Anthea Ong (Profile)
A full-time human, and part-time everything else.
Anthea Ong was a Nominated Member of Parliament for the 13th Parliament of Singapore. In her term as NMP between 2018–2020, she spoke at every parliamentary sitting delivering 36 speeches and raised 120 parliamentary questions including championing on behalf of youth activists and sex workers, proposed a national suicide prevention strategy, conducted a public consultation on the mental health landscape, made recommendations for closing our digital divide and advocated for greater work injury compensation and other forms of support for migrant workers (you can find all her speeches on her Medium account).
She quit an illustrious corporate career in Dec 2013 to pursue her calling in what she calls the 3Ms of her heart: Mental Health, Marginalised Communities (including migrant workers) and Mother Earth (climate crisis, sustainability and environment).
Anthea is a full-time social entrepreneur and advocate, having founded and co-created several ground-up initiatives/impact businesses, including SG Mental Health Matters, WorkWell Leaders, Welcome in My Backyard, Hush TeaBar, A Good Space, Playground of Joy, and Project Yoga-on-Wheels. She also served as the president of the Women’s Initiative for Ageing Successfully (WINGS) from 2014 to 2017 after serving on its board from 2010, which helps women embrace ageing with confidence, and was the Founding Board Member of Daughters of Tomorrow, a registered charity that provides individualised coaching to women-in-need.
Prior to social entrepreneurship, Anthea held senior leadership roles with multinational organisations including UK-listed Pearson Plc, New York Institute of Finance, The Terrapinn Group and United Overseas Bank, where she expanded and solidified market leadership positions. She founded the Singapore-based education and technology consultancy, Knowledge Director Group, which advised governments in developed Asian economies on education transformation and innovation strategies in addition to being an inventor for an award-winning educational technology application. Most recently, she was the regional Managing Director with a strategy consulting group for banks & financial institutions based in Washington DC, where she double-hatted as the Asian Lead of the Global Corporate Responsibility Board for its parent company, Informa Plc (a UK-listed conglomerate).
She is a published author for the anthology “My Story. My Life” by National Library Singapore, and author of 50 Shades of Love, a unique wood-cover book memoir of 50 shorts with life coaching questions and 50 trees paired with each story. In a love tribute to Singapore’s 56th National Day, Anthea launched a new podcast series called Shades of Love by Anthea Ong based on the book and invites a guest each week to discuss pressing issues of our times, by calling on love and lived experience including her own.
Anthea is a professional certified coach with the International Coach Federation, and has served over 40 leaders and executives from all around the world through more than 1,500 coaching hours. She is also a certified yoga instructor and reiki practitioner, and an avid solo traveller to off beaten tracks like Antarctica, Mt Everest Base Camp, Amazon, Patagonia, and Siberia.
