Graduate School of Public Policy

Program description

This one-day programme for senior officials from Kazakhstan’s Corps A examines the role of policy entrepreneurs and innovators in leading change in the public sector. It will be led by Professor Lim Siong Guan, a former Head of Civil Service in Singapore who was also Chairman of the Economic Development Board and Group President of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC. 

The programme will introduce senior officials to practical ideas in leading change, managing for excellence, and effective implementation. Mr Lim will argue that as a country develops and its society matures, the role of government has to evolve from that of a controller and regulator, to a facilitator and enabler, and finally to a convenor and aggregator.

The programme will draw heavily from the Mr Lim’s experience in leading Singapore’s public sector reforms in areas such as:

• Using scenario planning as a tool to anticipate change and imagine the future;
• Fostering a civil service culture that embraces change;
• Harnessing e-Government to execute change;
• Delighting the customer in public services; and
• Superior stewardship of the country’s resources

At the end of the programme, participants would have:

• Gained insights on how public officials should lead change, manage for excellence, and drive effective implementation;
• Learned about Singapore’s experience in public sector reforms and how these may be applied in Kazakhstan’s context; and
• Reflected on the role of the public servants as policy entrepreneurs and innovators.

Speaker: Lim Siong Guan, Advisor to Group Executive Committee, GIC Private Limited

Lim Siong Guan is a Professor in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, instructing on leadership and change management. He is Advisor to the Group Executive Committee of GIC. GIC is the fund manager for the foreign financial reserves of Singapore. He was the Group President of GIC from 2007 to 2016. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Senior Fellow of the Singapore Civil Service College.
Siong Guan was Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board from October 2006 to June 2009. The Board is the Singapore government’s lead agency for planning and executing strategies to enhance Singapore’s position as a global business centre. Much of its work is attracting international corporations to set up manufacturing and services activities in Singapore as critical links in the global supply chain.
Siong Guan was the Head of the Singapore Civil Service from September 1999 to March 2005. He has been the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence (1981-1994), the Prime Minister’s Office (1994- 1998), the Ministry of Education (1997-1999) and the Ministry of Finance (1998-2006). In every appointment, he introduced innovative policies and practices which enhanced the drive, capacity, capability and performance of the organization.
He has chaired the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (2004-2006), the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (2004-2006) and, the Central Provident Fund Board (1986-1994), and has been a board member of many companies including Temasek, the other sovereign wealth fund manager of Singapore.
Siong Guan has co-authored with Joanne H. Lim two books. The first was “The Leader, The Teacher & You – Leadership Through the Third Generation,” a book on leadership and governance, which won the Singapore Literature Prize for non-fiction in 2014. The second was "Winning with Honour in Relationships, Family, Organisations, Leadership, and Life, a book on winning in life and work. He is the founder chairman of Honour (Singapore), a charity that seeks to promote the culture of honour and honouring in Singapore. He is a SwissRe Group Advisor and a member of the International Board of the Stars Foundation, a Swiss foundation that promotes leadership development for leaders of the next generation.

Key Information

Date & Duration:28 May 2018

Venue:Graduate School of Public Policy
Nazarbayev University
Block C3, room 1.010
53 Kabanbay batyr avenue
Astana, Kazakhstan 010000

Contact Executive Education Department
Graduate School of Public Policy
Tel: (+7) 7172 70 91 56
Email: execed.gspp@nu.edu.kz

Application deadline: 15 May 2018