Dr Steven Choo, Chairman of VestAsia Group Pte Ltd. has over 35 years of experience in the real estate industry including research, consulting, valuation, property management, leasing, development planning and investment appraisal in both the private and public sectors.

Effectively bilingual in both English and Mandarin, Dr Choo is well known in the industry and is frequently featured in the media for his views on local and regional property markets.

Dr Choo is a special advisor to the Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (REDAS) and serves as independent director on the boards of two development companies and a real estate investment and business trust. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the Department of Real Estate, National University of Singapore, and a trainer for private bankers in real estate and REITs at the Wealth Management Institute.

A Commonwealth Scholar, Dr Choo obtained an M.Phil in Environmental Planning from the University of Nottingham (1979) after graduating from the University of Singapore in Estate Management (1974). Dr Choo holds a Ph.D in Urban Planning from the University of Washington with a Certificate of Achievement in Urban Design (1988). Dr. Choo is a member of the Tau Sigma Delta Honors Society in Architecture and Allied Arts, USA. He is an affiliate member of the Singapore Institute of Planners (SIP), a fellow of the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers (SISV), and a member of the Valuation Review Board (VRB).

Dr Choo was formerly the Malaysian country head of the CapitaLand Group and its Senior Vice President covering various portfolios in research, direct investment, and corporate development as well as the establishment of the first two REITs sponsored by the Group. Prior to CapitaLand, Dr Choo was the National Director and Head of Research and Consultancy at Jones Lang LaSalle Singapore, and Jones Lang LaSalle's Asia Pacific regional head of research. Before that, he was with Richard Ellis Property Consultants and the School of Building & Estate Management, National University of Singapore where he held several senior positions.

Apart from his tenure on the boards of JTC Corporation and the Singapore Land Authority, Dr Choo also served as the Deputy Chairman of the Economic Review Committee's Land Work Group and the inaugural International Resource Advisory Panel of One-North business park development at Buona Vista, Singapore.

Some of Dr. Choo’s recent involvements are:

• Strategic City Management consultant and steering committee member on the development of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE; a 2,700 hectare state-of-the-art city, cultural and tourist district housing the world’s largest Guggenheim Museum, an iconic Louvre museum, a Gary Player designed 18-hole championship golf course and golf academy, world-class performing arts centre and concert hall, and a New York University campus.

Ashley Wee has over 25 years of experience in the real estate industry. He graduated from the National University of Singapore (1988) with honours in Estate Management. He founded VestAsia in year 2002 and is the Group Managing Director of VestAsia.

Ashley is responsible for the partnership relations for all VestAsia’s businesses. He is also responsible for business development for joint ventures, corporate advisory and professional services as well as tenant representation and investment transactions in Asia Pacific. Ashley spearheads several alliance partners in the US, Japan, China, India, Europe and Australia.

He was formerly director at (global joint venture) DTZ Staubach Tie Leung. Prior to that, he was a director at Jones Lang heading the Investment and International Investments Divisions.

Ashley’s capabilities include Investment Sales (capital markets) in the major cities of Asia Pacific with proven track record of transaction value totalling a few billion US$. This include acquisition of hotels, residential apartments, shopping centres, office buildings, development land, etc. Ashley is also well experienced in corporate advisory where he has represented and advised numerous international companies such as United States Government, TPG Capital, Dow Jones, etc.

He has extensive regional experience, travelled frequently and executed various assignments throughout Asia Pacific. He was also based in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Jakarta, Indonesia for several years. Ashley is currently active with business development and transaction work within Asia including Japan, UK and US as well as overseeing the growth of the VestAsia Group of companies.

Andrew Seet has over 30 years of experience in the real estate industry. He graduated from the National University of Singapore (1990) with honours in Estate Management.

Prior to joining VestAsia, Andrew was with Pacific Star Development, a company listed onthe Catalist Board of Singapore Board Exchange, as the Group General Manager, overseeing all real estate and non-real estate businesses of the Company in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region.

Andrew has spent a couple of years as the Country Head of Hongkong Land based in Indonesia, overseeing all Hongkong Land’s businesses and more specifically all residential projects in Indonesia, comprising 2 major township developments and other residential developments.

 He was also stationed in China with Keppel Land and was principally overseeing Keppel Land’s Guangdong province business expansion including a mega integrated marina, residential and commercial development in Zhongshan.

 Andrew’s past management experiences included stints with Pacific Star Holdings, TID (joint venture between Hong Leong and Japan’s Mitsui Fudosan) CBRE and Wing Tai Holdings. He oversaw numerous successful investments and developments with these organizations.

 He has extensive experience in local and regional project developments, sales and marketing and project management.

Wallace Yeo started his real estate career in 1993 and has experience in sales and leasing of all types of properties from HDB flats to condominiums and landed houses. He specializes in investment properties such as factories, shophouses, office space, strata shop space and mixed-use developments.

In the past few years, Wallace has focused on commercial properties and spent most of his time developing and growing the tenant representation business in the group both in Singapore and regionally. He is currently a Director and Key Executive Officer of TenantCS and leads the team in best practice processes and ethics in Singapore.  

Wallace holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (1993) from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, a Masters in Business Administration (1998) from the University of Southern California, USA and Certificate in Common Examination for Housing Agents (CEHA) (1999).

Albert Chan has over 15 years of experience in real estate industry, he currently is the Director of VestAsia's Hong Kong office.

After his studies in the United Kingdom, he begain his career as a Negotiator in sales of residential properties with Connells Group for 4 years. He returned Hong Kong in 2007, where he joined Asia Pacific Properties as a Consultant and was later promoted to be the manager of the Commercial Division in 2013.

Albert specializes in tenant representation - assisting companies in setting-up, relocation and lease renewal negotiation of their office/branches in Hong Kong. He holds strong skills in lease negotiation and he is an experienced Project Manager for office fit-out projects.

He has provided tenant representation and fit-out project management numerous international and fortune 500 companies such as PepsiCo, Dow Jones, Scottrade, X-Rite, Pantone, Nordic Semiconductor, Deckers Brands, Nordic Shipmanagement, etc.

Eric Ng joined VestAsia in 2004. He was formerly Citibank's regional head managing the real estate functions in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. Prior to that, he was heading the real estate consultancy and project management departments in JLL and DTZ in Singapore, Colombo and Jakarta.

Eric is well-versed with all real estate matters and specialised in development projects. He has worked with developers, corporations and contractors in managing their real estate portfolios and construction projects over a span of 30 years. He has done work in India, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, and has resided in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Australia and Philippines. Most recently he spent 4 years in Vietnam managing a 110 hectares township development.

He is a graduate from the National University of Singapore with Building and Project Management qualifications. 

Dennis Tay, Director Corporate Real Estate Services of VestAsia, has more than 30 years experience in the real estate industry. His experiences include sales and marketing, investment transactions and training. As Keppel Land’s General Manager - Marketing, he was involved in the sale and marketing of large regional township projects in China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam as well as iconic projects under the group’s portfolio – including the high-profile Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) and Reflections at Keppel Bay, an iconic waterfront project.

Dennis was formerly Managing Director, CBRE Beijing and a member of the Boards for CBRE Asia Executive Committee and CBRE China Executive Committee in 2004. He worked closely with institutional investors, fund managers and overseas developers to source and facilitate cross border deals in China and within Asia. Prior to that, he was the director for investment properties in CB Richard Ellis Singapore.

Dennis joined SAEA as its CEO in 2013. During his tenure, he introduced various training initiatives and assisted in the formation of the Singapore Estate Agents Association (SEAA) in 2016, a national body to represent the estate agents and real estate salespersons’ interests in the industry. Besides investment deals flow he is concurrently expanding the training platform for real estate agents both in Singapore and ASEAN countries in Cambodia.

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Harold Tan, Real Estate Advisory & Corporate Relations Director of VestAsia Group Pte Ltd., holds a wealth of expertise in international business development, P&L management, sales & marketing, joint ventures, corporate restructuring and acquisitions. He has successfully set up new business units, negotiated and developed multimillion dollar portfolios of commercial project for various top companies throughout Asia and re-structured companies in the pursuit of to increase profitability and efficiency through new business development and market penetration strategies.

Harold has carved his niche in the marketplace by ensuring that the organizations he has served remain profitable even in declining business environments or recessionary conditions. He has managed various management teams in different corporate cultures and is known to be an excellent leader, manager, marketer, negotiator and relationship builder.

Harold graduated from the National University of Singapore (1981) with an honors degree in Estate Management and went on to complete his masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Georgia (1985). After 27 years of work in the real estate industry, as General Manager or Associate Director in several companies, Harold joined the National University of Singapore to serve as Associate Professor and Director of the Real Estate Careers Center. He has left NUS and is now a Senior Advisor with VestAsia Group.

VestAsia Group

David Tham, Investment Advisory Director of VestAsia Group Pte Ltd, has more than 17 years of experience in the banking industry (with a focus on real estate), and another 8 years in real estate investment / management. He was with two of the major local banks undertaking real estate related financing activities - OCBC and DBS Bank. His specializations include real estate and project development financing, equity joint ventures, pre-IPOs, Mergers & Acquisitions and Capital Market issues. David obtained his Honours Bachelor Degree in Science (Estate Management) from National University of Singapore. He has acquired a deep understanding of the Singapore Real Estate and Construction industry. Besides being the advisory director of VestAsia Group, he also co-teach “Development & Project Financing” on a part-time basis in NUS‘s Master of Science (Real Estate) course.

Dr Boaz Boon joined VestAsia Group in July 2016 as a Director specializing in Real Estate Advisory. He holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University (UK). Prior to joining CapitaLand in 2001, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Real Estate (NUS. He has also spent some time in the Ministry of National Development in charge of Public Housing. He has been invited to teach and deliver papers in many institutions. Amongst them were the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlement.

REGIONAL REAL ESTATE RESEARCH

Boaz was headhunted to join Capitaland as its Senior Vice President for Strategic Research. He led the CapitaLand’s Research team covering Asia and Asia-Pacific region’s economic and real estate markets. His research supported the investment and management of CapitaLand’s over USD 50 billion AUM. He covered economic and real estate market research in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, India, UAE, Kazakhstan, Russia, and London. His research covered the residential, office, retail, serviced apartment markets, integrated resorts, industrial and logistics space, and real estates financial products like REITs and Property Funds.

Other than conducting real estate research on the regional property markets that Capitaland has a presence and emerging markets, he was also responsible for enhancing CapitaLand’s real estate and technical capabilities through the design and delivery of executive programmes under CLIMB (CapitaLand Institute of Management and Business) as well as external programmes and other platforms for real estate development & learning.

REAL ESTATE INNOVATION AND PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

He delivered a holistic and integrated approach which included forging strategic partnerships with educational institutions and bringing CapitaLand’s attention to the latest real estate innovations and thinking to the Group through news, case studies, speaker seminars and other collaborations. He effectively facilitated three signature courses within CapitaLand, i.e., RE100, Integrated Real Estate Development and Fundamentals of Real Estate for more than 10 years in South East Asia, UAE and China. To date, Boaz has trained thousands of participants in these courses. In addition, Boaz is a certified ACTA (Advanced Certificate in Training and Assessment) trainer under the Singapore Workforce Development Authority (WDA).

Boaz Boon led a team to build and manage an effective, transparent and efficient process of innovation in the multi-billion dollar multinational company - CapitaLand Group to identify strategies, business opportunities, and new technologies. He worked closely with the business units to advocate for innovation augmented by technology and develop capabilities to implement innovative initiatives which add value to CapitaLand’s stakeholders.

DESIGN THINKING

He was trained in Design Thinking by the Stanford University’s Jeremy Utley & Perry Klebahn in Design-Thinking. Boaz has effectively facilitated Design Thinking workshop on challenges pertaining to shoppers’ experience, office tenants’ experience, personal storage tenants’ experience, innovation catalyst events targeted at hundreds of participants ranging from managers to CEOs. He has also worked with IDEO on innovating shopping malls of the future, NUS-ISS on office of the future and delivered innovation seminars in Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS AND CUSTOMISED EXECUTIVE TRAINING PROGRAMMES

As part of VestAsia Group’s Real Estate Advisory team, we pleased to offer our clients a practical and unique array of expertise which now includes Boaz’s Design Thinking elements and regional expertise. Together with Dr. Steven Choo, Harold Tan, David Tham and Tong Kok Wing, we now offer high level, customized executive programmes to meet the specific needs of our clients.

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Jun Yamane has 17 years of experience in the real estate industry in Japan with Mitsubishi Real Estate Services and Mitsubishi Estate group. He was in charge of investment sales for institutional investors, funds, developers, J-REITs, foreign investors and wealthy families, and handled a significant track record of office buildings, residential buildings, retail properties, hotels and development land. Also he was engaged in corporate real estate advisory service for the transaction of commercial and industrial properties, promoting the effective use of facilities, conducting retail site search and carrying out tenant representation services for local and international companies in Japan.

From 2018, Jun is assigned to Singapore to develop the real estate investment business between Singapore/ASEAN clients and Japan real estate, as well as Japan clients and Singapore/ASEAN real estate. 

Jun graduated from Chuo University, Tokyo Japan, Bachelor of Laws (2001). He holds a Real Estate Transaction License in Japan, and is a Certified Master of ARES (The Association for Real Estate Securitization) and CFMJ (Certified Facility Manager of Japan).