officer. Irene has been at the forefront in ensuring that women’s rights at work are taken care of – from health and wellness to equal opportunities of growth and development at work.

Konthea is instrumental in implementing JWOC’s strategic plan to ensure that low-income Cambodian youth are able to fulfill their potential in education, employment and engagement within their community. She’s a mentor to nine staff and has worked with 1000s of young people, offering support to enable them to pursue personal and professional growth

Carmela is an inspirational, results-driven agribusiness professional. Passionate about all areas of farming from embracing technological advancements to marketing and diversifying revenue streams with agritourism, Carmela is a role model for all in this sector. She has initiated programmes to empower young women and provided educational pathways into agribusiness.

Phillia is a Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company Indonesia. She has helped organisations achieve fundamental and lasting shifts in mindset and behaviour that lead to immediate competitive advantage. She is an active promoter of Unleashing Indonesia, an initiative to grow Indonesia’s emerging economy and was recently appointed as the Southeast Asia lead for McKinsey’s global social initiative committee.

Falencia is an Account Manager at FleishmanHillard, one of the world’s top PR agencies. She was just 25 when she became the youngest manager in the company’s history. With a passion for social work, Falencia founded the Hunger Bank, distributing excess food from restaurants and hotels to the poor. She also handles pro-bono work at FleishmanHillard.

Benjienen’s nursing background undergirds her approach to digital marketing, which involves optimising campaigns across nine markets in APAC, with the goal of improving the lives of 2.5 billion people by 2025. Healthcare accessibility is her focus, and campaign examples include increased accessibility in remote areas to Philips’s life-saving handheld ultrasound.

Alice leads Prudential's content marketing and social media strategies. She’s also a public speaker, thought leader, gender equality advocate and active community builder, and founded the non-profit organisation, Mama on Palette, to connect mothers with art. She was appointed by the Prime Minister’s Office as a Smart Nation Ambassador to engage young parents.

In 2017, Pratiwi founded Tenoon, a social enterprise empowering marginalised communities. The growing business employs people with disabilities to create products from fabrics made by local weavers. Ptatiwi also founded Roemah Renjanashe, a hospitality management and property rental business, and she’s now set on entering the restaurant industry.

Amanda is CEO of Sayurbox, an ecommerce grocery store. Founded in 2017, Sayurbox has 300 full-time employees and more than 100,000 customers and works with more than 1,000 farmers. Under Amanda’s leadership, Sayurbox has raised over $20 million and continues to disrupt the fresh produce supply chain to connect more farmers to end consumers

Nini is Executive Director of dobiQueen, the largest self-service laundry chain in Malaysia, boasting 72 outlets. Her vision is to create sustainable solutions that reduce the burden of household chores, giving women more time and energy while simultaneously creating jobs. Her groundbreaking new business models and growth acceleration initiatives are inspirational.

Sereyrath is the Co-founder of Young Eco Ambassador (YEA), a youth-led environmental advocacy network that champions Cambodia’s natural resources and works to protect them through art, storytelling, youth-led action and community-based ecotourism. Sereyrath has inspired thousands of Cambodians to take action to protect rainforests and biodiversity

Thae has worked at Thant Myanmar since 2018, setting up community waste management programmes in rural areas and training over 2,000 people in the tourism and private sectors in plastic prevention and local solutions in waste management. Thae also leads the social enterprise TDG Origins, the profits from which support 44 needy students.

Jonia is Business Development Manager for Timor-Leste’s leading organic speciality coffee exporter. She has had a major impact on community tourism development, business growth and the country’s National Coffee Sector Development Plan. Jonia also drives the company’s zero plastic initiative and actively works to promote gender equality, diversity and inclusion.

Maria, or Toinkee to many, is a dwarfism awareness advocate and Founder of Big Dreams for Little People, an organisation campaigning for little people and equal rights to work, access to public utilities and an end to discrimination. Toinkee has been invited to speak at global conferences and her work has been featured in numerous documentaries.

At Golden Equator Consulting, Angie is the chief trainer in micro-business courses, start-up boot camps and entrepreneurship masterclasses for government-linked companies, statutory bodies and educational institutions. As a member of Brunei’s National Youth Advisory Group and Young Professionals Network, she reviews and translates youth policies

Sharlene is establishing a key strategic pillar for Fidelity, a global asset management company, leading the data management and governance workstream of this new venture. She also works on strategy and implementation for Southeast Asia and the Middle East and co-leads a global cultural diversity initiative and the Singapore chapter of Fidelity for Everyone.

In her senior position with Michael Page Indonesia, Imeiniar is the top revenue earner for the business and sits on the Page Group’s APAC Technology Committee. In 2015 she launched the Membangun Negeri programme to address talent shortages and build businesses – by referring Indonesian professionals abroad to attractive opportunities in their home country

Sharon is DBS Bank’s youngest Executive Director and has an excellent track record in transforming their consumer banking division across Asia. She is passionate about the power of mentorship, gender diversity and making banking a force for good. She established the POSB PAssion Kids Fund, raising more than $10 million and impacting more than 605,000 children.

Melissa is a TV host, model, actress and zero waste advocate. A passionate environmental speaker, Melissa hosts events to engage the public directly on sustainable living and the tools for climate action, working with Greenpeace, WWF and others. She is a Climate Reality Leader, EARTHDAY.ORG Ambassador and Country Coordinator for Fashion Revolution Malaysia.

Pamela’s creative force lies at the intersection of art, architecture and design. She runs an award-winning studio specialising in unconventional projects that bring art into the public realm as a way to strengthen a sense of belonging and community. Two of her projects, Eden and Projection Kite, won DFA Design for Asia Awards in 2020.

Red is an acclaimed Malaysian contemporary artist. She creates installations by using everyday materials to express themes of women, heritage, race and climate change, leading a team of seven artists and designers at Studio Hong Yi. She has created artworks for the World Economic Forum, Google, Facebook, WWF and TIME magazine.