The musical chairs of Southeast Asian and Indian tech execs

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Just two days ago, Singapore announced that Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will be sworn in as the country’s fourth Prime Minister on May 15.

This move marks the end of a significant period in Singapore’s politics. The outgoing Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, held the position for close to 20 years, seeing the country through some of its toughest times such as the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Respect where it’s due: While I may disagree on some political fronts, I do think that the country has made strong progress, and we’ve generally had a good life during Lee’s tenure. We’re now looking at a new era in Singapore politics marked by (relatively) fresh faces and, hopefully, newer and better ways of doing things.

Leadership changes like these always have a big impact, and the same applies to companies. That’s why we’ve come up with a list that covers all the recent leadership changes in tech and tech-adjacent companies from Southeast Asia and India. You can read more about it in our premium story for today.

Today we look at:

• The high-level moves at Southeast Asian and Indian tech firms
• A cloud startup securing US$1 million in seed funding
• Other newsy highlights such as Oracle offering free AI training in Singapore and Microsoft’s US$1.5 billion investment in a UAE-based AI firm.

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Everyday I’m shufflin’

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Good leadership makes or breaks a company, so firms are always looking for the best people for the role. Also, leadership changes can sometimes make for good gossip, if you’re into that kind of thing.

All jokes aside, let’s check out some of the biggest and latest moves among tech execs in Southeast Asia and India.

• Stepping up: The most recent change (as of writing this newsletter) is Damien Schricke stepping down from his SVP role in Lazada and joining Decathlon as its head of ecommerce for Asia Pacific. The move was announced on April 17.
• Quick as a flash: One slightly more surprising development that took place recently is the resignation of Byju’s CEO Arjun Mohan. He held the role for just over six months before announcing his resignation on April 15.
• Lateral movement: In other Singapore moves, Haja Mohaideen, who was previously COO at fintech startup Bambu, went over to software firm GoUpscale to be its new COO.

Read more: List of SEA, India exec moves: Indian fintech unicorn appoints new CEO

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