Veteran banker and Singapore citizen, Sim S. Lim will be Country Manager, DBS Singapore, effective 1 September 2010. In his 26-year banking career, the bulk of which was in Asia, Lim had stints in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Middle East and the U.S. He was most recently President and CEO of Citigroup Global Markets Japan, a position he held from June 2008 to December last year. During this time, Lim was also a board member of Citigroup Japan Holdings Corp.

During his international banking career, Lim held a wide variety of roles. From April 2007 to June 2008, he was Country Officer, Hong Kong and also Chairman of Citibank Hong Kong. During his tenure, he managed the Citigroup Hong Kong country franchise, including developing the strategy for Hong Kong’s markets and banking franchise, and providing support to the consumer and wealth management businesses. Between October 2003 and March 2007, Lim was regional head of emerging markets sales and trading for the Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore. During this period, he was also the non-executive Chairman of Citibank Berhad Malaysia.

(from DBS Newsroom)

CA Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:CA) today announced that Lionel Lim will join the company as President of Asia Pacific, effective August 30, 2010. Lim will be responsible for growing CA Technologies business in the AP region that includes Australia/New Zealand, India, Greater China, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia.

“As CA Technologies moves into a phase of growth, we are pleased to have an executive of Lionel’s caliber joining the team,” said John Ruthven, General Manager and Managing Director of Growth & Emerging Markets for CA. “Lionel has 30 years of experience at IT companies in the region, and has proven his ability to drive change, build successful teams, forge outstanding customer relationships and ultimately, grow sales. Lionel’s addition is good for our customers, our partners and our employees.”

Chin Hu Lim, Chief Executive Officer of BT Frontline, said “Lionel Lim’s appointment is a great step forward in the right direction for CA. Lionel demonstrated strong leadership in identifying and growing an excellent partner centric ecosystem for Sun Microsystems in Asia South and Asia Pacific in his previous role in Sun. BT Frontline has benefitted and grown over the past 13 years from a Singapore-based Sun reseller to a pan-Asia Pacific IT services company by adopting and investing with Lionel’s vision of serving regional customers in the region via technology partners like us. I am confident that with Lionel at the helm of CA’s leadership in Asia Pacific, the company will develop a strong network of partners to help grow CA’s business in the region. We will be happy to invest in developing our partnership with CA further.”

With Lionel’s appointment, CA Technologies significantly strengthens its Asia Pacific management team. The AP operation is key for CA as it combines first-class sales, technical and support teams focused on the needs of local businesses with one of CA Technologies worldwide development centers, located in China.

Prior to joining CA Technologies, Lionel spent 20 years at Sun Microsystems and 10 years at HP. He held a variety of management and sales roles, including President and COO, Sun Microsystems Asia Pacific and President Sun Asia South, Greater China and Japan.

Lionel will be based in the company’s regional headquarters in Singapore.

Full article at http://www.cfoworld.com.au/mediareleases/11070/lionel-lim-joins-ca-technologies-to-drive-asia/

Company in search of replacement for the CEO International post after Lim’s 12-year service in SingTel.

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) announced that Mr Lim Chuan Poh, CEO International, will be retiring from the company. Mr Lim has agreed to work until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition of responsibilities, according to a SingTel report.

SingTel has initiated a search for the new CEO International, both within the company and externally.

Mr Lim joined SingTel in 1998 as Chief Executive, Fixed-Line Services, and was appointed CEO International in 2006. Since his appointment as CEO International, Mr Lim has played a pivotal role in the growth of the SingTel Group’s overseas investments, deepening its relationships with overseas partners and the Board and Management of its associates. Today the regional mobile associates have become significant contributors to the Group’s profit.

He has also been a strong advocate of leveraging the Group’s scale of 293 million mobile customers to drive innovation, cost and revenue synergies, and using customer knowledge to expand into related markets and services.

As a director of Bharti and previously Telkomsel and Globe, Mr Lim, a telecom veteran, has helped steer these companies through different phases of their operations, particularly as competitive pressures escalate in these markets.

Mr Lim said: “I have had an exciting and fulfilling 12 years in SingTel. I am extremely thankful for the support from my colleagues, including the partners and management of our affiliates. I am also handing the reins over to a very professional and strong team who will continue to build on the strong momentum to further strengthen our position as Asia’s leading communications group.”

Ms Chua Sock Koong, SingTel Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “Chuan Poh’s achievements speak for themselves. On behalf of the Board and Management, I thank Chuan Poh for his countless contributions and wish him a happy and well-earned retirement.”

http://sbr.com.sg/news/3425

Yap will replace Oliver Foo who has taken a new role as Vice President of sales at Alcatel-Lucent’s Strategic Industries group in North & Southeast Asia (NSEA) regional unit.

Yap, who has 18 years of experience in the asia-pacific software and telecom industries and leads successful teams in rapidly growing markets in Singapore, Philippines, Pakistan, India and Indonesia, will be Managing Editor of Singapore/Brunei, an Alcatel-Lucent announcement said.

Yap has extensive leadership experience in managing both direct (customer facing) and indirect (channel management) business models, as well as leading successful teams in many rapidly growing markets, including Singapore, Philippines, Pakistan, India and Indonesia over the last 15 years.

Alain Bistol, head of Alcatel-Lucent NSEA said, “Terence brings to the Singapore/Brunei team, a wealth of experience and expertise in the telecommunications industry. I am confident that he will continue to be an asset to Alcatel-Lucent and help drive growth through his strong ties with industry players and keen knowledge of the local market.”

http://sbr.com.sg/news/3686

More people are turning down job offers as employers set their highest hiring projections in more than nine years. Four in 10 employers told a recruitment firm that they had had candidates decline their job offers in the last six months. This was evident across all major sectors except the media, public relations and advertising industry.

For the banking and financial services sector where competition for talent has always been intense, 38 per cent said they would offer increments of between 11 and 20 per cent.

As for the IT sector, it has the highest number of candidates who declined jobs - 12 per cent.

According to the recruitment firm, those with specialist skills were highly sought after and were “likely to pursue their goals single-mindedly, this can include playing potential employers off
against each other.” The least buoyant sector for job seekers was media, public relations and advertising. Only 27 per cent said they would grow headcount compared with 36 per cent the previous quarter.

Source: Today Newspaper

ONE of Singapore’s leading female business leaders has quit her high-profile job as managing director of tech giant Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) Singapore operations.

Ms Tan Yen Yen, 45, will leave on Wednesday after spending the past 18 years at the American firm.

‘I practically grew up in HP. The company is like family to me, and I really enjoyed myself in my time with the company,’ said Ms Tan.

She quit because a ‘new opportunity’ came up, but she declined to say where she was headed.

The Straits Times understands, however, that Ms Tan will join Oracle Corporation.

HP’s vice-president for enterprise business sales, Ms Tan Lee Chew, will serve as acting managing director until a replacement is appointed.

By Chua Hian Hou (Straits Times)

Jobseekers are increasingly tapping on social networks to secure employment, but according to recruiters, candidates need to work these platforms right in order to land their desired job.

In e-mail interviews with ZDNet Asia, human resource experts offer tips on using various social media to boost employment chances.

Explore openings
Candidates should follow the Facebook pages of employers and recruiters that they are targeting. This allows them access to updates about current job openings and the latest happenings at these companies.

Search on yourself
Jobseekers should not “jump into social media interactions without ‘googling’ yourself first”.

Searching online for information about oneself helps a candidate ensure two things–that he or she has an online identity and, it does not contain things that would hurt the person’s employment chances, he explained.

You need to suppress anything you wouldn’t want an employer to see.”

Choose the right sites
Candidates should not use just any networking Web site. “They must make sure they are comfortable with the Web source and that it is a reliable site.”

Taken from article by Sol E. Solomon, ZDNet Asia

HP announced that Doraisamy Balu, senior vice president and managing director, HP Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), will retire from the company effective June 30, 2010. Under his leadership, the region delivered strong growth and customer focus. Prior to this role, Balu was managing director of HP India, where he and his team drove key improvement programs and delivered outstanding growth and business performance for HP.

Piau Phang Foo will replace Balu as senior vice president and managing director for HP APJ. Foo’s most recent role was managing director of HP China and vice president of HP Enterprise Business, China. Foo is a respected industry veteran with an impressive track record of delivering business results and building high-performance teams. Prior to this role, Foo held positions at Shenzhen Hasee Group, GM, Gateway and Dell.

SINGAPORE, 23 NOVEMBER 2009 - Datacraft Asia has signed a partnership agreement with Singapore telco StarHub to offer a comprehensive suite of business solutions for international connectivity to organisations across Asia.

Datacraft is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data, a US$4 billion leading global IT solutions and services provider.

“Datacraft Asia will be able to offer selected StarHub business solutions and connectivity services to 13 countries in Asia and the United States, expanding StarHub’s reach into those countries,” the IT services company told the media. “At the same time, the agreement will enhance Datacraft’s wide-ranging portfolio of business services to multinational corporations and small-to-medium enterprises around the region.”

Article from MIS Asia

Singaporeans are more open to contract roles as the job market remains soft, according to the latest Employee Insights Survey, by Robert Walters.

31% of Singapore candidates chose “premium salary” as the key motivator for taking on a contract role, with a quarter of local professionals saying they would consider contracting if there were a lack of permanent job options. 21% of Singaporeans view contracting as an opportunity to get their foot into the door of an industry or company that they really want to work for.

“For all those reasons, I love being contract staff but I have no job security and I have very little employee benefits like medical or child care leave,” said one contract employee, working for a year at a British bank in Singapore.

Companies usually hire contractors for several reasons: for maternity cover, short term projects or as an alternative workforce solution due to restrictions in getting permanent headcount, explains Andrea Ross, Managing Director of Robert Walters Singapore.

Article from HRM