Meet the Front & Female Awards Singapore 2026 nominees—the women inspiring progress and effecting change in Singapore

Grace Chia

Co-founder & CEO, BeeX

Through BeeX, Grace Chia builds, designs and operates intelligent underwater drones that challenge how underwater work can be done, making underwater processes safer and more scalable. 

What first sparked your commitment to this work?  
I had always been excited about building things, and I wanted to build something that lasted instead of focusing attention on consumer goods. Even before AI was popular, I was thinking about what gap robots had. You have robots for air, land, but not a lot of things are made for the sea. My eureka moment was realising that too many people were using manually controlled (unintelligent) robots for underwater work, and these manual mechanisms are likewise constraining the efficiency and accessibility of doing underwater work at scale. 

What has been the greatest challenge you have overcome—and what did it teach you?
One of our greatest challenges has been introducing autonomy to an industry that has relied on remotely operated systems and human divers for decades. When people are familiar and comfortable with the way things have always been done, it takes time to build trust in a fundamentally different approach. It has really taught us a lot about patience, but also about the importance of education. Every question and concern from our customers helps us identify where we can improve, communicate better and build greater confidence in our technology.

Tulika Raj

Co-founder and CEO, SunGreenH2

Tulika Raj co-founded and leads SunGreenH2, which engineers nano-structured electrodes that make electrochemical processes more efficient, using no platinum-group or scarce critical minerals. “The world is entering an age of electrochemistry, and whoever controls low-cost, mineral-independent electrode technology will control the resilience of tomorrow's energy and industrial supply chains,” says Raj.

What first sparked your commitment to this work?
I began my career exploring for oil and gas on rigs in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea and Norway’s North Sea, learning how the world actually powers itself. Then I arrived in London and discovered that energy could also be generated from wind and sun. Realising we could produce power from sustainable resources was the single defining moment of my life and career; it was like seeing the light. Everything since, including co-founding SunGreen, has been in service of that realisation.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
To become the TSMC of the electrochemical world: the indispensable foundry whose technology sits inside everyone else’s systems, quietly driving performance, durability and efficiency. If we succeed, our nano-engineered electrodes become the invisible standard across multiple electrochemical applications, out-licensed globally, powering a critical-mineral-independent supply chain that the whole industry is built on without ever having to think about it.

Christel Buchanan

Founder & CEO, ChatAndBuild

Christel Buchanan is the founder and CEO of ChatAndBuild, a Singapore-based AI platform she launched in May 2025 with a mission to democratise software creation—enabling anyone, regardless of coding ability or language, to build functional applications and AI-powered products through simple conversation. 

The platform supports over 40 languages and has attracted approximately 140,000 users across more than 100 countries within months of launch. Central to her innovation is the invention of Non-Fungible Agents (NFAs)—a new class of AI asset designed to give users memory, identity, and genuine ownership of the AI they build and train, shifting the model from AI as a rented service to AI as a personal asset. 

Her explicit ambition is to make a billion people capable of building with technology—particularly those excluded from the current tech economy by geography, language or lack of formal coding education. It is this democratising vision, removing the gatekeepers of technical knowledge and giving creative and economic power to non-coders globally, that makes her work especially relevant to the advancement of women and girls in the digital age.

For an individual driving progress in the education and/or development of women and girls, whether through pure education, training programmes, upskilling initiatives, mentorship projects or other knowledge-sharing ventures

Crystal Lim-Lange

Co-founder & CEO, Forest Wolf

“I help people find their voice, develop greater agency and build the deeply human skills that allow them to create successful, meaningful lives and careers,” says Crystal Lim-Lange, who is co-founder and CEO of leadership skills training platform Forest Wolf. She is also the author of Deep Human, in which she explores the skills essential to unlocking your full potential. 

What achievement are you most proud of—and why?
My partner (Dr Gregor Lim-Lange) and I have brought our Deep Human work to more than 100,000 people globally, and my social media followers have grown to over 350,000. Having that sort of reach is a great privilege. However, having said that, the number matters less to me than the individual stories that people share. Just this week, I’ve received messages from someone who has left a toxic work situation, someone who has asked for an opportunity that paid off, and someone who made a choice to leave an abusive relationship they had previously believed they could not. All of these start with the belief that you are worthy and you can speak up and advocate for yourself.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
I want to make Deep Human skills—self-awareness, empathy, communication, courage and critical thinking—more widely accessible. These are the capacities that help people adapt, form meaningful relationships and exercise agency in the age of AI. My hope is that more people learn not only how to succeed, but how to build success that gives them greater freedom, meaning and choice.

Lilian Ong

Founder, Class Living & Women of Courage Asia

Lilian Ong overcame childhood trauma, depression and years of self-doubt in a personal journey that began with a desire to be a courageous role model for her children. “As I experienced transformation in my own life, I realised that many women were silently held back by fear, self-doubt and limiting beliefs,” she says. “That became my calling—to help women awaken their courage, lead themselves first, and become courageous leaders who create change in their own spheres of influence.” Ong does this through Women of Courage Asia, HER Courage Biz Network and Class Living.

What has been the greatest challenge you have overcome—and what did it teach you?
The greatest challenge I have overcome was believing that my past determined my future. My journey through trauma, depression, self-worth struggles and fear taught me that we may not always be able to choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond and what we do next. It taught me that courage is not the absence of fear; it is the willingness to take intentional action in spite of it. It also taught me that our deepest wounds can become a source of purpose when we reflect, learn, take ownership and choose to use our experiences to help others.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
I want to build an Asia-wide ecosystem that develops courageous female leaders through mentorship, leadership development, entrepreneurship and community. 

My hope is to create a multiplier effect: women who learn to lead themselves with courage become leaders who empower other women, families, businesses and communities.

Ultimately, I want to leave a legacy where courage is not simply something women talk about, but something they practise—and pass on to the next generation.

Anna Haotanto

Founder, Zora Health & My Brilliant Self

Through the platforms and communities that she builds and the resources she provides, Anna Haotanto helps women navigate money, technology, health and personal growth. She is the founder and CEO of Zora Health and the founder of My Brilliant Self. 

What first sparked your commitment to this work?
I have always believed that education should do more than inform people. It should give them greater agency over their lives. Throughout my career, I kept seeing brilliant women held back not by a lack of ability, but by a lack of access, confidence, networks or practical guidance. That made me determined to create the resources and communities I wished more women had.

What has been the greatest challenge you have overcome, and what did it teach you?
My greatest challenge has been continuing to build through serious health issues—more than 20 surgeries—and some extremely difficult periods in business. There were moments when progress felt almost impossible. It taught me that resilience is not about pretending everything is fine. It is about facing reality, adapting quickly and continuing to move forward, even when the next step is much smaller than you hoped.

For an individual supporting underserved, overlooked, vulnerable, underprivileged or minority women and girls, and/or seeking to drive human rights and equality

Sapna Kewalramani

Founder & director, Rise and Thrive Initiative

At Rise and Thrive, Sapna Kewalramani supports women facing financial instability to build home-based businesses and inner resilience—through training and mentorship in business essentials, digital and financial literacy, and personal development, all underpinned by a strong community. 

What first sparked your commitment to this work?
Rise & Thrive started with one Riser—the name we give our women entrepreneurs. She was a home baker I worked alongside while volunteering at South Central Community Family Service Centre. She had the skill and the drive, but had never been shown how to price her products, brand herself or think bigger. Sitting with her—working through the numbers, the strategy, the creative side of her business—I realised there was no programme built for women like her. Many women can’t commit to formal employment because of caregiving or health, and are already running businesses out of necessity, for the flexibility it gives them. That gap became Rise & Thrive.

Our first Riser now fulfils corporate orders and runs team-building baking workshops at banks. She owns her HDB home. Her two adult children are pursuing tertiary education. Beyond each individual story like hers, what I'm proudest of is that we turned one relationship into a repeatable pathway.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
I want Rise & Thrive to prove that home-based work is a real path to financial self-sufficiency—one that lets parents be present while stabilising their household income. The income may not match full-time employment, and the unpredictability can be very stressful. But what it builds instead—creativity, rigour, confidence, financial literacy, digital skills—creates flexibility, and that flexibility is credible in its own right.

Dr Rohana Ithnin

Islamic scholar and lecturer, Syariah Court panel of Hakam

Dr Rohana Ithnin is one of Singapore’s most senior and distinguished female Islamic scholars, with over 30 years of experience teaching, advising and advocating within the Muslim community. She specialises in Fiqh, Quranic studies and women's issues in Islam—making her one of the few scholars in Singapore with both the religious authority and the specific focus to address the particular challenges facing Muslim women and girls. She serves as a full member of the MUIS Fatwa Committee, as a Senior Council Member of MUIS appointed by the President of Singapore, and on the PERGAS High Council—while continuing to lecture.

In April 2026, Ithnin made history as one of only two women ever appointed to the Syariah Court's Hakam Panel, which had been exclusively male throughout its existence. She brings to the role three decades of working with vulnerable families and a background in counselling, creating a more conducive environment for Muslim women navigating divorce at one of the most difficult moments of their lives. Her presence across Singapore’s most significant Islamic institutions means that Muslim women increasingly have a senior female voice within the very structures that shape their rights and outcomes.

Jennifer Heng

Founder & director, Safe Place

Jennifer Heng experienced two unsupported pregnancies and abortions as a teenager. The lack of support she experienced drove her to do better for other women. Through Safe Place, she ensures that women facing crisis pregnancies have support, dignity and choice. 

What has been the greatest challenge you have overcome—and what did it teach you?
Overcoming the fear of failure. When I face a daunting task or situation, I’ll ask myself, “what’s the worst thing that can happen?” The answer is often, “I’ll fail. Or this whole thing will fail”. Then I’ll ask, “Can I accept that?” If the answer is “Yes”, then okay, I can go ahead. Accepting failure as a possible outcome for risks that I take has made me more courageous, and enabled me to inspire the same in others. I have failed plenty of times, in big and small ways, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying again.  

How do you sustain yourself—mentally or physically—while doing your work?
I give myself permission to laugh, cry and rest when I need to. In our work, we often have to contain our emotions while helping our clients work through theirs. My team and I are intentional about being a safe place for each other to express difficult emotions when needed.

For an individual whose work addresses the health and well-being of women and girls, whether physical, mental, social, sexual or financial

Grace Oh

Founder, Sol

Grace Oh is the founder and CEO of Sol—Spring of Life—a women’s midlife health platform that she built after her own experience of being misdiagnosed and misunderstood exposed how little attention women’s health beyond the fertility years receives in Asia. She describes Sol as “a new model of care built for women in Asia—grounded in science, built with empathy to support the whole person, not one symptom at a time. And it’s more than a platform. It’s a movement to help women regain control, confidence and vitality in a stage of life that deserves visibility, not silence.”

What do you do—and why does it matter?
I run an Asia-focused platform, Sol, supporting women and workplaces through a culturally relevant, medically reviewed menopause app, community meetups, annual cross-sector conferences and structured workplace support. Asia holds the world’s largest midlife cohort—over 550 million women aged 40 to 59—and almost none of the care or policy they’re offered was designed with them in mind. Getting this right matters for talent retention and for the long-term sustainability of healthcare.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
Women live more years in poor health than men, and often pay the financial price too—cutting their hours or leaving work early. A great deal of what shapes those years is decided in midlife, which means midlife is where it can still be changed.

In five years, I want Sol to be something employers across Asia offer as standard, a personalised health companion a woman genuinely relies on to improve her long-term health, and a real source of Asian research. Right now most of the guidelines used here are borrowed from Western studies, and governments fund what the evidence tells them to fund. 

What we’re building towards is innovative, sustainable support that moves four things at once: health outcomes, talent retention, productivity and the efficiency of the healthcare system itself. Those aren’t competing goals—the same investment improves all of them.

We want to help women feel well, stay in the careers they’ve spent decades building and achieve better long-term health than their mothers did.

Hamidah Aidillah Mustafa

Founder, Parrot Social & TalkAboutSex; vice president, ASME; Alliance for Active Action Against HPV (A4HPV) volunteer activist

Hamidah Aidillah Mustafa has been an advocate for cervical cancer prevention and community women’s health for almost 20 years, raising awareness about cervical cancer and HPV prevention as a volunteer activist of A4HPV—the Alliance for Active Action Against HPV, which has included promoting the HPV Simple test and producing the recent HPV Toolkit, alongside promoting positive sexual health as founder of TalkAboutSex, a non-profit group addressing on women’s sexual health and wellness. 

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
Beyond women, I hope to impact boys and men as well in this area. Cancer is something that affects both men and women alike. And much as we protect both younger and older women against HPV, we must also strive to do the same for our men and boys as HPV infection can be prevented.

What's one belief about leadership or success you've unlearned?
I don’t have to do it alone. I can count on others to love and support me in this difficult journey.

I do not see myself as a leader, but by just showing up and doing the work, others see my actions, join in and support me along the way. That is leadership I feel. It is always about the intention; not attention. It is about the goal; not the role.

Dr Laureen Wang

Consultant cardiologist, Alexandra Hospital, National University Health System (NUHS)

Dr Laureen Wang is a consultant cardiologist at Alexandra Hospital under the National University Health System (NUHS), with a clinical focus on women’s heart health, preventive cardiology, sports and exercise medicine and longevity research.

Part of Wang’s work focuses on delaying biological ageing through lifestyle interventions and biomarkers specific to the Singaporean population—addressing longevity as a measurable, actionable clinical goal rather than an abstract one. Her dedicated attention to women’s cardiovascular health is particularly significant given that heart disease symptoms in women frequently present differently from the textbook male presentation, leading to delayed diagnosis and worse outcomes. Dr Wang's clinical practice and research work to close those gaps, ensuring women receive cardiac care that accounts for their specific physiology, risk factors and life stages. 

For an individual helping to inspire, elevate and advance women in corporate, business or professional fields

Professor Lily Kong

President, Singapore Management University (SMU)

Professor Lily Kong is president of Singapore Management University (SMU), a role she has held since 2019. She made history as the first Singaporean—and the first Singaporean woman—to lead a publicly-funded Singapore university. Under her leadership, SMU has risen to become the world’s most improved university across institutions with ten or more ranked subjects in the 2025 QS Subject Rankings. In 2025, she published her book Universities Reinvented: Shaping Legacy and Impact for a New World.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
I would like us to rethink the idea of four-year universities and embrace a 60-year university instead. If people live to 100 years and work well into their 70s or even 80s, what we learn between 18 and 22 cannot possibly sustain us for an entire working life. Universities need to become places people return to repeatedly: to learn, relearn and sometimes change direction altogether.

There is also an equity dimension to this. Careers are rarely perfectly linear, particularly for people who step away or slow down to care for children or ageing parents, and those responsibilities still fall disproportionately on women. If we design education and work around the reality of longer, less linear lives, we create systems that are fairer not only for women, but for everyone.

I would also like to see universities move more decisively towards research that impacts economy and society, in addition to being academically and intellectually cutting-edge. Universities have tended to privilege the latter, and that should remain, but some areas of research can extend beyond to have societal impact. We have developed these pathways to impact at my university, and will work to actualise the vision.

What is one belief about leadership or success you've unlearned?

That being visible and doing substantive work are somehow in competition. Earlier in my career, I was uncomfortable with attention being paid to my being the “first” woman to do something. I wanted the work to speak for itself. Over time, I came to understand that the two are not entirely separate. Being the first matters only if it helps make being the second, third or twentieth completely unremarkable. Sometimes visibility has value because someone younger can look at you and see a possibility that she had not imagined for herself. I have learnt to be more comfortable holding both responsibilities.

Claire Chiang

Co-founder & senior vice president, Banyan Group

Claire Chiang is the co-founder and senior vice president of Banyan Group, the global hospitality company she established with her husband Ho Kwon Ping in Phuket in 1994 and last year marked its 100th property. She oversees China business development, chairs the Banyan Tree Global Foundation, and leads the Banyan Gallery—the group’s retail arm, which works with artisan communities worldwide, with over 127 communities and 82 community suppliers engaged globally.

Chiang has blazed a trail for women in business in Singapore. She was among the first two women admitted to the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1995, served as a Nominated Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2001 advocating for women's rights and domestic workers, and chairs the Shirin Fozdar Programme at Singapore Management University—named after a pioneering feminist activist.

Within Banyan Group, she founded and continues to lead the Women of the World programme, an internal women's leadership initiative running quarterly sessions to build confidence and professional skills among female employees. The Banyan Gallery model creates sustainable livelihoods for women artisans across Asia.

For an entrepreneur or founder breaking ground and positively impacting women

Yvon Bock

Founder & CEO, Hegen

Yvon Bock is the founder and CEO of Hegen, Singapore’s leading mother-and-baby care brand, which she established in 2015 to transform the breastfeeding experience for mothers worldwide. Her mission is rooted in a decade of her own breastfeeding journey as a mother of four, and a near-death experience that prompted her to turn personal adversity into entrepreneurial purpose.

Hegen's patented PCTO system has made it a globally recognised brand across 26 international markets, and in 2025 it was recognised by iiMedia Research as the world's best-selling PPSU feeding bottle brand.

In 2025, Yvon launched The Hegen Foundation, which formalises the brand’s commitment to community impact through three pillars: Accessible Education—supporting underprivileged students, particularly in healthcare; Supporting Children—advancing the wellbeing of disadvantaged children; and Empowering Women—through maternal health programmes and practical support for vulnerable mothers, including scholarships and bursaries established in partnership with the Singapore Institute of Technology.

Bock is also an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant, and through Flegen—the rebranded Hegen Lactation Centre—provides professional antenatal and lactation support.

Gillian Tee

Co-founder & CEO, Homage

Gillian Tee is the co-founder and CEO of Homage, a technology platform connecting professional caregivers with families needing home-based care for elderly or recovering loved ones so that ageing, disability or illness do not have to mean losing dignity, independence or choice.

What first sparked your commitment to this work?
It began with something deeply personal. I lost two of the people who raised me when I was relatively young, and experienced first-hand how difficult it can be for families to navigate care when someone they love needs support.

Years later, after building and exiting my first company in the US, I found myself returning to those experiences and asking what I wanted the next chapter of my life to stand for. Homage grew from that question: how could we make good care easier to find, more human to experience and accessible to many more families?

What achievement are you most proud of—and why/what impact did it have?
I am proudest that Homage has grown from an idea into a community of more than 30,000 care professionals supporting families across Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.

But the number itself isn’t what stays with me. It is knowing that behind it are thousands of individual moments—a daughter getting help for an ageing parent, a person with a disability being supported to participate more fully in the community or a care professional finding meaningful and flexible work.

Building something that creates agency on both sides of care—both for those receiving it and those providing it—is what makes me proudest.

Margaret Wang

Founding CEO, GenPrime

Margaret Wang is the founding CEO of GenPrime, a growing network of fertility clinics operating as part of Rhea Fertility, a global reproductive health platform. “Having a family is one of the biggest decisions we make, and people deserve better information, better care and more choices in how they get there,” says Wang. 

What achievement are you most proud of and why?

I’m incredibly proud of how much we’ve built in such a short period of time. We started Rhea just three years ago, and today we’re operating across five countries with half a dozen clinics and an incredible team of doctors, embryologists and operators across the region. Building a healthcare company across different markets is complicated, and seeing what was once an idea become something with real scale and momentum has been incredibly rewarding.

But what makes that progress meaningful to me are the individual stories behind it. Someone who decided to freeze her eggs after coming to one of our events. A patient who tells us she finally felt heard and understood. A message from one of our clinics that another baby has arrived. Those are the moments that connect all the building we’re doing back to why we started in the first place.

What impact do you hope to make over the next five years?
I want to help make fertility something we understand before it becomes a problem. We spend years learning how not to get pregnant and remarkably little time understanding our reproductive health, how it changes, or what choices we actually have. I’d love to help change that.

And I’m ambitious about what we’re building. I want Rhea to show that a healthcare company built from Singapore, with a deep understanding of Asia, can set a new standard for care across the region and eventually beyond it.

Five years from now, I hope we’ve built a significant company. But I’ll measure the impact in people: more people with more choices, and many more families that we had some small part in helping create.

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