5 (More) Influential Local Personalities - Augustman
Augustman Logo
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
E-Magazine
Most Trending
5 (More) Influential Local Personalities
Most Recent
5 (More) Influential Local Personalities
Most Trending
Catch The Hermès Autumn/Winter 2021 Show Live From Paris
Most Recent
Artist Peter Doig Collaborates With Kim Jones For Dior Men’s Fall/Winter 2021-22 Collection
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Most Trending
Shattered Faith. Broken Alliances.
Most Recent
Will Music Streaming Spell The End Of Radio As We Know It?
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Most Trending
Review: The Fourth-Generation Apple iPad Air Is The Ultimate Portable Workhorse
Most Recent
6 Reasons Why We Are Really Excited About The 2021 Formula 1 Season
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Most Trending
Glenfiddich celebrates a prosperous Chinese New Year
Most Recent
Sip On These 5 Cocktails That Are Under 200 Calories
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Most Trending
Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?
Most Recent
See Singapore Through Fresh Eyes With These Unique Tours And Experiences
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Most Trending
Razer Has Created A Futuristic Face Mask Equipped With Built-In Microphones And Lighting Effects
Most Recent
Free Workout Apps That Will Help You Smash Your 2021 Weight-Loss Goals
  • Fitness
  • Health
Most Trending
AUGUSTMAN Singapore: Free Digital Issues For The Next 3 Months
Most Recent
Uncover Mindful Living with AUGUSTMAN x LIFESTYLEASIA
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
  • sg
    • MY
    • SG
  • Search
5 (More) Influential Local Personalities
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Culture
Will Music Streaming Spell The End Of Radio As We Know It?
Culture
Shattered Faith. Broken Alliances.
Culture
The Tokyo Olympics Will Be Held This Summer But Some In Japan Aren’t Too Keen On It
Augustman Logo
sg
5 (More) Influential Local Personalities
Back
All  Style
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Back
All  Culture
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Back
All  Gear
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Back
All  Food & Drink
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Back
All  Travel
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Back
All  Wellness
  • Fitness
  • Health
Back
All  AM Select
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
E-Magazine
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Culture

5 (More) Influential Local Personalities

Farhan Shah
05 Sep 2016
Article Hero Image
Trending Now
6 Reasons Why We Are Really Excited About The 2021 Formula 1 Season
GearRead More
Artist Peter Doig Collaborates With Kim Jones For Dior Men’s Fall/Winter 2021-22 Collec...
StyleRead More
Review: The Fourth-Generation Apple iPad Air Is The Ultimate Portable Workhorse
GearRead More
Catch The Hermès Autumn/Winter 2021 Show Live From Paris
StyleRead More
Here's your ticket to incisive commentary and insights from the celebrity sphere. Sign up for our newsletter.

In this month’s issue of AUGUSTMAN, we photographed and interviewed 10 local personalities whom we felt have made, and are still making, the greatest impact on our country. It took a while to whittle down the shortlist of people, which numbered more than 50, to our final 10 and while there might be disagreements in a few quarters regarding the names that made the cut, this is our definitive list of 10 Singaporeans who are actually influential. It’s a great feature (if we do say so ourselves) and you should get your copy of the September issue when you can.

We featured the first five personalities in an earlier article, which you can read here. To whet your appetite even further, here are a bunch of stories + quotes + observations revolving around the five remaining personalities that make up our list of the 10 most influential local people in Singapore. Enjoy.

Photos by Joel Low

Kit Chan

Post-mortem interview thoughts: Honestly, I was nervous about meeting Kit Chan. I had heard a lot of unsubstantiated stories (he says, she says) about the local songbird and her allegedly aloof behaviour. “She’s quite the diva,” someone hissed. “She might storm out,” another cackled. All of them could not be further from the truth. Chan was an absolute gem to talk to. She was all smiles and laughs, and never once displayed the arrogance that one tends to associate with somebody who has been in the limelight for as long as Chan.

On the craziest thing she’s done in life: “Well a lot of the ‘crazy’ things I’ve done have got to do with travelling. As a kid I wanted to see as much of the world as I could because I truly believe that we only live on this planet once. The last place I went to was to see the Northern Lights. That was great. I really want to go to Machu Picchu next. I’ve been saying this since, oh God, 1998 (laughs). I even have a book about it but I’m sure it’s outdated.”

Kit Chan is performing this weekend, 10 September at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Get your tickets here.

Eric Khoo

On his favourite films: “Wow there’s so many. If you’re talking about the paranormal genre, I love Dark Water and Shutter, and probably this ’60s flick titled Rosemary’s Baby by Roman Polanski. If you’re talking about visceral gore, I thought Train to Busan was brilliant. I also really loved Evil Dead by Sam Raimi and this small film called Braindead by… Peter Jackson (laughs). He went on to be a big-time director after that of course.”

On Jack Neo and artistic integrity vs commercial success: “There’s good arthouse and bad arthouse films, and good and bad commercial films. Seriously though, I think the only local director who can gross close to the amount of an Avengers film is Jack Neo. You have to take your hat off for him. The Ah Boys to Men films did more than $10 million. That’s insane. There are a lot of wannabe commercial filmmakers who are trying but none can reach his level of success. Commercial film is still an art form.”

Reuben Lee

On dealing with fake X-mini speakers: “We embrace it (laughs). Honestly, in the beginning, we took it personally. We got agitated. They were copying our products and ruining our reputation. But we’ve come to accept that it’s part and parcel of the industry; it’s the nature of the beast. There are a few ways you can deal with this. One is going down the legal route. We chose the other path – faster innovations. We want to be leaders in the innovation front. Every time we launch a new product, our team has already planned for a few more.”

On why there are no big Singapore tech companies: “Singapore is a great place to be an entrepreneur. The government provides you with all the support that you would never get if you were an entrepreneur in Jakarta or London. But you need a big natural market. The big companies that made it – Razer, Creative, ourselves – started in an international market. We only started selling in Singapore much later after we had established ourselves. Now the next challenge after you solved market sizing issues is the understanding of how to brand and sell internationally.”

Laurence Lien

From the writer’s notebook: The smartest people are the ones that can explain a concept to you using words that you can understand. Laurence Lien firmly belongs in that category. Lien is also remarkably funny with a rather dry sense of humour.

On Asian philanthropy: “To a large extent we’re still defining it. Nobody has really developed the model for Asia. We’re always borrowing from the West. However the context of Asia is different, which is why the solutions must be different too. Family, business and philanthropy tend to be closely intertwined in Asia whereas in the West, corporate and family philanthropy tend not to mix at all. In Asia also, there is a lot of faith-related giving, a lot given to religious causes. In fact more than 50 per cent of giving is to religious institutions. There are some exceptions of course. In post-Communist Asian countries, faith-related giving isn’t as strong (laughs).”

Chris Lee

“We kind of expected it, to be honest, because in the process of designing the logo, we shortlisted 200 – 250 to six. The final logo wasn’t even a unanimous decision internally. I really wanted to push the National Gallery Singapore to another level. You can do a logo that’s very safe and when you put it up, nobody will say anything. It can represent growth, etc. But it wouldn’t have the same impact because it would mean that it’s the past. If you see the architecture, it’s a very grand building and we could obviously take hints from that direction. But we felt that for a museum of that importance, it should really be about the discourse. Art is about discourse. We wanted it to be forward- instead of bad-looking. People always think that art is about the past, etc.”

kit chan
eric khoo
chris lee
asylum
laurence lien
reuben lee
Farhan Shah
Talk to Me About:

Up Next For You

Legendary Songwriters Are Selling Off Their Song Catalogues. Here's Why
AFP Relaxnews
Culture
Upcoming Netflix Originals That You Will Want To Stream In 2021
Richard Augustin
Culture
Need To Keep Boredom Away? Here Are 5 Events You Should Catch In January 2021
Richard Augustin
Culture
From Money Heist To His Dark Materials, Here Are 15 TV Shows That Will End Their Run This Year
AFP Relaxnews
Culture
Here's your ticket to incisive commentary and insights from the celebrity sphere. Sign up for our newsletter.
×
Where are you?
Tell us so we can display what you want to see.
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
Malaysia Singapore
Advertise About Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions
© 2021 Copyright Augustman