6 ways Singapore can grow its talent pool for global leadership roles

Business leaders will play a critical role in deepening SG’s role as a Global-Asia node, says DPM Heng.

The Alliance for Action on Business Leadership Development (AfA-BLD) has laid out six recommendations to grow the pool of Singapore talents for global leadership roles.

For more Singaporean talents to take on global roles, the Afa BLD urged the government to step up its support for re-integrating spouses and children of Singaporeans based overseas back to the local system, as well as to incentivise companies to track, manage and increase the
representation of local talents in senior corporate leadership roles.

Companies, for their part, must have an intentional roadmap for attracting, retaining, and enabling local talents with international experience, to sustain robust enterprise growth. Companies that have benefited from government talent support schemes should step up on talent development initiatives, added Afa BLD.

Corporate leaders must also do their part to grow Singapore’s talent pool of global leaders, said Afa BLD, adding that they need to stretch their leadership “muscles” by pursuing international opportunities and community networks to hone capabilities and accumulate experience required to become global corporate leaders.

Meanwhile, industry aggregators like the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), which formed Afa BLD, and Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI) must pool resources across the ecosystem and collaborate on strategic projects to support talent development. 

SBF has already acted on the recommendation of the Afa BLD by partnering with PwC Singapore to run a series of “Transformational Leadership” workshops.

These workshops will guide C- and C-minus one-level corporate leaders from multinational corporations (MNCs), large local enterprises (LLEs), and small and medium enterprises (SMEs)  navigate leadership paradoxes “to grow into competent global leaders in an increasingly complex world.”

SBF will hold the pilot run of the workshop on 29 March with over 20 business leaders participating.

Apart from the workshop series, SBF will also expand its Young Business Leaders Network (YBLN) Mentorship Programme and will collaborate with the HCLI to develop a structured leadership incubation programme for next-generation corporate leaders.