The Front Row Podcast

Keith Yap
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Front Row Interviews with experts to expand your mental map of the world. Made in Singapore. For Asia and the World.

  1. 16 HR AGO

    #69- How Singapore Beat the Odds—and What We Must Do to Keep Winning - Lim Siong Guan

    Lim Siong Guan is a Professor in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, instructing on leadership and change management. 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).He worked directly with Singapore's founding fathers to help Singapore transform itself into a modern economic hub of Southeast Asia. He was also Lee Kuan Yew's first Principal Private Secretary. 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. He is currently an 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 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. This is the 69th episode of Front Row Podcast. CHAPTERS:00:00 Trailer00:46 Introduction & Early Public Works Experience04:09 The Road Roller Story: Learning Practical Governance08:41 Dr Goh Keng Swee's Leadership in MINDEF10:29 Building the Junior Flying Club & Early Lessons15:01 The Glider Experiment: Learning to Cut Losses18:50 Becoming Lee Kuan Yew's Principal Private Secretary22:27 Understanding Power: Service Before Self26:16 The Three Pillars of Trust: Care, Competence, Commitment29:39 Building Singapore's Defence Force from Zero35:42 Total Defence & the Philosophy of Deterrence40:29 Talent Management Across the Public Service46:51 Introduction to Scenario Planning49:37 Hotel Singapore & Home Divided: National Scenarios53:54 PS21: Transforming the Public Service57:45 The Innovator's Dilemma: From Copy-and-Improve to Indigenous Innovation01:04:56 The Unknown Unknowns: Planning for Uncertain Futures01:08:38 The Mother's Challenge: Cultural Barriers to Innovation01:12:41 Defining Success 30 Years Out01:14:50 Advice For Fresh Graduates Entering The Working World Full transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

    1h 16m

  2. 26/12/2025

    #68- Making Sense of Industrial Policies in the 21st Century

    Dr Jostein Hauge is a political economist and an Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, based at the Centre of Development Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies. He is also the Director of the MPhil in Development Studies and a Fellow of Magdalene College. His research lies at the intersection of international political economy and development economics. He is the author of The Future of the Factory: How Megatrends are Changing Industrialization, published by Oxford University Press. The book investigates how industrialization pathways are shaped by recent technological developments, new forces of globalization, and the threat of ecological collapse. It also charts new pathways for industrial policy and global governance.TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Introduction and Trailer 01:20 Why Alexander Hamilton Still Matters for Economic Development 03:03 The Return of the State: From Free Markets to Industrial Policy 07:21 Beyond Tariffs: The Full Toolkit of Modern Industrial Policy 10:28 America's Industrial Policy Deficit and the CHIPS Act Gamble 14:02 The Rise of Services and the Manufacturing Illusion 17:35 How America Lost 25% of Global Manufacturing in Three Decades 20:43 The Fatal Mistake: Conflating Low Price with Low Value 23:41 Losing the Industrial Commons: Why Offshoring Costs More Than Jobs 26:04 The East Asian Tiger Playbook: Investment, Patience, and Reciprocal Control 33:32 China's Gladiator Economy: When Copycatting Drives Innovation 37:27 The Patent Paradox: Protecting Profits or Enabling Development? 40:16 Vietnam's Geopolitical Tightrope: Navigating US-China Competition 44:56 Mexico's Cautionary Tale: When Liberalisation Fails 50:31 Financial Repression as Development Strategy: Controlling Capital for Growth 54:31 Why Industrial Policy Requires Embracing Failure 55:35 Who Bears Responsibility for Climate Change? 59:00 China's Green Tech Dominance: Opportunity or Threat for the Global South? 1:02:01 The Overcapacity Debate 1:08:52 AI Anxiety and the Luddite Fallacy: What History Teaches About Automation 1:16:20 Ha-Joon Chang's Impact on Jostein 1:20:42 Advice for Fresh Graduates Entering the Working World

    1h 23m

  3. 19/12/2025

    #67- Understanding The Secret Formula To Surviving Disruptive Times - Scott D. Anthony

    Scott D. Anthony serves as Clinical Professor of Strategy at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, where he teaches courses including "Leading Disruptive Change," "Horizon Scanning," and "AI and Consultative Decision-Making." He is also Senior Advisor and Managing Partner Emeritus at Innosight, the growth strategy consultancy co-founded by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen.Anthony spent more than 20 years at Innosight, serving as elected Managing Partner from 2012 to 2018, during which time the firm tripled its revenues and expanded internationally. He has worked with CEOs and senior leaders at global organisations across six continents, helping them navigate disruptive change, design growth strategies, and build innovation capabilities.00:00 Intro & Trailer01:30 Understanding the Innovator's Dilemma03:30 What Makes Disruptions "Epic"06:15 Lessons from the Printing Press for Today's AI Revolution10:50 Why Great Companies Still Fail Despite Doing Everything Right15:01 The Risk of Not Innovating18:24 Can Leaders Act Without Clear Data?21:03 Singapore's Innovation Paradox24:39 Why Even Governments Face the Innovator's Dilemma26:36 How to Become the Right Kind of Anomaly29:27 Building Teams That Embrace Disruption32:12 Getting People to Actually Embrace Innovation35:09 Redesigning Education for a Disrupted World38:25 Using AI to Make Learning More Human40:59 What Nokia Should Have Done in 200745:20 Microsoft's Remarkable Comeback Story47:06 Final Advice: Have More FunThis is the 67th episode Of The Front Row PodcastFull transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

    50 min

  4. 13/12/2025

    #66: How China's Technology Leapfrogged The West - Louis Vincent Gave

    Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Louis Vincent GaveAfter receiving his bachelor's degree from Duke University and studying Mandarin at Nanjing University, Louis joined the French Army where he served as a second lieutenant in a mountain infantry battalion. After a couple of years, Louis left the army and joined Paribas where he worked as a financial analyst—first in Paris, then in Hong Kong.Louis left Paribas in 1998 to launch Gavekal with his father Charles and Anatole Kaletsky. The idea at the time was that Asia was set to become an ever more important factor in global growth, and that consequently Gavekal needed to offer its clients more information, and more ideas, relating to Asia.Louis has written seven books, the latest being Avoiding the Punch: Investing in Uncertain Times which reviews how to build a portfolio at a time of rising geostrategic strife, and when very low interest rates and stretched valuations on most assets announce constrained returns on most assets over the next decade.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Trailer & Intro01:35 The Significance of 2018 in US-China Relations08:36 The Shift in China's Industrial Policy16:37 China's Response to US Technology Embargoes22:17 The Economic Pain of De-Westernization26:40 The Future of US-China Relations and Supply Chains31:02 The Economic Landscape of Europe32:06 The Fallout of the Ukraine War37:03 The Future of NATO and the EU37:28 Europe's Relationship with China39:28 The US-China Dynamic41:18 Investing in China: Opportunities and Challenges48:22 China's Engineering Talent and Innovation52:50 The Future of the US Economy56:47 AI Development: US vs. China01:03:11 Southeast Asia's Tech Landscape01:06:56 Career Advice for New GraduatesFull transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

    1h 9m

  5. 04/12/2025

    #65- Mato Njavro: This Is How Europe Can Refresh Itself In This New World Order

    Dr. Mato Njavro is the Dean of Zagreb School of Economics and Management. Mato is also Professor at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management, the Luxembourg School of Business and a lecturer at the University of St.Gallen and at the Singapore Management University, where he teaches a course on Chinese Economy. From 2016 to 2020, Mato was based in Singapore where he was a Senior Research Fellow at the St.Gallen Institute of Management in Asia (SGI-HSG). CHAPTERS:00:00 Introduction and Overview06:06 Croatia's Path to Europe12:00 Defining European Identity18:04 Migration and Social Cohesion24:05 Ukraine Tests European Unity30:06 Europe's Strategic Autonomy33:39 Transatlantic Financial Integration36:02 Economic Resilience Under Pressure40:55 Confronting China's Rise45:26 Europe-China Cooperation Potential49:42 Competing in the Chinese Century54:49 Broadening Asia-Europe Dialogue57:38 Europe in a Multipolar World01:01:29 Counsel for Future Leaders Full transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/ Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/ Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.co Get access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

    1h 5m

  6. 28/11/2025

    #64- Arthur Kroeber: How China Became The World's Undisputed Industrial Superpower

    Arthur Kroeber has spent more than three decades trying to make sense of Asia’s most important economies — and helping the rest of the world understand them too. In 2002, he co-founded Dragonomics in Beijing, a research firm born out of his deep intellectual curiosity about China’s economic transformation. He went on to edit its flagship publication, China Economic Quarterly, for 15 years.When Dragonomics merged with Gavekal in 2011, Arthur became head of research, continuing the work he’s best known for: clear, rigorous analysis of China’s economy at a time when the world needed it most.Before moving into research, Arthur spent 15 years as a journalist travelling across Asia — reporting from China, India, Pakistan and beyond. Those years on the ground shaped the way he thinks about policy, people and the forces that drive economic change.Today, he teaches as an Adjunct Professor of Economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and contributes to global conversations as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee on US-China Relations. He is also a senior non-resident fellow at the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing.His book, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press and now in its second edition, is widely used in classrooms around the world (and is a personal reference book I use to better understand China)TIMESTAMPS:00:00 – Trailer & Intro 01:18 – China’s New Five-Year Plan03:32 – Was "Made in China 2025" Successful?07:04 – Why The US Prioritizes Financial Efficiency 12:47 – Can the US Reshore Manufacturing?16:24 – How China Mastered Technology Transfer23:03 – Why Are Cars The Key Consumer Product26:46 – Behind The Real "Catfish Effect": Tesla in China33:07 – China’s "Hunger Games" Industrial Policy42:11 – China's Chronic Problem with Industrial Overcapacity51:27 – China’s Confidence Paradox55:49 – The Fight For Supply Chains58:48 – What to Expect from The Remainder of Trump 2.001:08:55 – Semiconductor Bans vs. Rare Earth Control01:15:33 – The Future of US-China Relations01:21:00 – Advice for A Fresh GraduateFull transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

    1h 23m

  7. 21/11/2025

    #63- Parag Khanna: Why The Future Is Asian

    Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Parag Khanna. Parag Khanna is Founder & CEO of AlphaGeo, the leading AI-powered geospatial analytics platform. He is the internationally bestselling author of seven books including MOVE: Where People Are Going for a Better Future (2021), preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019)- both of which are books I highly recommend. TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction & Trailer01:30 - Why The China-US Frame Of The World Is Wrong 05:37 - Eurocentric Historical Distortion07:48 - Asian History Rewritten09:58 - Our Present Is Already Asian15:27 - Reconstructing Asian Silk Roads18:59 - Why Technocracy Is The Most Important Element of Governance 24:21 - Singapore and Switzerland As Parallels 30:08 - What Makes Technocracy30:53 - Southeast Asia's Developmental Trajectory 34:45 - China's Development Role37:14 - Why The Best Geopolitical Strategy Is Multi-Alignment 39:27 - Why Globalisation and Migration Will Accelerate48:58 - Managing Migration And Its Downsides 55:50 - Demographic Blending As The Future 1:00:38 - Advice For Fresh Graduates Entering The Working World This is the 63rd episode Of The Front Row PodcastFull transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: keith@frontrow65.coGet access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400

    1h 3m

  8. 14/11/2025

    #62- How Southeast Asia Can Thrive In Our New Multipolar World- Gita Wirjawan

    Thank you for checking out The Front Row Podcast and my interview with Gita Wirjawan. This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at SCAPE Singapore. I would like to thank National Youth Council, the Singapore Global Network, *SCAPE and the Endgame team for helping us put this event together. Gita Wirjawan is an Indonesian entrepreneur, investment banker, and philanthropist. He is the Founder and Chairman of Ancora Group, a business group with investments spanning private equity, natural resources, real estate, and sports.Before founding Ancora in 2008, Gita held senior roles in global finance — including Vice President at Citibank Indonesia, Vice President at Goldman Sachs Singapore, and President Director at JP Morgan Indonesia.Mr Wirjawan also served as the Indonesian’s Minister of Trade from October 2011 to January 2014. During this time, he also led the ninth World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference held in Bali, December 2013. Where he chaired 159 WTO member countries in consenting to a set of policies to ease international trade barriers.Today, he is the host of Endgame with Gita Wirjawan, a podcast by the School of Government and Public Policy (SGPP) Indonesia, co-produced with Visinema Pictures. Through Endgame, Gita explores ideas and conversations with visionary leaders, uncovering the stories shaping Indonesia and Southeast Asia's bright future.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Trailer & Intro01:35 Why Indonesia Championed RCEP Over TPP08:18 - RCEP's Progress and Current Assessment10:53 - The Chicken-and-Egg Problem: Education and Development14:35 - Teachers as the Key to Regional Transformation15:25 - Southeast Asia's Value Proposition to American Investors19:09 - Why US Re-industrialisation Won't Work20:36 - China's Role: Technological Capital for Southeast Asia26:06 - The Nuclear Reactor Thought Experiment31:50 - Singapore-Indonesia Complementarity37:43 - ASEAN Research Council Proposal40:39 - Q&A: Translating Education to Impact41:24 - Q&A: De-dollarisation and G-142:07 - Q&A: Danantara Fund and Prabowo Administration42:18- Pak Gita's Answers 55:34 - Q&A: Language as Growth Impediment56:00 - Q&A: Learning from US-China Dynamics58:00 - Q&A: Addressing Corruption Through Education1:03:29 - Brain Drain as Brain Circulation1:06:52 - ASEAN's Historical Multipolarity1:10:56 - Final Advice1:13:15 - Closing RemarksThis is the 62nd episode Of The Front Row Podcast

    1h 14m
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About

Front Row Interviews with experts to expand your mental map of the world. Made in Singapore. For Asia and the World.

Information

  • Creator
    Keith Yap
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    69
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Keith Yap
  • Show Website
    The Front Row Podcast

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