Barbara Jackson

Director, Donor Relations & Impact

Barbara Jackson brings combined experience from both the philanthropic and the private sectors where social design, collaboration, and complex problem solving stand as the common thread throughout her work. She brings a wealth of cultural experience having worked in the United States, across Europe and now Asia. Barbara is known for her entrepreneurial spirit and brings that to every role she takes on. 

In 2012 Barbara joined Zennstrom Philanthropies as a founding team member of a new and innovative strategic initiative to tackle ocean pollution with a systemic lens and collaborative approach. After several years, Barbara led the incorporation of the initiative into a foundation where she served as CEO and Chair of the Board. In this role, Barbara hired and managed the team and was responsible for the overall strategic planning of the organisation, fundraising, grantmaking, and programme execution.

Barbara moved to Asia in 2018 with her husband and joined the global IT consulting company, Capgemini, where she led a consulting practice focused on collaboration and design, managed the Diversity and Inclusion portfolio and was a member of the Management Board. 

Barbara holds an MBA degree from Stockholm School of Economics with a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She is eager to bring her unique skills and learnings to ACF and to help grow ACF into an institution that will exist for decades to come. In her free time, Barbara enjoys yoga - which she has practised for 20 years now - and being with her family. 

Dennis Yee

Senior Manager, Finance & Operations

Dennis embarked on his professional journey in 2007 by securing a position as an external auditor at one of the Big 4 Audit firms following his graduation from Nanyang Technological University with a Bachelor of Accountancy. He also holds the title of Chartered Accountant, Singapore, and has been a member of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) since 2010.

During his tenure as an external auditor, Dennis honed his skills through the meticulous examination of clients across diverse industries, including Aviation, Publications, Manufacturing, Investment Companies, and Listed Companies, among others. Building on this rich foundation, Dennis transitioned to a prominent Healthcare Listed Company in Singapore, where he assumed the role of an Internal Auditor. In this capacity, he engaged collaboratively with internal teams on numerous audit projects, leveraging his expertise to formulate innovative recommendations geared towards fortifying internal controls. Subsequently, Dennis dedicated a decade of his career towards working in the Charity landscape. 

He remains steadfast in his commitment to the pursuit of excellence in financial management, internal controls, and compliance.

Ee Jean Law

Associate, Philanthropy Services

Ee Jean recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from Yale-NUS College, where she majored in Anthropology and minored in Urban Studies. She has experience working in various organisations in the social impact space, starting from a Singapore-based social enterprise, where she worked with families and children from low-income and rental flat families. Prior to joining ACF, Ee Jean worked at a regional social impact network where she was part of the team that launched Southeast Asia’s first philanthropic pooled funds totaling $1 million to alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, and was also involved in the management of another single-donor fund to support vulnerable communities. She also has experience in a local philanthropic organisation, where she worked on a fund to address mental health challenges among youth in Singapore. 

Ee Jean is excited to explore how ACF can better support impact organisations in Asia to scale their impact and how we can facilitate more sustainable and impactful philanthropic giving. Currently, she is also a volunteer at Access Singapore, a Singapore-based non-profit that provides career exposure opportunities to underserved secondary school students.

Irin Ng

Senior Manager, Philanthropy Services

Irin brings a wealth of experience from both the philanthropic and private sectors, spanning over two decades. For the past nine years, she has specialised in philanthropic giving, focusing on the creation and management of innovative and impactful community programs. Irin excels in building and nurturing relationships between donors and charitable organizations, conducting thorough due diligence on charities, and overseeing grant-making on behalf of donors. Furthermore, she possesses expertise in program monitoring and delivering progress reports to donors and grant-making entities. 

Notably, Irin has managed a philanthropic grant portfolio for a private family office, advocating for organisations that support traditional artisans, rural entrepreneurs, and survivors of human trafficking. She has also taken the lead in project management along with responsibilities including policy development and the implementation of operational processes and procedures. She has also provided philanthropic advisory services to 35 individuals and families with donor-advised funds, collectively contributing over $5.5 million annually to the non-profit organisations in Singapore, and was an integral part of the core team responsible for designing and project-managing pooled funds to promote collaborative giving and partnerships.

Irin's early experiences in the for-profit sector have granted her a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing businesses and communities across diverse locations. Her background in the sustainability and hospitality sectors has further enriched her skill set and experience. In the sustainability sector, she acquired a profound understanding of the obstacles and possibilities businesses encounter in reducing their environmental footprint, along with the ability to develop and implement sustainability initiatives. In the hospitality sector, she gained valuable experience in managing intricate operations and delivering exceptional customer service.

Irin is renowned for her attention to detail, her process-oriented approach, and her genuine enjoyment of her work.

Jia Xian Seow

Director, Legal, Planning & Advisory

Formerly a partner at one of the largest law firms globally and in Singapore, where her principal areas of practice were philanthropy, private wealth, and tax, Jia Xian is Director of Legal, Planning & Advisory at ACF. 

In her legal practice, Jia Xian spearheaded and led her firm’s Philanthropy & Non-profits practise, where she worked closely alongside funders and impact organisations on the structuring, establishment, building out and administration of philanthropic and non-profit structures and their operational activities. 

By drawing from her uniquely diverse, multi-sectoral professional experience across 15 years of legal practice, she has advised stakeholders that span the range of individuals, family offices, non-profit organisations and charities, large multinational corporations and financial institutions, as well as statutory bodies and government agencies, and on matters ranging from local and international tax, trusts and estate planning, to regulatory compliance, due diligence, and governance. 

Jia Xian is now eager to channel the knowledge and experience she has been equipped with, in supporting both ACF and its donors and partners in mobilising more purposeful giving towards the most pressing needs in the Asian region.

Joyce Teo

Director, Philanthropy Services

Joyce has more than 20 years of experience in the social and public sector specialising in corporate community investment,  philanthropy and grantmaking advisory. She was previously with the Community Foundation of Singapore overseeing the Centre for Applied Philanthropy, which focused on providing bespoke advisory services to high-network individuals and families on strategic philanthropy and grantmaking as well as research on thought-leadership issues on collaborative giving and donor-advised funds. Drawing on her experience and active interest in community building and asset-based partnerships, Joyce had spearheaded a series of collective giving and pooled funding initiatives, such as the Sayang Sayang Fund which raised more than $9 million during the pandemic and the FUN Fund, in partnership with the Agency for Integrated Care.

Joyce was part of the pioneering team at Salesforce.com Foundation where she managed the company’s philanthropic and employee volunteering programmes in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to that, Joyce was with the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre developing initiatives that promote volunteerism and philanthropy within corporations, community groups and nonprofits.

A graduate from the National University of Singapore with Honours in Southeast Asian Studies and English Literature, Joyce appreciates that philanthropy is both a science and art - where we get to see the emotional expression of personal values in our donors expressed in the work through intentional and purposeful giving strategies. At Asia Community Foundation, she looks forward to contributing her experience in grantmaking and donor advisory to unlock the latent potential of philanthropy and build collaborative partnerships across different stakeholders to address pressing needs in Asia.  

Laurence Lien

Chief Executive Officer (Acting)

Laurence Lien is an established Asian philanthropist and involved in a number of organisations. Laurence has chaired the Lien Foundation since 2009, and has been a board member since 2002. Lien Foundation is the third largest philanthropic organisation in Singapore by grant size, and which is well-regarded for its forward-thinking and innovation-driven approach in the fields of education, eldercare and the environment. Under his oversight, Lien Foundation has disbursed over S$250 million in grants.

Laurence is also the Chairman of the Asia Philanthropy Circle, which has more than 50 leading Asian philanthropist members who come together to exchange, learn and collaborate. 

Laurence was the CEO of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre in Singapore from 2008-2014, when he started up the Community Foundation of Singapore (CFS) in 2009, and became its Chairman from 2013-2019. CFS is the fifth largest philanthropic organisation in Singapore.  

Prior to his work in the non-profit sector, Laurence served in the Singapore Government. 

Laurence holds degrees from Oxford University, the National University of Singapore, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was also a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore from 2012-2014.

Manasi Mithel

Manager, Advisory Services

Manasi began her career as a business journalist, covering issues around drug pricing and access to medicines. Over the last decade she has worked in India and Singapore, focusing on public health, and gender and women’s rights issues. She brings a range of expertise to the grant advisory team at ACF through her background in policy advocacy, stakeholder engagement, programme development and impact analysis. 

In India, Manasi’s work covered a cross-section of projects in the development sector—from policy-level advocacy for new vaccines at Global Health Strategies to grassroots initiatives supporting the health needs of commercial sex workers. She was also part of a start-up, developing a crowdfunding platform to support the design of clean water solutions for remote villages in north India.

In Singapore, while pursuing her graduate studies, she worked at the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance, where she supported projects that helped identify and analyse policy barriers critical to malaria elimination in countries across the Asia Pacific region.

Prior to joining ACF, she was Senior Programme Executive at AWARE, where she focused on supporting programme development, fundraising and advocacy efforts through impact-data analysis. Additionally, she maintained external partnerships and developed engagement opportunities with organisations working to support survivors of sexual violence, domestic abuse, and harassment.

Manasi holds a Masters of Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She has two post-graduate diplomas from the Indian Institute of Public Health and the Asian College of Journalism.

Martin Choo

Associate, Donor Relations & Grants

Martin is a recent graduate from Yale-NUS College with a major in anthropology and a minor in urban studies. He has had experience working in various nonprofit spaces in Singapore which has allowed him to connect, understand, and learn from these communities. Prior to joining ACF, he had the opportunity to experience many roles in Singapore, from fundraising in a prominent arts and disability organisation, to working on access and community experience in a museum. He also had experience working in community building and engagement with a national non-profit organisation, enabling and facilitating learnings between non-profits, start-ups and social enterprises in Singapore.

Looking forward, he is excited to learn how bridging different communities can be scaled up beyond the shores of Singapore to the region as well as how philanthropy can play an integral role in facilitating this change.