Dick Spring - Patron

Mr. Dick Spring is an Honorary Patron of the Farmleigh Fellowship. The former Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) of Ireland, Minister for Foreign Affairs and leader of the Labour Party, currently serves as the Chairman of Altobridge Ltd, Director of Repak Ltd. and the Realta Global Aids Foundation Ltd. He is also an Executive Director of Fexco, Ireland’s most successful privately owned financial services company.

George Yeo - Patron

Mr George Yong-Boon Yeo is an Honorary Patron of the Farmleigh Fellowship and is former Member of Parliament and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Singapore. He currently serves as Vice-Chairman of Kerry Group and is a Visiting Scholar at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore.

Mr. Yeo studied Engineering at Cambridge University from 1973-76 on a President’s Scholarship and served in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) as a Signals Officer. After graduating from the Singapore Command and Staff College in 1979, Mr. Yeo was posted to the Republic of Singapore Air Force. He attended Harvard Business School in 1983 and graduated as a Baker Scholar. Upon his return to Singapore in 1985, he went on to appointments as Chief- of-Staff of the Air Force (1985-1986) and Director of Joint Operations and planning in the Ministry of Defence (1986-1988), attaining the rank of Brigadier-General. He resigned from the SAF in August 1988 to enter politics.

From 1988 to 2011, Mr. Yeo was one of the elected Members of Parliament (MPs) for Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC). He held the positions of: Minister of State for Finance and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1988-1991); Acting Minister for Information and the Arts and Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1990-1991); Minister for Information and the Arts (1991-1999); Second Minister for Foreign Affairs (1991-1994); Minister for Health (1994-1997); Second Minister for Trade and Industry (1997-1999); Minister for Trade and Industry (1999-2004); and Minister for Foreign Affairs (2004-2011). After losing his seat in the General Elections of May 2011, he spent a few months in Peking University as a Visiting Scholar before joining the private sector on Jan 1, 2012.

Mr. Yeo served as Chairman of the Young PAP (People’s Action Party) from 1991 to 2000. From 1992 to 2011, he also represented the Eurasian community in the Cabinet. In addition, Mr. Yeo was a member of the Harvard Business School's Visiting Committee from 1998 to 2004 and has been the Advisor to the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall in Singapore since its establishment in November 2001. He is a member of the Governing Board of Nalanda University in India and chairs its International Advisory Panel. He has been a Patron of LASALLE College of the Arts since 1988. In 2012, he was presented with the Order of Sikatuna by the Philippines Government and the Padma Bhushan by the Indian Government.

Fred Combe - Entrepreneur and Business Consultant

Fred has extensive knowledge of the Asia Pacific region, having worked and lived in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Singapore for the last 20 years. Fred is an active investor in start-up companies across Asia and Australasia.

He is a director of China International Duty Free Ltd and a board adviser to Wildfire Asia Ltd, a pioneer Word of Mouth online and offline marketing agency based in Shanghai, China.

Fred is also the founder and Managing Director of NATUS Pte Ltd, a corporate management consultancy based in Singapore since 2005. NATUS helps western clients in their business development expansion plans in Asia.

Prior to 2005, Fred worked for 18 years for British American Tobacco in Africa, Latin America and Asia. His last role was Regional Director for ASEAN, where he was responsible for a US$ 410 million turnover business with 2,100 employees.

Fred is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD, Singapore and also co-wrote the 2009 bestseller, “Business Journey to the East” (McGraw-Hill).

Fred is the Chairperson and co-founder of the Farmleigh Fellowship Pte Ltd.

Gerry Creaner - Deputy Chairman DPS Engineering

Gerry Creaner is a founder owner and currently Deputy Chairman of a specialist engineering consultancy for the Life Sciences industry (DPS Engineering). He was Managing Director for 11-years and internationalized the business from Ireland into Europe and Asia.

He established its Singapore office in 2005 and has been based in Singapore since 2007 where this business stream is focused on delivering niche education and training programmes to the Life Sciences manufacturing industry.

Gerry has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering (UCD, 1980) and an MSc (Management) from Trinity College Dublin (2003) and has over 30 years’ experience in the Life Sciences manufacturing industry in technical, managerial and business roles, both as a client and as a consultant.

Gerry is also a director of the Singapore-Ireland Fund, a philanthropic organisation which develops projects that link Ireland to Singapore and which is part of the overall Ireland Funds network.

Gerry is a board member and co-founder of the Farmleigh Fellowship Pte Ltd.

Dr Niamh Connolly - B.Sc, M.Sc., Expert, President's Office, Nanyang Technological University

Niamh has over 25 years professional experience in third level education, research and funding sectors working in Ireland, UK, France, Belgium and Singapore. Prior to joining Nanyang Technological University (Singapore; Associate Vice Provost, 2009), Niamh was head of the European Marine Board. While with the Marine Board, Niamh developed a range of policy and foresight publications which informed EU and national funding programmes.

She was an advisor in the development of the European Union’s Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research (2008), prioritising EU research funding, infrastructure investment policies and nationally awarded contracts. She has been an external examiner for PhD candidates in the UK and Spain, and has been invited to present on research foresight to the European Parliament and to intergovernmental committees. Niamh also Chairs the Steering Committee of the EU Centre, Singapore.

Niamh is a board member and co-founder of the Farmleigh Fellowship Pte Ltd.

Paraic McGrath - Regional Director for Business Development at ESBI

Paraic has been living in Asia for almost 22 years including Japan, Australia and living in Singapore since 2003. He is currently the Regional Director for Business Development at ESBI, the Irish semi-state Engineering Consultancy arm of the National Utility ESB. Prior to this role, he spent 5 years as C.O.O. at Intuition, an online Training Consultancy, building its Asian business. For 15 years he worked as an FX Swaps Trader in the Financial Markets and previous to that was an International School teacher.

He is the Chairman of the Asian Gulf Board of the GAA (www.asiancountyboard.com), Chairman of the Singapore Gaelic Lions GAA club and a co-founder of the Asia Pacific Irish Business Forum ( www.apibf.com) He is a member of the Global Irish Network and also acts as the Director for the Irish Exporters Association in Singapore.

Paraic is a board member of the Farmleigh Fellowship Pte Ltd.

Dr. Noel Moore - VP Business Development - Menlo Systems GmbH

Noel is a VP at Menlo Systems which provides photonics technology for multiple applications, including highly accurate measurement of frequencies. Previously, he was the Chief Executive Officer of HistoIndex Pte. Ltd, a Singapore based medical diagnostic imaging company. Prior to that, he held business development positions at Coherent (NASDAQ:COHR) and Excel Technology (XLTC) with responsibilities in US, EU and Asia. He is experienced with laser and optical technologies and their applications in medical, industrial and scientific domains.

He is also experienced in technology transfer, commercialization, new technology introduction and market growth. He has acted as a management mentor to young high-tech start-up companies through Singapore Polytechnic helping to guide these companies through commercialization, fundraising and revenue generation. Noel read Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin, followed by Ph.D at Wayne State University in Michigan. He also holds an MBA from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA.

Noel is a board member of the Farmleigh Fellowship Pte Ltd