Dr. Thomas Goh

Chief Client Officer and Managing Director

Center for Creative Leadership, Asia Pacific

Experience

Dr. Thomas Goh is a veteran consultant and business leader with over 25 years of experience in helping clients improve their business performance through people, strategy, innovation, agility, leadership and capability.  As a management consultant and business leader, he offers both inside-out and outside-in perspectives of managing business and people.

Dr. Goh has helped hundreds of clients to deliver high-impact and actionable interventions across Asia Pacific, Europe, North and South America, Middle East and Africa. He received multiple awards for driving business growth, people matters and knowledge contributions.  

Before joining CCL, Dr. Goh was McKinsey’s Client Services Leader for Asia Pacific and a member of its global core team in agility service line.

Current Role

As Chief Client Officer and Managing Director of APAC, Dr. Goh leads CCL’s businesses across Asia Pacific. He is part of CCL’s global Executive Team which oversees CCL’s entire business operations, commercial development, client impact and employee matters.  He also helps drive global initiatives to help clients organize and prepare for the future. 

Educational Background

Dr. Goh holds PMP and PMI-RMP accreditation from Project Management Institute.  He is also a Wharton Fellow at the Wharton School and a Fellow at the Hong Kong Institute of Directors. He is a frequent keynote speaker and opinion leader on TV, print and social media. He is a subject matter expert who contributes case studies and insights for McKinsey Quarterly, Academy of Management, and the Project Management Institute and other leading global publications.

"Organizing for the Future"

The forces of technology, demographics and globalization will dramatically disrupt the world of work.  The scope, scale and pace of disruption are fast eroding existing business models.  Companies have to constantly seek new ways of doing things to remain relevant to their customers.  To do that, companies and individuals have to anticipate the future, rise to meet these forces, and bend them towards the arc of opportunity. 

While disruptive forces may bring uncertainties for businesses, leaders could prepare their companies for the big trends that are unfolding rapidly across the globe.  Aside from keeping up with technology, they have to understand what impact these trends would have on employment, work, and learning.  In this talk, Dr Thomas Goh, Chief Client Officer, Center for Creative Leadership, a global top ranked executive education provider, will share practical insights on how companies and individuals could prepare for the new business realities and build competitive advantages for sustainable growth.

Rachit Dayal

Managing Partner

Happy Marketer 

Over the last 15 years, Rachit has created successful marketing agencies, trained more than 1,000 executives on digital marketing and has been at the forefront of search marketing & analytics in Asia. His talks on how content, search and analytics drive businesses forward have been viewed by more than 4,000 professionals.
Rachit holds the distinction of being Singapore’s first Google Certified Advertising and Analytics professional. He trains international companies in Southeast Asia on Web Analytics, Search Engine Optimisation, Conversion Optimisation, Digital Advertising, Social Media Marketing, and Website/Apps Development and Digital Marketing. Google chose Rachit to be one of the first trainers in Singapore to deliver the Google Classroom trainings.
He also leads more than 40 digital experts at an innovative digital marketing consultancy he co-founded called Happy Marketer. That’s why his trainings are from a practitioner’s perspective. Rachit is a Master Practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and an Advanced Communicator in the Toastmasters International public speaking programme.

Keynote: Winning in an Age of Digital Disruption

In this keynote, Rachit will take the audience into Boardrooms across APAC and listen into the rarely-heard strategy meetings on the topics of Digital Disruption including Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain and Machine Learning. After the keynote, Leaders and Managers in the audience will be able to align their working style to match the urgency and importance Senior Leadership teams are placing on Digital Transformation. 

Along the way, the session will dive into frameworks, case studies and practical lessons from Digital Transformation Projects across Operations, HR, Sales and Marketing functions. And listeners will walk away with the powerful Digital Maturity Model that allows Project Managers to foresee and avoid fatal mistakes in the Digital journey.

Robin Speculand

Founder & CEO

Bridges Business Consultancy 

The current approach to implementing strategy is not working, and a different thinking is required.

Robin Speculand is driven to transform strategy implementation by inspiring leaders to change their attitude and approach. His work begins when leaders are crafting their organizations’ strategy and starting to define how to implement it.

Robin is a global pioneer and expert in strategy implementation. He is the founder and CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy Int and creator of the Implementation Hub—the first portal in the world dedicated to strategy implementation and featuring over 500 resources. Since assisting its first client, Singapore Airlines, Bridges has worked with governments, multinational corporations and local organizations across five continents to execute their strategies. Guiding Bridge’s clients’ implementation journeys involves transferring knowledge, tools and templates developed over two decades. Tools Robin has innovated include the Implementation Compass™, a proprietary framework for successful implementation, IMPACT, a toolkit with a structured approach for implementing actions in 90 days and Readiness2Execute, an audit of your organization’s execution capabilities.

A prolific writer and thinker on implementing strategy, Robin is an international bestselling author. His books include Bricks to Bridges–Make Your Strategy Come Alive, which set the benchmark for new thinking in his field, Beyond Strategy–The Leader’s Role in Successful Implementation, John Wiley & Sons, Building Your Execution Plan–182 Strategy Implementation Questions and his latest, Excellence in Execution–HOW to Implement Strategy, Morgan James, that provides a new approach to adopting the right mindset, toolset and skillset.

His pioneering work has been featured on various media: BBC U.K. & Global, CNBC, Financial Times, Sunday Telegraph and Singapore Straits Times and in strategy journals and international print.

A sought-after keynote speaker at strategy and international business forums, Robin is also an award-winning case writer, an educator for Duke CE, the co-founder of the Strategy Implementation Institute, and an adjunct faculty member at the Office of Executive and Professional Education in Singapore Management University. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard ironman athlete.

Robin Speculand is a global pioneer and expert in strategy implementation.

Transforming in a Disruptive World

The average life of an organization has been reduced by 50 years in the last 50 years. In the 1960s, it was 67 years; today, it is 17 years, and the impact of that 50-year difference is immense.

Leaders now need to be increasingly more aware of their strategic landscape, conscious of their business operating model and constantly thinking strategically. This dramatic change in business transformation is affected by artificial intelligence, algorithms, augmented and virtual reality, nanotechnology, and other new technologies. Many companies race to adopt digital transformation while others race to stay in business.

In this engaging and entertaining keynote, Robin Speculand shares what it takes to transform in a disruptive world by sharing the three broad themes for transformation and uncommon practices from successful leaders in a disruptive world.

A recognized pioneer and expert in strategy implementation, Robin Speculand is driven to transform strategy implementation globally by inspiring leaders to adopt a different approach. The founder and CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy Int, he created the Implementation Hub, the world’s first online portal dedicated to strategy implementation. His work begins as clients are crafting their strategy and starting to think about the implementation. This international bestselling author has sold more than 40,000 books worldwide and been featured on BBC, Channel News Asia and CNBC. His latest book is Excellence in Execution - HOW to Implement Your Strategy, with the foreword by Piyush Gupta, DBS, CEO.

Pedram Danesh-Mand

Asia-Pacific Technical Director – Risk Management

Aquenta Consulting (a Jacobs Company) 

With a successful record of executive positions with high profile companies and as an industry innovation award winner, Pedram has contributed to a number of major projects across Australia and overseas.

As Asia Pacific Technical Director - Risk Management with Aquenta Consulting (a Jacobs Company), Pedram leads and inspires teams; setting a benchmark for delivery of Integrated Project Controls (Scope, Time, Cost, Risk) and effective Risk and Contingency Management approaches to support clients making informed decisions.

Prior to this, Pedram was Head of Planning & Risk with UGL Engineering in a wide range of projects across Water, Power Generation, Power Systems, Coal, LNG/Oil & Gas.

Pedram is an innovation award winner from Australia’s Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) authority and CPB Contractors (previously known as Leighton Contractors) for his exceptional knowledge and practical application of statistical analysis and the Primavera system in analysing project risks and schedules.

As well as being the NSW President of Risk Engineering Society (RES) since 2013, Pedram has been a committee member of a number of international risk and project controls conferences including deputy-chair of RISK 2016 Conference in Sydney, Australia.

Pedram is highly skilled in Project Risk/Contingency Management, Project Planning/Scheduling, Project Controls, Monte Carlo Simulation, Schedule/Cost Risk Analysis, Earned Value (EV), and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Pedram is also a seasonal lecturer and tutor on advanced risk and contingency management (postgraduate level) at University of Technology, Sydney.

During his career path, Pedram has successfully helped high level Government Agencies, Law Firms and top contractors including:

Transport for NSW (TfNSW), Roads & Maritime Services (RMS), Transport Main Road (TMR), UGL, Origin Energy, BHP, Leighton Contractors, John Holland, Thiess, and Silcar Communications while working on many major projects and programs including:

$11b Sydney Metro City & Southwest

$11b WestConnex

$11b APLNG Upstream

$5b Brisbane Underground & Bus

$900m Inpex Ichthys LNG CCPP Project

$100m Solomon Power Station, FMG;

RGP5, delay claim;

Gold Coast Rapid Rail, Due Diligence RLB;

Revesby Turnback Project, Thiess vs TIDC;

Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) in TAS, NSW, SA;

North West Growth Centre;

Sydney Southern Freight Line;

Upper Hunter Valley Alliance;

$500m Ballina Bypass;

$200m North West T-Way;

$800m Port Botany.

Effective Project Risk and Contingency Management for Major Projects - Case Study

These days, development and delivery of most major projects need a unique combination of proactive risk management skills, experience and approached to identify, assess and manage the most optimum contingency allowances.

The use of Quantitative Cost and Schedule Risk Analysis (QRA) for estimating appropriate levels of cost and schedule contingency allowances on major projects is common in many organisations. Many companies offer QRA services as part of their cost-estimating and scheduling arsenal, with varying degrees of effectiveness in relation to QRA preparation, workshop techniques and the subsequent reporting of QRA outcomes.

When undertaken effectively, the QRA process is a useful part of project risk management. In many cases, however, there is no clear link between the assumptions made during the QRA process and QRA outcomes, nor between the Base Estimate, Base Schedule and the remedial actions to be taken to address threats and opportunities identified during the QRA process.

Pedram’s presentation will outline an explanation of the basics, recommended approach to achieving effective QRA outcomes and common tools and techniques as well as few recent case studies across Australia. The discussion will address the importance of effective pre-QRA briefings, the importance of basis-of-estimate and basis-of-schedule documents, and the importance of documenting the assumptions and reasoning behind the quality of input data, the key elements of the model and its outcomes.