Speech By Mr David Gerald, Founder, President & CEO Of SIAS At The Launch Of SIAS Corporate Governance Week 2025 On 6 November 2025

Date: November 6, 2025

Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash, Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Manpower, we welcome you, Minister, to our Launch of our CG Week this morning.  

Mr Michael Syn, President, SGX, 
Mr Daniel Teo, Chairman, SIAS, and Mr J.Y Pillay, Distinguished Honorary Member, SIAS 

Distinguished Speakers, Panellists, Delegates, Partners and Friends.   

A warm welcome, everyone, from far and near, UK, Japan, Australia and Singapore to the launch of Singapore Corporate Governance week 2025, which over the years has grown to become the pre-eminent governance event on our annual corporate calendar.   

I am pleased to announce that this year, SIAS is collaborating with the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants or ISCA, an organisation that shares SIAS’s vision of ensuring that companies are well-governed and conduct their affairs ethically, honestly and professionally.  

Each year the goal of this Conference is to gain insights into issues that affect all companies, their Boards and also their stakeholders. We accomplish this through a variety of panel discussions, on which sit some of the best practitioners and most qualified experts in their respective fields.  

This year’s theme for the Global Corporate Governance Conference 2025 is “Creating Sustainable Value: Building Corporate Culture & Governance for Long Term Success’’.  

This subject has important implications for all of us, given that it goes to the very heart of why companies exist, which is to create sustainable value for their shareholders.  

The topic could not be more timely, given that around the world, businesses are having to navigate new and complex challenges such as tech disruptions, climate risks, ever-changing US tariffs, shifting shareholder expectations and geopolitical uncertainties.  

In such an environment, good governance grounded in a strong and ethical corporate culture should be the anchor that ensures continuity, resilience and trust.  

In this regard, it is important to recognise that governance and culture are not mutually exclusive but are two sides of the same coin – governance sets the framework and culture gives life to that framework.  

The Singapore Code of Corporate Governance makes this connection explicit by stating that:  

“The Code takes as its starting point a recognition that the Board has the dual role of setting strategic direction, and of setting the company’s approach to governance. This includes establishing an appropriate culture, values and ethical standards of conduct at all levels of the company’’.  

Principle 1 states that :  

 “The Board puts in place a code of conduct and ethics, sets appropriate tone-from-the-top and desired organisational culture, and ensures proper accountability within the company’’.  

Research overwhelmingly shows that a good corporate culture is a critical driver of organizational success and positively impacts employee performance, retention, innovation, and financial results.   

A strong, well-defined culture serves as a strategic asset that guides behaviours and creates a competitive advantage that is difficult for others to replicate.   

Employees who feel a strong connection to their company’s culture are more engaged, motivated, and productive. Research has found that workers who felt connected to their organization’s culture were over four times more likely to be engaged at work.  

On the other hand, a toxic or misaligned culture is a significant driver of employee turnover, even more so than compensation.   

A good example of the role that culture can play is the UK Post Office scandal in which hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft and financial wrongdoing, leading to their dismissal and prosecution, thus ruining thousands of lives.   

The subsequent investigation revealed that the fault lay not only in a defective IT system but a toxic organizational culture at the Post Office and IT provider Fujitsu, characterized by denial of wrongdoing, lack of accountability, and a willingness to prioritize business interests over justice and fairness.  

The investigation also found that the board failed in the Post Office scandal by exhibiting a lack of curiosity, an unwillingness to challenge the faulty IT system and a poor corporate culture, which together led to years of systemic failures and devastating consequences for the victims.  

Instead of probing into serious issues, the board accepted assurances from Fujitsu and failed to exercise independent judgment or demand a thorough investigation into the problems.  

Singapore, too, has had its fair share of examples of poor culture resulting in disastrous outcomes. 

Raffles Infrastructure Holdings Ltd.   

The company artificially inflated bank balances and fictitious claims and compensations to conceal the actual state of financial affairs of the company. This was caused by weak risk culture which allowed its former Executive Chairman and CEO to perpetrate the scheme. 

BlackGold Natural Resources Ltd.   

The company failed to promptly disclose the termination of a key cooperation agreement between its principal subsidiary and cooperation partner for the production and delivery of coal. 

The Termination was carried out by the principal subsidiary without Blackgold’s board knowledge and stayed undetected for more than a month.  

Sunrise Shares Holdings Ltd.   

In this case, inaccurate financial results were provided which resulted in Sunrise reporting a net profit when it was in a net loss.  

The former CFO assumed oversight of the finance functions and placed his personal assistant (who was not accounting trained and unfamiliar with financial accounting requirements) solely in charge of liaising with the external service provider on financial accounting matters.  

I could go on, but I think by now the message should be clear – a company that lacks a strong and ethical culture will eventually find itself in trouble.  

For those interested in our work in how we resolve shareholder issues in the boardroom, you should not miss reading “Boardroom Knockout” – our 25th anniversary publication.  

As Singapore moves towards a more disclosure-based regime, the role of good corporate governance and a strong corporate culture becomes even more vital. Companies must go beyond mere compliance disclosure as they must embrace the need to have continuous disclosure obligations and other fiduciary responsibilities. Transparency, accountability, and integrity must be a part of their organisational DNA. There is a strong need to constantly communicate effectively with shareholders. Good governance provides the structure for responsible decision-making, while a healthy corporate culture ensures that these values are consistently upheld in practice. Together, they form the bedrock of investor confidence and are essential to strengthening trust in our capital markets as we continue to build a resilient and forward-looking investment landscape. 

Given that it is the Board which sets the tone from the top and is responsible for fostering the right culture, we kick off today’s programme with a presentation by Mr Tan Boon Gin, Chief Executive Officer of Singapore Exchange Regulation and ISCA Council Member on Creating Sustainable Value: The Role of Corporate Culture and Tone from the Top’’ which will touch on how to build a resilient culture and integrate sustainability, ethics, and purpose into core business strategies.  We are also indeed honoured to have many of the thought leaders with us today to share and discuss the difference forms of corporate culture.  

It is my sincere hope that today’s sessions, which have been carefully curated to provide maximum benefit, will prove useful and insightful to everyone here.  

After all, we are all motivated to achieve the same goals, which would be a well-governed corporate sector that delivers sustainable value to stakeholders.  

I wish you an enjoyable day! Thank you.